[SOLVED] Tips for playing HTML5 games in Linux VM

[Slo-matt]

Hi all. I run a community coding group in my area and I get a lot of requests to teach a basic programming class for teens. My idea is to use HTML5 game creation (probably with Phaser) as a vehicle to teach JavaScript.

I don't want the students to have to buy anything, so I am going to use tools like VS Code, Inkscape and GIMP for the class.

Now, we could do all this under Windows, but what I'd really like to do is to use the class to introduce Linux, as well. I'm not the biggest Linux expert in the world but I've been using it for awhile now and I find it to be a superior development environment. I can't ask them to just delete their original OS, so our dev environment will have to be in a VM.

Here's the problem: I have Mint running in VMware Player on my Dell XPS 15 (i7, 16GB, 4GB Nvidia.) The VM has 4GB and 2 processors. Playing HMTL5 games in this VM under Chrome or Firefox is a terrible experience. Games that run smooth under Windows stutter and lag. Note, these aren't Flash games, but HTML5 games.

I don't want to use Mint if that's the best I can do for the students. I don't want to give them a bad impression of Linux and I don't want them to think their own games perform badly because they made them wrong.

My question is: Can I do anything about it? Is there a way to get these games to play better in a Mint-based VM?

Thanks in advance!

[xenopeek]

Do you have a link to an example game so we can have a look at performance on our VMs?

[whm1974]

You might want to rethink teaching both basic programming and Linux in the same "class". However I wouldn't be surprise if some of the teens are already running Linux.

[Slo-matt]

Well, I wasn't going to deep dive into bash or anything. Mint seems intuitive enough that I dont anticipate a lot of problems. Not for what I'm trying to do.

[Slo-matt]

I worked with this issue over the weekend, and I think the real solution is just painfully obvious: develop but don't run the games in a VM.

Duh, right?

I tried this a couple of ways. First off, I tried running the games on a dedicated Linux machine with decent specs. The games worked great.

I also tried running them on a 2-processor, 4GB Windows VM on that same machine. The performance was weak.

So, it's not the OS, it's a problem with trying to play an HTML5 game in a VM. Cool.

I'll mark the thread as solved.