[SGVLUG] Any VMware users out there?

[Emerson, Tom (*IC)]

I'm curious about how well (in terms of responsiveness) the "guest" system(s) run under a Linux-hosted VMware system -- in particular, windows XP.  I won't be playing high-end point-n-shoot/run-n-gun games (doom/unreal/etc.) as a guest -- I'm already fairly certain those will have to be booted directly  (oh, the everlasting search for game-frame-rates well in excess of the physical capabilities of the monitor...)  But I might want to run a less-intensive game such as neverwinter nights [at least, I don't think they ported a Linux client for this...]

How is it for other, possibly intensive, applications such as video editing (with Premiere)?  (ultimately I'd like to do the video editing within Linux itself, but I haven't found an NLE I like or understand yet)  [read "works with my setup and can do HD..."]

I suspect that non-intensive apps, such as visual studio, will be just fine -- if anyone has direct experience, I'd like to hear about it [and again, ultimately I'd like to use a native IDE, and on that front things have improved - now if only they can finish a decent IDE for monobasic]

I'll be building a new system that I expect will provide far more horsepower than I'll need :)  [but not as much as I'd /want/ ;) ] so running VM's should not be a big deal.  What might be questionable would be access to hardware (specifically, for burning data, particularly video, to DVD or perhaps even blu-ray) -- are there any gotcha's here?