Problems With Virtualbox

[joelandsonja]

I was wondering if anyone else had the following problem with Virtualbox ...

I have installed Windows XP (Home) into Virtualbox, and for some reason there are a few drivers that won't install correctly, therefore my emulators will not play any video or plugin capabilities.

I get the following errors for my system drivers.

The 'SCSI Controller' cannot find it's driver.
The 'PCI Device' cannot find it's driver.
The 'Video Controller (VGA Compatible)' cannot find it's driver.
The 'Base System Device' cannot find it's driver.

I have tried installing the video driver directly from Nvidia's website (For the GT 220 graphics card) but for some reason it refuses to install on Virtualbox. I downloaded Driver Detective to help with the problem, but of course they won't fix it unless I pay them $40 ... which I'm not even certain would fix the problem.

Does anyone know how to fix these problems?

* On a side note, I already tried changing the settings in the 'System > Administration > Users & Groups > Changing Settings for Virtual box trick ... didn't work ...

* Also, the correct check boxes appear to be enabled in the Virtualbox menus, USB is enabled and a filter is added ... graphics are enabled ... nothing seems to work.

[D-cat]

You're better off downloading and installing the official Virtualbox from Sun. After the install, it comes with a guest additions disk (iso file) which has all the drivers you need for a fully integrated guest OS.

[Irithori]

are you trying to install nvidia drivers on the virtualized XP?

This will not work. Usually, virtual machines do not see the real hardware, but the devices given by the virtualisation software.

[joelandsonja]

I am trying to install the Nvidia drivers in Virtualbox, so that would explain why it's not working.

How am I able to adjust this to find the right drivers?

* On a side note, I downloaded Virtualbox directly from Suns website, but for some reason that didn't make a difference ... where can I find the ISO file that has the drivers you were referring to?

Update - I managed to install the Guest Additions pack, which did resolve some of the problems ... (Thank you!) ... but for some reason the video doesn't want to display on a few game emulators (Jnes for example) and the Gamepad input doesn't work on a few emulators as well. (Primarily Zsnes)

However, I am able to get video and input options on other emulators ...

Any thoughts?

[Rubberman]

Once you have installed the base OS in VirtualBox, install the guest additions in order to get the most out of the video sub-system and such. You do NOT need to install special drivers for virtualized hardware, as mentioned by Irithori. In fact, installing native disc, network, or video drivers won't work because the guest OS won't even see the native hardware. It sees what is emulated by the virtual machine manager software.

[D-cat]

AFA the game pad, is it USB? The USB proxy in virtualbox requires that the user have permission to directly access the device. UDEV typically does not do this and chasing down the permissions permanently is a real PITA. Some people manage to make it work in user mode, but I'm not one of them. The only thing I could do is launch VirtualBox with sudo (put in run box, prefix with gksu), then the USB proxy works. This however does have its own inherent dangers. While the Windows guest is still in a sandbox, any leaks from that sandbox will dump out with root permissions. While not likely to happen, it's not impossible that a Windows malware could exploit or damage your system in this way. Any bugs we may not know about in VBox would also go unchecked, making a potential for system corruption a concern. Thus, if you can make the USB proxy work from user mode, then that's the way to do it; worth trying first.

If however your gamepad is one of the olde style 15-pin game adapters that plug in behind your sound card, you're probably not going to get it to work in any VM/emulator that wasn't originally designed with joysticks in mind. Developers are not in a rush to directly support obsolete technologies.


I hope this at least points you in the right direction. Good luck!

[joelandsonja]

Thanks for all the help folks ...

So far I have managed to get everything working on Virtualbox, except for 3D acceleration.

When I try to play Project 64 I keep getting the error message "Direct3D failed to initialize" ... regardless of the fact that I have the latest version of Directx installed.

I'm not sure what is causing this error message or how to fix it ...

I appreciate your help with this, but keep in mind that some of the overly 'technical' answers may go over my head.

Any thoughts or suggestions on this one?

[Rubberman]

Have you enabled 3d acceleration in your VirtualBox Settings->Display form for this virtual machine?

[Rubberman]

Also, when you install Guest Additions into the guest OS you need to click on the check box for installing 3D support as well. Almost forgot that.

[joelandsonja]

I do have the 3d enabled in virtualbox, but I might have to double check about the Guest Additions since my wife was the one who installed it ... I'll check back ...