I would like to test my WPF applications using Windows Virtual PC under Windows 7. In my C# code, I'm checking the WPF tier and if it's less than 2, I disable a DirectX call. In order to test on Windows XP, I'd like to use Windows Virtual PC but it seems to only run in software mode. Thus, the tier is always <2.
Any ideas on how to enable DirectX to work in Virtual PC?
It seems that 3D acceleration is not supported by Virtual PC 2007 but I just found a blog's article where the author found a solution to enable 3D acceleration on Windows 7 client. The trick should work only with both host and client running Windows 7.
Here is the link. Hope it helps.
VirtualBox, since version 3.0, provide support for 3D acceleration with DirectX 8/9.
Unfortunately it is not very stable and in addition Visual Studio crashes when developing WPF applications and 3D acceleration is enabled.
A ticket has been opened and it says that they are working on a fix
Also VMware Workstation provided experimental DirectX support since release 5.5. But reading through their forum topics it seems that WPF development works with 3D acceleration enabled only with VMare Workstation 7 and later.
I didn't try myself but it seems promising. On the product page you can see Aero 3D working on Windows 7 and a screen shows also Half-Life!
From this page:
VMware Workstation was the first to support 3D graphics in virtualized environments and is now the first to support Windows Aero in Windows Vista and Windows 7 virtual machines. Run even more 3D applications with support for DirectX 9.0c Shader Model 3 and OpenGL 2.13D graphics in Windows virtual machines.
Evaluate the trial and let us know...