VMware Horizon Community
mvrk
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

VMware View 5 + Windows 7 VM - Slow performance

Hi,

I've setup a test View Server 5 on a Windows Server 2008 R2 VM (1vCPU + 2GB RAM), and i installed a Windows 7 Ultimate VM (4 vCPUs, 4GB RAM).

When i connect to that Windows 7 VM with View Client over LAN, the performance is very bad.

Can't even play a video full screen on youtube.

Anyone experienced this problem before?

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14 Replies
mittim12
Immortal
Immortal

Are you connecting via PCOIP or RDP?  Have you done your basic performance checks? 

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TomHowarth
Leadership
Leadership

how many CPU and Core does your host server have.  what are the specs of your host that is hosting the Win7 guest.  what protocol are you using for the remote display protocol?  RDP or PCoIP.

Tom Howarth VCP / VCAP / vExpert
VMware Communities User Moderator
Blog: http://www.planetvm.net
Contributing author on VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment
Contributing author on VCP VMware Certified Professional on VSphere 4 Study Guide: Exam VCP-410
abirhasan
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Here is some  performance tuning for vmware view 5. Have a look..

http://jackiechen.org/2012/02/29/vmware-view-5-performance-tuning/

abirhasan 
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vmblogza
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi,

what driver are you using VMXNET3 or E1000?

Best regards, If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful". Please visit my blog at http://vmblog.co.za
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mvrk
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I'm new to Vmware View, so i may be doing stuff wrong or expecting too much of it.

My system is a white box:

BOARD: Asrock 890FX Deluxe5

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 945

RAM: 16G

NICs on phyisical server and client are intel gigabit, connected to a normal gigabit switch.

The vnics i'm using on the VMs are vmxnet3.

Protocol: PCoIP.

I've not disabled Aero, wallpapers, and didn't set visual to best performance, because i was expecting to have the same experience on the VM as on a physical machine, or at least almost the same, maybe i'm expecting too much?

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mittim12
Immortal
Immortal

What kind of conslidation ratio do you have on the equipment?    What about the storage?   I would recommend viewing performance statistics from vCenter/esxtop and see if you can determine if there is a bottleneck. 

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mvrk
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I don't see any bottleneck on the performance graphs, it seems all ok.

For storage i have a Dell Perc 5/i raid card with 2 WD Raptor 300G in RAID1.

Can you explain what do you mean by conslidation ratio?

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vmblogza
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

well raid 1 is not good you must run like raid 0 or raid 5 or raid 10.

How slow is the performance can you describe? Also what CPU's are you running? WHat is your memory spec? What core switching are you running between the 2? Is your network card offloading to the processor or not?

Best regards, If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful". Please visit my blog at http://vmblog.co.za
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mvrk
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I just upgraded ESXi, vCenter, VMware View Server to 5.1 but still slow.

Sould i be able o play a full HD movie on the virtual desktop? I tried but is not fluid Smiley Sad

MY CURRENT SPECS:

Client computer :

CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+, 3015 MHz

RAM: 4G - 2 x 2 GB DDR2-800

MB: Asus M2N-E SLI

LAN: Onboard Giga (NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller)

GRAPHICS: nVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64bits

Server computer:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 945, 3000 Mhz

RAM: 16G - 4 x 4 GB DDR3 1333 Mhz

MB: ASRock 890FX Deluxe5

LAN: Onboard Giga (Realtek RTL8111E)

OS: VMware ESXi 5.1

RAID CARD: Dell Perc 5/i

OS HD: WD Raptor 160GB (WD1600HLFS)

VMFS DATASTORE: 600GB RAID 0 - 2 x 300GB WD Raptor (WD3000HLFS)

VMware View VM:

vCPUs: 2

RAM: 2GB

OS: Windows Server 2008 R2

VMware View Server 5.1

Desktop VM:

vCPUs: 2

RAM: 4GB

VIDEO CARD: 128MB RAM (Enabled 3D)

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64bits

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HIsgett
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I have never gotten HD video to play in full screen where it is acceptable.  I have always had to make the window smaller to get HD video to play nicely. I am eager and hopeful to see the integration with NVIDIA gpu and the latest version of vSphere 5.1 work in the next View update. I believe this will help the end user experience with HD video and other multimedia content.

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Mc20piece
Contributor
Contributor

Your client specs mean next to nothing. The problem is you are using the VMware software client. Flawless full screen HD video is never going to happen. The software client will cap out at around 5mpps (mega pixel per second). Modern day Zero clients with the Teradici chips can do 50mpps+

This is true for thin clients as well, they will see from 5-10 depending on whether or not they are Teradici assisted software clients.

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TomHowarth
Leadership
Leadership

Can you explain why you think that RAID1 in no good, a mirror is the most performant RAID for both Read and Write IOPs,  a VDI environment had quite high writes due to the way the Windows handles memory management.  performance will fall dramatically with a RAID 5 or 6 envrioment as this you may get more Reads due to more disks but you will never get more that a single Write per disk group.

This can be improved with Write Cache and SSD's/

Tom Howarth VCP / VCAP / vExpert
VMware Communities User Moderator
Blog: http://www.planetvm.net
Contributing author on VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment
Contributing author on VCP VMware Certified Professional on VSphere 4 Study Guide: Exam VCP-410
sadomi
Contributor
Contributor

Tom Howarth wrote:

Can you explain why you think that RAID1 in no good, a mirror is the most performant RAID for both Read and Write IOPs,  a VDI

RAID1 is only a mirror between two disks.

RAID0, 5, 6, 10 can have way more disks in an array (the max. depends on the storage vendor) to write simultaneously.

so it's a physical thing: the more disks, the more IOs...

RAID5 and 6 used to be slow(er) because of parity calculation. but with todays controllers this isn't an issue anymore...

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TDRoy
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

As mentioned above, I dont believe that the client/server specs have too much to do with the issue.

As far as managed expectations, HD video will rarely perform on the scale of a standalone system. However, there are things you can do to make video/headsets/general usage work perfectly in a VDI implementation. Check to make sure that your storage is not being pegged. Check the networking at the physical side. Fine tune your image according to best practices.

These things will allow your VDI to work comperably to a laptop/desktop.

And the zero client with Teradici cards are great. Just be sure to VLAN them to prevent broadcast storms.

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