Fusion 3.0.1 - Performance even worse

[wtrose]

I've posted a couple times on the forums about my frustrating experience with 3.0. On my MacBook Pro, 3.0 runs fantastic, with full Aero. However on my Mac Pro which is my main work machine, 3.0 is running so slow that it was unusable. After attempting to fix it for a couple of days I went back to 2.0.6 which is very responsive.

Was glad to see an update to 3.0 this morning. Again it runs great on my MacBook Pro. Aero experience jumped over 3 points (though the 3D score dropped a tenth of a point). It definitely feels faster. Completely opposite experience on my Mac Pro. What was already poor performance actually got even worse. The splash screen "freezes" for several minutes during bootup. Cursor is extremely laggy. Windows could not even calculate an experience score.

I'm running Windows 7 64-bit on both machines - in fact they started out as the same VM image. Same experience with a freshly built Win 7 x64 VM.

I don't know if multiple large displays, or multiple video cards are confusing it, but VMWare 3 continues to be a major disappointment. I used to enthusiastically recommend VMWare to everyone because of my experience with Fusion, Workstation and their server products has been fantastic. I sincerely wish that could remain the case.

Mac Pro Config (in case VMWare is listening):

• Dual Core Xeon - 2.66 GHz

• 12 GB Ram

• ATI Radeon X1900 XT - 512 MB,

• nVidia GeForce 7300GT - 256 MB

• 2x 23" Cinema Displays

• 1x 19" Dell LCD monitor

• Leopard 10.5.8

[sdw]

Backed down to Fusion 2.0.6 and everything (i.e. Windows 2008 Server) works great, even with the new VMware Tools still installed.

[Henri]

Hi,

same problem on a MacPro 2.66 8core 12 GB RAM, Apple RAIDCard, 2 Linux SLES11/SLES10 X64 VMs.

After 20h or so, the IO disk performance on this box is terrible. 10 Minutes after stopping all VMs the disk IO

performance is fine. Never a problem after rebooting, did a lots of "iozone", "iostat"s, went very bad after a few

hours runtine. No Swapping problem, counters are very low, Cpu 10% busy, have switched VMwares Harddisk cache to "enabled".

It seams to me, that the IO Queue is very long or the IOs are blocked for any other reason and therefor the Mac is very unresponsitive.

VMware is now stopped, no other change, no problem anymore. Runs fine on my MacBookPro 2,5, 6 GB, 512 GB with Windows XP and the

3.0 Version runs without such problems with Win2003 R2 X64 on a MacPro 3,0 Quadcore, 8 GB, 4TB Software Raid1.

Where the problem occurred:

Command line used: iozone -a

Output is in Kbytes/sec

Time Resolution = 0.000001 seconds.

Processor cache size set to 1024 Kbytes.

Processor cache line size set to 32 bytes.

File stride size set to 17 * record size.

random random bkwd record stride

KB reclen write rewrite read reread read write read rewrite read fwrite frewrite fread freread

64 4 6713 1285575 1066042 1991276 1336792 1232453 743988 1226821 1232453 656 1933893 1421755 2772930

64 8 114 2067979 1526887 2379626 1690338 1734015 1013707 3791156 1734015 551422 1421755 889431 1599680

64 16 988 1734015 1562436 3363612 2662899 2662899 1363961 2379626 1780008 405 1828508 983980 2662899

64 32 440 2801873 1828508 4018152 3165299 3057153 1336792 3363612 2203800 1105556 2923952 842003 4274062

64 64 616 2379626 2222043 5283570 4018152 4274062 1232453 3738358 2772930 294723 2662899 754443 4564786

disk1 disk2 disk3 disk4

KB/t tps MB/s KB/t tps MB/s KB/t tps MB/s KB/t tps MB/s

6.33 138 0.85 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 4.00 1 0.00

20.67 4 0.07 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 13.27 28 0.37

6.23 156 0.95 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 15.64 4 0.07

8.35 85 0.69 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00

4.67 39 0.18 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 4.00 0 0.00

4.38 38 0.16 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 4.00 0 0.00

6.50 122 0.78 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 4.50 2 0.01

4.64 43 0.19 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 6.95 36 0.25

11.08 70 0.76 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 12.31 16 0.19

7.53 103 0.76 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 4.00 0 0.00

4.38 55 0.24 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 4.00 0 0.00

14.39 25 0.36 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 7.11 2 0.01

7.43 92 0.67 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 4.80 1 0.00

4.38 83 0.35 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 4.00 1 0.00

7.51 133 0.97 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00 18.67 3 0.05

Now:

Auto Mode

Command line used: iozone -a

Output is in Kbytes/sec

Time Resolution = 0.000001 seconds.

Processor cache size set to 1024 Kbytes.

Processor cache line size set to 32 bytes.

File stride size set to 17 * record size.

random random bkwd record stride

KB reclen write rewrite read reread read write read rewrite read fwrite frewrite fread freread

64 4 552557 1526887 1780008 3057153 2203800 2379626 1638743 2444640 2278628 621657 1484662 1599680 2561267

64 8 818885 1828508 2006158 4564786 3363612 3791156 2133730 4018152 2133730 969761 2298136 769584 3541098

64 16 1188789 2358717 2467108 4274062 4274062 4988978 1562436 4897948 1599680 1518251 2467108 1638743 4274062

64 32 1083249 2923952 2662899 7100397 5735102 5860307 1828508 6421025 2561267 1484662 2923952 1049372 4564786

64 64 447537 2801873 2801873 4564786 7100397 6421025 1879725 6421025 2689580 2133730 3203069 901377 4988978

128 4 573699 1967960 1373754 2969325 2238774 2420455 1349580 2558895 2066432 571865 1802755 1622919 2409592

128 8 790905 2326073 2211113 4407601 3380677 3759450 1684006 4104338 2286447 901083 2098744 1885042 3445772

disk1 disk2 disk3 disk4

KB/t tps MB/s KB/t tps MB/s KB/t tps MB/s KB/t tps MB/s

39.53 106 4.07 28.70 8 0.23 200.53 1 0.26 88.24 33 2.81

37.22 95 3.44 8.99 100 0.88 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00

182.15 201 35.71 8.51 64 0.53 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00

228.41 484 108.07 7.95 31 0.24 0.00 0 0.00 4.00 0 0.00

814.29 194 154.23 9.74 23 0.22 0.00 0 0.00 256.57 4 1.05

354.69 326 113.03 6.75 26 0.17 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00

784.19 147 112.40 7.18 38 0.27 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00

934.98 157 143.50 14.23 53 0.73 0.00 0 0.00 0.00 0 0.00

[teekayx]

Hi,

I've updated to VMWareFusion 3.0.1 and went for a complete reinstall of Windows 7x64 hoping that a fresh start would remedy the performance issues (Sluggishness).

After installation (Easyinstall) the first couple of times Windows 7 was quite responsive and booted in around 1minute and 10 seconds on my Mac Book Pro (all Hardware Details below).

Then I used the suspend/stop function of VMWare and it also was better than before, resuming operation in less than 15 seconds when I started it.

But yesterday when I resumed Windows 7 VMWare startet to really take ages. In fact the resumed Windows 7 remained uresponsive for more than 4 minutes, after which I was able to go to the Startmenu and tell Windows to shut down - it actually took another 4-5 Minutes to shut down.

And since then every starting of Windows 7 takes at least 5 Minutes.

As the Thread starter has posted, the first Windows Splash Screen (the one on the black Background with the whirling Windows Logo) sometimes "hangs" for what seems like 2 minutes.

To answer your questions:

1) What is your Mac model (sysctl -n hw.model)?

2) What is your video card model (system_profiler | grep 'Chipset Model:')?

3) What is the guest OS you are running in your VM?

4) Which 3D applications (names, version numbers) have stopped working properly?

1) MacBookPro5,1 with 4 GB RAM

2) Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT

Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce 9400M (active)

3) Windows 7x64

4) Just the desktop / Windows itself

I am runinng Snow Leopard 10.6.2 in K64 mode (meaning 64Bit Kernel is active).

I hope this helps.

Another VM which is Windows XP works much better, but Windows 7 is now failing .

[vdanen]

Just to chime in here, 3.0.1 feels about the same 3.0 for me. I did notice that graphics in FreeBSD 8.0 are awfully slow even after the vmtools were installed. Windows 7 x64 is pretty bad too -- it's usable for the most part since all I really use in there is QuickBooks, but the 3D performance number was 2.0 with 3.0 and 2.0 with 3.0.1. No change. 3D support is enabled. I've managed to make it mostly usable by disabling as much GUI stuff as possible (aero, smooth scrolling, etc.).

Specs:

% sysctl -n hw.model

MacPro1,1

% system_profiler | grep 'Chipset Model:'

Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT

Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT

Dual-core intel xeon 2.66GHz (4 cores)

14GB RAM

L2 cache per proc: 4MB

4 1TB HDDs, all vm's are on their own separate HDD, which is not the primary OS disk

Fusion 2.x absolutely flew on this machine. Absolute joy to use. 3.x is.. meh. I can still do what needs doing, but it takes longer. Not a deal breaker, but certainly annoying and frustrating (most of what I do is in Linux vm's and the performance there is a bit slower, but not hugely awful).

There are 4 monitors connected to the system: 2 cinema displays (1680x150) and two Samsung monitors (1920x1200).

Hopefully that helps with getting this figured out.

[Mikero]

One thing I'm noticing is that almost all of the users on this thread with perf. issues have more than 8GB of RAM...

I'll bring this up tomorrow in my meeting with the Development team and see if there's anything we can find.

Anyone experiencing this problem, if you haven't already, I'd very much like to see your Help > Collect Support Information (taken while the slowness issue is happening)

Thanks

[Henri]

Have added 4 GB more RAM, it seams to me that this happens as soon the RAM is filled up, it there any dynamic disabling of the vmdk filecache?

Thanks

Henri

[HPReg]

One thing I'm noticing is that almost all of the users on this thread with perf. issues have more than 8GB of RAM...

Interesting. Can the people affected by the slowdown try booting with less physical RAM (let's say 4 GB of physical RAM and a VM configured with 2 GB of virtual RAM)?

You don't need to actually open the box and remove RAM bars. You can pass this boot option to the kernel:

maxmem= is the maximum amount of RAM to use, in megabytes.

So for 4 GB of RAM, use maxmem=4096

To pass this boot option to the kernel, you can use the 2 usual ways:

1) Use the nvram utility (under sudo) to change the content of the boot-args variable, then reboot.

2) Change the contents of the Kernel Flags section in /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist (run the editor under sudo), then reboot

[wtrose]

First, I've been out of town and haven't been able to contribute to this thread since starting it. Please don't confuse my lack of participation with lack of interest

Second, huge thanks to VMWare for actively participating in threads like this. Prior threads I participated in appeared to receive little, to no attention, which made our issues even more frustrating. What's happening in this thread exactly the right thing to be doing with your forums, in my opinion. Please keep it up!

Lastly, I'm happy to give this a shot. I downgraded to version 2 so this won't be a "quick" thing to attempt and I need to get some work done today. However I will definitely give this a shot tomorrow and let you know what happens. Also more than willing to post the configuration info you've previously asked for.

Thanks for leveraging your community this way. I think many of us would much rather be part of the solution, not just complainers.

Tom

[auroradesign]

Setting maxmem to 4096 on my i7 iMac made no difference. Disk performance is still at 1-2MB/s with Disk buffering disabled.

[x3non]

HPReg,

I don't thing it's a RAM issue: I've 4GB and I'm experiencing exactly the same issue.

Bye,

x3non

Il giorno 17/dic/2009, alle ore 17.04, HPReg ha scritto:

,

A new message was posted in the thread "Fusion 3.0.1 - Performance even worse":

http://communities.vmware.com/message/1444212#1444212

Author : HPReg

Profile : http://communities.vmware.com/people/HPReg

Message:

[Henri]

Hi,

after adding 4 more Gigabytes (12 -> 14) on my Mac Pro Vmware it's now 26 hours up. There was a performance problem 20 hours ago, but not crash, as a couple of times before. I have observed, when the performance problems occurs, when the amount of "free memory" in the Activity Monitor is about 20 Megabytes (seams to be the lower memory limit for Mac). No problem when the amount of free memory is >= 100 Megabytes. When Macos reaches the 20 MB limit, the filesystem caching or at least the vmdk caching seams to be switched off, at least any I/O is around 10-100 times slower then before.

I proved that the iozone.

Henri

[auroradesign]

Henri,

This is the problem. With Disk Buffering enabled, Fusion is allowed to grab as much system memory as it wants for buffering, and when the free memory runs out (20MB as you noted) you start forcing page swaps that bring the whole system to a crawl. Adding more memory only puts off the problem, but if enough buffering space is grabbed, you'll be right back where you started.

Darryl

[teekayx]

Well shouldn't there be some remedy for this problem? Instead of taking off memory from the host, why not taking away some memory from the VM so that page swaps simply don't happen. If I remember correctly, such a thing happened even though there was enough memory "inactive".

Edit:

I just started my Windows7 x64 VM, and right before the splash screen appeared (whirling logo), a lot of page outs began - even though there was enough unused memory for VMWare to take.. I have attached a screenshot, the pageouts were zero before starting. I have assigned 1.2GB of RAM to WIndows 7.

[HPReg]

Henri,

Just to confirm: you are running iozone in the guest, is it correct?

I'm trying to understand 2 things:

1) Why Mac OS host is not recycling physical memory (i.e. pruning its caches, including the cache corresponding to the .vmdk files on the host) when it needs more free memory. How big was your VM during these tests? If you have 12 or 14 GB of physical RAM, how can your host possibly ever be out of memory?

2) What we changed between Fusion 2 and Fusion 3 which changes this behavior. I cannot find anything at this point but I'll keep looking.

Thanks.

[HPReg]

I just started my Windows7 x64 VM, and right before the splash screen appeared (whirling logo), a lot of page outs began

On your screenshot, I see 18475 page outs, that is 18475 * 4096 bytes = 72 MB. I don't call that "a lot of page outs".

even though there was enough unused memory for VMWare to take.

How much? Can you also attach a screenshot before powering-on? If VMware starts a 1.2 GB VM, it needs to take 1.2 GB of memory.

Thanks

[teekayx]

Hi HPReg,

this "a lot of page outs" stems from the fact that even this bit of paging makes the rest of the mac sluggish. The next time I fire up the VM I will make screenshots. I just for the sake of it killed all other memory-hogs (Safari, Firefox and so on) before firing up VMWare and the pageouts stayed constant. The only sluggishness of the host stayed at the time when Win7 displayed its splash screen, but I guess thats from the heavy I/O Win7 does in contrast to XP, which has no impact on the host system while booting.

I'll keep my fingers crossed that it stays that way, this thing with the paging kills off the machine.

[sdw]

I don't think that it is just paging, unless it is an extreme form. On a system where Windows 2008 had been running in a VM for a day, there was no significant CPU or disk activity at the OS X or Win2008 level, yet the VM was running at a tiny fraction of normal speed and OS X was also very slow. The OS X system memory was not full, and with 8 cores there wasn't significant CPU activity. But still the system was very sluggish. As soon as the VM was stopped, everything returned to normal. Another VM, running Windows XP Pro, continued without issue before, during, and after the bad VM, only affected by the overall sluggishness of the system. It could just as easily be some kind of system call chatter or some other operating system interaction gone bad. Out of memory paging usually has a fast/slow effect where at least some existing processes can run normally.

I can provide a VM on a 10Mb Internet link if you still haven't been able to reproduce this. I will also shortly have the Win2008Server VM on my Mac Pro in Mountain View to test.

Stephen sdw@lig.net

[wtrose]

Unfortunately, backing my system memory on my host Mac down to 4GB did not work. The guest Win7 VM is just as slow as when the Mac had all 12 GB of RAM available.

I've scanned the thread and am pasting / attaching all the information asked to date to this post.

Please confirm for me that I do in fact have the correct version of VMWare Tools installed and am using the correct WDDM driver. I completely uninstalled VMWare tools and reinstalled it from the VMWare menu to hopefully ensure that I am. From other threads I've seen, getting the correct tools/driver installed appeared to be an issue for some folks.

If there is anything additional I can provide, I'm happy to do so. Would even be willing to participate in a GoToMeeting with one of your engineers if a first-hand look at my system would be beneficial.

sysctl -n hw.model

MacPro1,1

system_profile Graphics

Graphics/Displays:

ATI Radeon X1900 XT:

Chipset Model: ATY,RadeonX1900

Type: Display

Bus: PCIe

Slot: Slot-1

PCIe Lane Width: x16

VRAM (Total): 512 MB

Vendor: ATI (0x1002)

Device ID: 0x7249

Revision ID: 0x0000

ROM Revision: 113-A52027-140

EFI Driver Version: 01.00.140

Displays:

Cinema HD:

Resolution: 1920 x 1200

Depth: 32-Bit Color

Core Image: Hardware Accelerated

Main Display: Yes

Mirror: Off

Online: Yes

Quartz Extreme: Supported

Rotation: Supported

Cinema HD:

Resolution: 1920 x 1200

Depth: 32-Bit Color

Core Image: Hardware Accelerated

Mirror: Off

Online: Yes

Quartz Extreme: Supported

Rotation: Supported

NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT:

Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT

Type: Display

Bus: PCIe

Slot: Slot-2

PCIe Lane Width: x1

VRAM (Total): 256 MB

Vendor: NVIDIA (0x10de)

Device ID: 0x0393

Revision ID: 0x00a1

ROM Revision: 3011

Displays:

DELL 1801FP:

Resolution: 1024 x 1280 @ 60 Hz

Depth: 32-Bit Color

Core Image: Hardware Accelerated

Mirror: Off

Online: Yes

Quartz Extreme: Supported

Rotation: 90

Display Connector:

Status: No Display Connected

[Henri]

Hi,

well, I ran iozone on the host. There are 2 SLES11s active on the 16 GB memory MacPro, one with guest memory size of 6 GB, one with 2 GBs.

Nothing notable else. The problem is not the guest performance, the problem is the disk IO performance on the host system when no more

free memory is available. Could it be, that VMware starts to perform unbuffered writes or something like this under some conditions which affects

the host system, simply with an overload because of very long IO service times?

Swapping seams not the problem. After rebooting the 6 GB SLES currently there are 4 GB host memory free. After 2-4 hours it will be less than 200 MB.

Henri

[PennCreativeGro]

I always add these settings to my VM's vmx file to disable paging:

sched.mem.pshare.enable = "FALSE"

mainMem.useNamedFile = "FALSE"

MemTrimRate = "0"

Maybe these would help some of these performance issues...?