Phase 0: hypervisor decision guidance - Stack A (VMware on Home) vs Stack B (Pro+Hyper-V infra, physical game clients); Pro upgrade optional

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

docs/PHASE0-PLAN.md

@@ -87,16 +87,29 @@ enough for experiments E1–E3 and E6; grow toward the full set as experiments d
 
 ## 4. VM management recommendations
 
-**Hypervisor.** The dev box runs **Windows 11 Home — Hyper-V is not available**.
-Recommendation:
+**Hypervisor.** The dev box runs Windows 11 Home (no Hyper-V); a Pro upgrade is
+*available but not required* — it buys a second valid stack, not a better version of
+the first. **Pick exactly one stack; don't mix** (enabling Hyper-V forces VMware
+through the Windows Hypervisor Platform with a performance penalty).
 
-- **First pass: VMware Workstation Pro 17** on the dev box — free for personal use
-  since 2024, best-in-class old-DirectX 3D acceleration among desktop hypervisors
-  (matters for MW4 in a VM), proper snapshot trees, **linked clones** (one Windows
-  gold image, thin per-VM deltas), and per-VMnet host-only networks that map exactly
-  to the topology above (VMnet2 = site A, VMnet3 = site B, VMnet4 = hub LAN,
-  VMnet5 = WAN transit; **DHCP off** on all of them — static IPs per the plan, which
-  also mirrors the bays' air-gapped discipline).
+- **Stack A — VMware Workstation Pro 17 on Home (default, no upgrade needed):** free
+  for personal use since 2024, and the **best old-DirectX 3D path of any desktop
+  hypervisor** — the only stack with a real shot at MW4 rendering *inside* a VM.
+  Proper snapshot trees, **linked clones** (one Windows gold image, thin per-VM
+  deltas), per-VMnet host-only networks mapping exactly to the topology above
+  (VMnet2 = site A, VMnet3 = site B, VMnet4 = hub LAN, VMnet5 = WAN transit;
+  **DHCP off** everywhere — static IPs per plan, mirroring the bays' air-gapped
+  discipline).
+- **Stack B — Win11 Pro + Hyper-V for infrastructure, physical boxes for game
+  clients:** Hyper-V is hopeless for 1999 DirectDraw guests (RemoteFX vGPU removed;
+  GPU-P targets modern DX12), but it is *excellent* for everything that isn't the
+  game — gateways, consoles, vPODs: native internal switches, PowerShell
+  automation, checkpoints, VMs auto-start as a service, zero third-party installs.
+  Since "games on physical hosts" is already this plan's fallback (§7), Stack B is
+  simply that fallback embraced from day one. Choose it if an all-Microsoft,
+  scriptable lab appeals more than the chance of games-in-VMs.
+- Pro perk either way: the lab host becomes an **RDP host** — handy for remote
+  lab access. Not a reason to upgrade by itself.
 - **Persistent lab (recommended once Phase 0 proves out): Proxmox VE on a spare
   box.** Pod operators tend to have spare hardware; a single Proxmox host gives the
   lab a permanent home with a web UI, scheduled snapshots/backups, Linux bridges