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6 Replies Last post: Jan 16, 2009 7:38 AM by oreeh  

Honest explanation of SMP-features for hosted platforms posted: Jan 12, 2009 2:45 AM

Click to view continuum's profile Guru 12,616 posts since
Dec 18, 2003
New users usually are very disapointed when they find out that a VM with 2 CPUs is slower than the same VM with one CPU only.
We have to explain the issues over and over again.

For experienced users this behaviour comes expected - for new users this looks like a bug.

Please create a website or a doc that explains this in some depth.

Please also review the advertising of this feature.


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description of vmx-parameters: http://sanbarrow.com/vmx.html
VMware-liveCD: http://sanbarrow.com/moa.html

Click to view RDellimmagine's profile Virtuoso 1,678 posts since
Jul 19, 2004
I've forwarded this thread to the product manager for vSMP. - Robert

Robert Dell'Immagine, Director of VMware Communities
Click to view etung's profile Guru 11,086 posts since
Oct 15, 2006
New users usually are very disapointed when they find out that a VM with 2 CPUs is slower than the same VM with one CPU only. We have to explain the issues over and over again.

I explain it a bit in Choosing the Right Virtual Machine Settings. Are there things you think I should add?
Click to view etung's profile Guru 11,086 posts since
Oct 15, 2006
But it is to specific for Mac as host - if we show that to Windows or Linux-users they will ignore it.

While it's written for Fusion, nearly all of it applies to other products. It's meant as a general "here's how to determine reasonable settings if you don't like the defaults".

Also the section on smp should go more into the details - for example it should mention why AMD Quad Cores work better than Intel Quad Cores and so on.

The doc should also have a comparison of SMP-features and their different behaviour on ESX and hosted platforms


So you want more of a whitepaper for developers/technical folk? For the common case of a user confused about performance, I don't think that level of detail is needed or appropriate. I don't know it either, so would be interested in discussion links :).
Click to view oreeh's profile Guru 9,872 posts since
Nov 30, 2005
Two docs from Scott Drummonds with some info on SMP:

VMkernel Scheduler
Co-scheduling SMP VMs in VMware ESX Server

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