12.2.0 VMs really slow compared to 12.1.2, Monterey guest kernel panicking

[Piipperi]

Hi,

I updated VMware Fusion to 12.2.0 today and updated my virtual machines as well. I noticed that when I tried to load my Monterey virtual machine, it kept kernel panicking or freezing at boot screen after a kernel panic. Sometimes it happened during just normal boot, sometimes it got to the desktop. I didn't have VMware Tools installed yet, and to get them installed at all, I encountered at least 5 crashes just trying to access System Preferences to approve the kernel extensions. Oh, and loading literally anything took very long and the mouse is updating at maybe 15 - 20 fps.

I don't have Paravirtualized graphics enabled.

And on my Windows 10 VM, it also was really laggy compared to what I'm used to. CPU was almost always at 100% utilization (I have 4 cores allocated).  

[Dan10001]

Same here on Big Sur... On my software that I am developing on a Win 10 VM I can see probably an 80% reduction in speed. Even the mouse doesn't move smoothly anymore.

Went back to 12.1, it wouldn't start my VM because I need to downgrade it using 12.2, so I put back a copy of my VM that I used with 12.1 and it's all ok again

[lasselj]

I see the same thing

[ncudmore]

Just trying 12.2.1 under Monterey 12.0.1, to run a Windows 11 vm.  It's like a slug on valium.  Interesting thing is that Windows Task Manager only shows 11% CPU, 30% memory maxed out at 2% disk - VM has 16GB of memory and 8 threads (my Mac Pro has 12 cores and 128GB RAM so there should not be an issue here.  I've tried the settings for

theguestinfo.svga.wddm.enableGDIHW=FALSE

as well as Disable Side Channel Mitigations

in various combinations to no effect.

[masch82]

Similar here.

Running Big Sur 11.4. Upgrade from Vmware Fusion 12.1.1 to 12.2.1
MBP 15" late 2013 - Quad i7 2,3Ghz, 16GB

Linux VM (Ubuntu 20.04), VM Startup slow, after login running abysmally slow after the Vmware upgrade.
Tried upgrading VMX to Hardware Version 19, disable sidechannel mitigations, no 3D Graphics, no improvement.

Luckily still had the old installation image in the Download folder. Downgraded. Everything is working normal and fast again as before.

[jontech]

Having same issues, various flavors of Windows slow with 12.2.x

change the vmx file on my VMs to run HW version 18 and reinstalled 12.1.1 and issue is resolved.

[john_estc]

Same here.

Windows 10 VM became sluggish immediately after VMWare Fusion update yesterday.

[michaelprescott]

Same here.  For years I've had a Win 10 Pro VM running on an old iMac, using Win as my primary windows development and test machine.  Performance was great.  I then bought a new iMac and it was darn near metal performance from my perspective.  Everything was smooth, instantly responsive, just awesome.   Got the latest update and now it's unusable.  Every keystroke lags, every mouse click.  I've throw 6 cores at it and 64 GB of RAM, half my host's ram and it has absolutely no effect on performance.  It's simply unusable now.

[ncudmore]

Slight improvement turned off Accelerate 3d graphics, and use full resolution for retina display.  However, the Jabra USB headset connected to Windows 10 vm and not host still keeps disconnecting when using Teams/Skype.

[VMuser7759]

I tried using 12.2.1 with Win10. Unusable. 24g ram, 8 cores allocated. Tried VMware's fixes with no luck. This has been going on for way too long without an update. I had to downgrade my installations and downgrade back to 12.1.2. Things are back to normal. 

[ColoradoMarmot]

8 cores?  on what machine?  Unless it's a 10 physical core (or more) CPU, you're likely starving the host.  Theads/virtual cores don't count - N-1 physical cores is the max for any individual VM.

[VMuser7759]

I misspoke. I have 8 cores, two of which are allocated. It runs fine after downgrading to 12.1.2. With 12.2 it would take 1/2 an hour for the system to come up enough to get me to the sign-in screen. When I would sign on to the Windows VM, it would hang again. I was never able to open a program, even after leaving it run all night and trying to open a program in the morning.

[dotmax]

I had trouble installing Monterey guest under Big Sur host using Fusion 12.2.1. The guest keeps freezing or panicking on the first boot after the installation (at the language selection screen).

Thanks to your post I’ve tried downgrading to Fusion 12.1.2. Now it’s working.

[michaelprescott]

Just checking on this issue again.  I've upgraded to 12.2.3, and it's slow as ever, perhaps even worse.  It's becoming practically unusable.  I've 4 cores dedicated to a Win machine and 32GB of RAM.  When I first setup this entire arrangement on a new iMac, it was virtually flawless.  It seemed that Windows VM was running at native speeds and I could operate all sorts of tools and even media within the VM.  Now, a mere zoom call or file transfer is enough to grind the machine to a staggering halt.  It's also taxing the host machine so much that my once silent iMac roars like a jet engine.  I've still got 96GB of RAM and 6 cores for the host.  I don't get why there has been such a huge performance drop.

Is there anyone that has figured out how to restore performance?  Any magical configuration to get this thing usable again?

[VMuser7759]

I have notices for this issue turned on and what I find amazing is, having already paid in advance, I can't use the product as designed. I'm not getting what I paid for.

I would have expected a patch or that VMware would have figured this out by now. Unbelievable. They seem to be sitting back and waiting for their customers to figure it out.

[drewholthaus]

Do you have virtualization-based security enabled in the vm's advanced settings? If so, try disabling that, and also check in the processors & management tab --> advanced options --> you will see enable hypervisor and enable IOMMU. try disabling all these options I mentioned. Then restart VM, and once in windows, open windows defender/security and go to the device security tab (not positive this is what it's called, going strictly off memory here for all this). You should find "Core Isolation" and then "memory integrity" and you will want to confirm this is disabled. If it's on, disable it and make sure you do reboot as it asks. Should help, as I have spent hours previously trying to figure out why these options DESTROY the performance entirely. Not a little bit, not a lot, but completely makes it unusable in my case. I would much appreciate it if you'd give me a follow-up after trying all of this. I know I'm not alone with this issue but the more people who confirm this is the cause then hopefully the fusion team will see this and address is once and for all. Hope it works for you.

[jontech]

Same here 12.2.3 doesn't fix the issue

had to revert to 12.1.2

I have 10 Cores and 64 GB of memory, plus the 16GB 5700XT GPU, its not a resource issue

[michaelprescott]

Thank you for the tips.  I reviewed and it looks like I've already tried all of those or perhaps by default they were disabled, yet performance is still awful.

I've two iMac's.  My older iMac with previous versions of VMWare Fusion and a significantly slower processor, drive, and RAM used to run Windows VM so very well.  My new iMac is amazing, much faster processor, more cores, 128GB RAM, faster drive, just overall amazing performance on everything.  And, prior to some particular version of VMWare Fusion, it seemed Windows VM's ran at nearly native speeds or at the very least, so butter smooth that I didn't notice any issues.

At this point I'm just patiently... or rather desperately waiting for a patch to fix it.

[ColoradoMarmot]

Did you disable side channel mitigations?  Those also have a huge performance impact.

[michaelprescott]

Yes.  I've tried that several times, on... off... on... offf.  It was one of the first things I tried because Fusion raises an alert when they are on telling you of the performance hit.   Interestingly, no matter what state it is in, I can see no difference in performance.  I wonder if that is near the root of the problem, meaning, maybe even when we're selecting to disable them, they aren't really being disabled??  From the Windows VM, is there a way to verify that they actually are disabled?