virtual emulation of my real hardware

Oct 12, 2013
2
0
10,510
Is it possible to simulate/emulate my exact hardware on a virtual machine?
I want to be able to test certain OS features functionality and drivers, but doing this in a virtual machine seems pointless, because the hardware it emulates is generic.

For example, I want to see how my system reacts with a certain Nvidia GeForce card and then see if it crashes when I load different addresses for a conflicting TV tuner card that pulls video from the Nvidia GeForce.

I would like to "build" a virtual system specs to my likes, certain HDD, certain Graphics card, certain sound card, etc.
 

Ijack

Distinguished
If you see no point in emulation other than to emulate specific hardware then it is no use to you. But it doesn't take much imagination to see that it of use to others. You're not worried about specific hardware when you are running, for example, a web server or a database server. Just a couple of obvious examples; there are hundreds of other uses for an emulated generic PC.
 

If you think a little about "hardware emulation", especially in your case (emulating GPU) - in most cases this is impossible unless the person writing the emulation layer is working for NVidia. They are the only ones who knows what is their REAL hardware in order to emulate it.

Most VMs emulate a very limited (but well known) subset of hardware - just enough to bring the emulated machine up and running with most popular server / desktop software. And this fares pretty well, and no, I am not wowing my friends - I am doing real work with half a dozen VMs for myself only.