I have been able to succesfully run MOI on my Windows laptop but am not able to get it to run on my Apple Mac Pro under Windows.

This is surprising since it is the only program I have run into so far that I have not been able to get to run under Parallels. I have the latest version of Parallels and the latest version of Apples OS 10. I'm able to run Rhino, Lightwave, Cinema 4d, computer games, Maya, etc., etc. but not MOI - I keep running into the dreaded "Unable to create Direct3D9 device". I'm running an ATI Radeon X 1900 with 512MB of video RAM and have downloaded and installed Direct X 9.

This is really frustrating. Has anyone got any ideas of things to try. It will probably work under Bootcamp but I really hate to go that way. It's just not worth the hassle to reboot, and Parallels, up to this point has been fantastic. The best of both worlds.

Brian

Hi Brian, that message means that MoI was unable to detect an accelerated 3d video card using the Direct3D interface.

The other programs that you mention there use the OpenGL graphics interface, which has a software-only mode to it, this means that they will work without any 3d accelerated hardware present, although they will probably be rather slow.

One thing you can try is to run the "dxdiag.exe" program that comes with Windows - on this there is a "display" tab, and on there is a button labeled "Test Direct3D". If you run that test and it reports that Direct3D is not functional, then that's the problem.

The very latest version of Parallels, version 3.0 which was just recently released, is supposed to add support for Direct3D. However, it does not seem to be functioning very well, the Parallels forum is full of reports of nothing really working with it: http://forum.parallels.com/search.php?searchid=566843 , including most 3D games.

Parallels works great for just about everything else - but the emulation of the 3D graphics hardware for Windows is just its major weak area at the moment, and it happens to be an area that MoI needs.

Bootcamp will definitely work though.

- Michael

Michael,

Thanks for the quick response. I had seen somewhere that build 4560 was supposed to have enabled Parallels to run DirectX 9 so I installed it and tested it. But apparently the person who reported that it was working was in error. Direct Draw works fine but the Direct3D button is not enabled. Guess I'll have to keep my fingers crossed that they'll finally get it sorted out.

MOI is a neat program. The older I get the more I appreciate simplicity in life and straightforward, clean functionality. That's one reason I like Xara better than Illustrator.

Good luck and thanks again.

Brian

Michael,

Closer, but no cigar.

I found that I had not enabled Direct X in the virtual machine. So I enabled it and the Direct3D button lit up. I ran all the tests and they passed for DirectX 7, 8 and 9. When I fired up MOI it came up and I didn't receive the "Unable to create Direct3D9 device" message, however, the portion of the screen that should have been the workspace display was blank (actually it was totally transparent ) and eventually MOI crashed and created a bug report. I forwarded those reports in the event they are helpful.

Looks like the Parallels people have a bit further to go to get it right.

Brian

Hi Brian, thanks for sending the bug reports. That crash is actually happening within Windows system code.

My guess would be that the Direct3D emulation layer has mangled the contents of memory somehow, making things unstable. In their forum there are many other reports of games crashing when trying to run under that system.

When I first heard that they were going to do Direct3D emulation, I was really excited since all of their other emulation layers up until now have been really perfectly done.

But I guess that the other virtualization is done with the help of some CPU features, apparently the video card emulation is done using a different method that is harder to do well.

- Michael