TF2, VMware and Hard Drives

One of the biggest bottlenecks in well, all computing, but in this situation virtual computing is hard drives. Everything slows to a crawl when the drives are hit bad. Here are my recommendations for maximum Windo XP vms running Steam//TF2(hl) per physical disk drive based on RPMs. This is just what I came up with to keep the desktop responsive.
Are these numbers scientific? No. Are they what I've figured out through lots of trial and error? Yes.

5400rpm : 3 (1-2 with host OS)
7200rpm : 4-5 (3-4 with host OS)
10k : 7-9 (6-7 with host OS)

This is all assuming standard sata connectors (IDE, cut 1 per, wait, do they still exist? Oh yeah, im running 3 ;)

Don't forget to count your primary game as one instance, I recommend NOT putting it on the same disk as the VMs (the pain of waiting several minuites for everything to clear up is painful)

Sufficient VMWare settings for Team Fortress 2

I have done a lot of testing to see what the minimal specs for running TF2 in console mode is, and so far I've found the following sufficient.

Processor: 1cpu (There is no need for 2)
Memory: 128mb (64mb worked... after 45 mins of loading, not recommended. You will need to restart with 256mb to trade items)
Hard Drive: 16gb (14.9gb is what the vmdk uses)

TF2, VMWare and my quest for hats

I love my vanity items. Top hats, viking helms, the fez, even odd squid thingys telling me to burn stuff, I love them all. On my quest to collect them all (Oddly Reminiscence of Pokemon of my youth) I figured why not make a bunch of accounts to idle and collect stuff for me...

Enter VMWare. It seems with the latest version of VMWare workstation you can run HL2/TF2, idle, and then trade back the items to my main account easily.

Once you have Steam and Team Fortress 2 installed, start TF2 with the following options:

-textmode -nosound -noipx -novid -nopreload -maxplayers 2 +sv_lan 1 +map "itemtest"

-textmode : Most important, does NOT start the graphics engine. Used for severs but works for our purpose.
-nosound : easily handled in VMware by removing the sound card, but why not
-noipx : prevents a possible crash bug in VMWare's IPX drivers (disabling networking, which is bad for this)
-novid : Don't play the intro video. (without this, it MAY play the video with no way to exit)
-nopreload : Don't preload any resources. Reduces memory footprint
-maxplayers 2 : Dont want people lagging us out
+sv_lan 1 : Since we're starting a server, make it lan only. This way it doesn't update to the master server list and people won't see it in their server lists.
+map "itemtest" : New map, designed to help workshopers test their new items. Its small and has a low memory footprint, excellent for us.

Now just load up the game, and sit back, and play on your main account.  You can turn off the VM in about 15 hours to make sure everything you can get in the week has been gotten.

TF2 in Text mode inside of VMWare 6.x

Once you have a stash of items, you can remove the command line options and join a server with your other account and trade them back.

Now to get a Bill's hat...