knurpsl wrote:
Naa, it is in my first report on this. if uname spits out i am running a x86_64 the CPUs can do 64bit.
A 64-bit CPU is not -- and never has been -- sufficient to run 64-bit guests under any VMware product. It is almost sufficient for AMD CPUs, but there are a few early 64-bit AMD CPUs that cannot run 64-bit guests. Some 64-bit CPUs do not offer a mechanism for the virtual machine monitor to protect itself from the guest operating system.
The Host has run older vmplayer versions and 64bit images.
That would be a strong indication that the host is capable of running 64-bit guests under VMware Player.
As i used the latest version of Workstation VM punishes me, by requiring the new player version, which has the hardcoded
requirement for those bloody BIOS Settings.
The only new requirement in regards to BIOS settings is that NX (aka XD) must be enabled. However, without this feature enabled, you would not have been able to power on any VM -- 32-bit or 64-bit. The error message would have been:
The processor does not have NX/XD enabled, which is required by VMware Player. No virtual machines can be powered on.
The way i understand a.p. is that VMWare has made an OPTION that leads to better performance of the player a mandatory,
setting - thereby screwing me personally.
The VMPlayer could run without this BIOS Setting, it just refused to do so....
VMware Player requires VT-x on Intel CPUs so that the virtual machine monitor can protect itself from the guest operating system. This has never been optional. Without VT-x, running a 64-bit guest could crash the host.
While an emulator could run a 64-bit guest slowly without VT-x, VMware Player is a virtualization product, not an emulator. If you're interested in an emulator, you should check out Bochs.
The current version of VMware Player does now require XD/NX to run any VM. This has been optional in the past, but the setting has absolutely nothing to do with performance. This decision was made in the interest of code simplicity, maintainability, and reliability. Perhaps the customer impact of this decision was greater than anticipated. But I'm not sure that this is the root cause of your trouble. Without a log file or the text of the error message, I'm just speculating.