Fusion 3, Win7 64bit super sluggish

[typemismatch]

I'm running on Snow Leopard, 8x Core, 10GB Ram, MacPro - 2009 Model. I have Fusion 3 and running my BootCamp x64 Windows 7 image.

It seems very sluggish, generally I'd say it was acceptable for a first release but office applications for example, I can out type the keyboard which is odd. I'm in full screen mode. I don't get this problem in non-3d mode.

thanks

[jmstacey]

I'm noticing the same thing here on an older MBP (3,1). It's good to know that it's not only the specs of my computer. Turing off transparency improves things somewhat, but still sluggish.

[typemismatch]

The font in my title bars is also fuzzy ....

No multimonitor support anymore either.

[BMGoss]

I have similar a configuration with a 4x Core and Win7 runs great. My first install was terribly slow until I changed 2 settings.

In VMware preferences, under General Tab, ensure Diagnostics is NOT selected.

In Windows, the VMware tools probably did not install the VMware 3D display driver. My first install had Windows SVGA driver installed, not VMware's. You must manually install the VMware SVGA2 3D driver. Eventually, the driver should be located at: C:\Program Files\Common Files\VMware\Drivers\wddm_video

My Win7 performance scores in VMware: Before / Now (with changes) / BootCamp (native).

Measure_________Before_____Now_____BootCamp

Calc/sec__________6.1_______7.1_______7.3

Mem ops/sec______5.9_______5.9_______7.3

Desktop Aero______1.9_______5.8_______5.9

3D graphics_______1.0_______3.9_______5.9

Disk transfer_______6.7_______6.5_______5.2

Hope this helps.

[typemismatch]

thanks good tips - I have tried all of this and no difference.

the fuzzy title bars is probably the strangest issue.

[jmstacey]

I confirmed that I have the 3d drivers installed. The ones in wddm_video actually appear to be the SVGA drivers.

[PHXHoward]

I can only get my Aero score up to 2.9 using the 3D driver. What video chip do you have?

[PHXHoward]

double post

Message was edited by: PHXHoward

[BMGoss]

I have the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT video card. I allocate 4 CPUs and 3 GB RAM for the VM partition.

Another tip that I saw causing serious slowdowns: avoid using the VMware shared folders defined in VMware preferences or mirrored folders (syncing desktops). I found them very slow. I create Windows shortcuts to my Mac's shared volumes as if they were network shares. If you create the shares through VMware settings I think there is too much overhead, especially if you do not use the shares that often. I have one share to my main Mac data volume and it works very fast.

[typemismatch]

My card is the ATI HD Radeon 2600.

Switching to 4 cores has helped but still have the fuzzy title bars.

[JeFurry]

I have a similar problem in that screen updates are terribly sluggish - far to slow for comfortable usage, and almost beyond even uncomfortable. Actual processor speed on the VM seems fine: as far as I can tell it's purely the visual screen updates that are very slow.

I'm running a Windows 7 x64 (RTM via MSDN) VM with two cores and 4GB of RAM. The VM was created under VMWare Fusion 2.0.5 (and upgraded without issue to 2.0.6), and is running on a 2008 Mac Pro (EDIT: running in the default 32-bit kernel mode) with 8 cores at 3 GHz, and 18GB RAM. The Mac has two ATi Radeon HD 2600 XTs with 256MB each, the first of which is connected to a 30" Apple Cinema Display, and the second is connected to two Dell 20" 1680x1050 displays in portrait mode, positioned either side of the Cinema DIsplay.

I had a problem in earlier versions of VMWare which may be relevant: the main screen is 2560 pixel wide, and the Dells either side add another 2x1050, bringing the total to 4610 pixels wide. If I set VMWare 2.x to run in fullscreen using all monitors, it slows down massively, as the total width of the display is greater than VMWare's (or the graphics card's) maximum allowed for hardware rendering (which is 4096 pixels, for a single texture block). Therefore, VMWare 2.x automatically (and without warning) drops back to software rendering, which is much slower. I therefore ran it on only the centre screen, and all was well (not ideal, but acceptable).

Since the 3.0 upgrade, the visual performance of the VM has dropped massively: if I'm dragging even a small window, the Windows pointer is unmanageable as it's updating on screen only a couple of times a second, making positioning quite difficult — it jumps around so much that I have to be very careful. Pointer movement without dragging is smooth. This is very similar to what I experienced with the fallback software rendering on VMWare 2.x.

I've confirmed that VMWare 3.0's drivers are installed. I did a full uninstall/restart/reinstall of VMWare Tools, ensuring I used the 64-bit version. Windows Device Manager shows the SVGA 3d driver. The Windows experience index is 2.9 (6.3 CPU, 7.1 RAM, 2.9 desktop, 3.3 gaming, 6.6 disk) which suggests the devices are all performing correctly, which is why I think it's not graphics rendering within the VM that's the problem, but the refreshes of the VM display into the VMWare window.

I'd like to ask the VMWare staff: Is this relevant to the slowdowns that I and a few others are experiencing? Is there a way I can find out if VMWare is using software rendering instead of hardware? Can you suggest any fix or workaround? Would disabling the 3D/Aero driver and falling back to VMWare 2.x style 2D be possible? Or, of course, am I completely barking up the wrong tree?

Thanks for any answers…

-Jef.

EDIT: The Mac Pro is running in the default 32-bit kernel mode

[woodmeister]

Had a similar issue with my Imac, lots of spinning beachballs when initially in 64 bit mode for SL.

I rebooted to 32 bit mode and all seemed to function normal. Then rebooted SL back to 64 bit mode

and alas, everything seemed to function quite normally. Not sure what the story was with that.

Also, this was with a Win7 VM/32 bit. (Need to keep Win7 @ 32 bit since some drivers for USB

hardware I use are still 32 bit. Gee, how long has windows Vista been 64 bit? seems like taking

some vendors an excessively long time to get 64 bit drivers.)

[MaLaun]

@JeFurry,

is the Mac OS booted with 32 or 64 bit kernal. When i run fusion 3.0 with my host Mac OS booted in 32 bit mode (default), my VM's run unbeareably slow. Even linux VM's without GUI's in pure console mode are slow. When I boot the host in 64 bit kernal mode the VM's tun OK, still slower then fusion 2.0.6 but at least usable OK.

I downgraded to 2.0.6

[JeFurry]

I've now tried booting the Mac in 64-bit kernel mode, and if it has helped, it hasn't helped much. It seems slightly better, but so little that it could just be due to the reboot cleaning up some garbage — it's probably just a subjective opinion. Benchmarks haven't improved, and it's certainly not remotely smooth or usable. Windows has popped up with a dialogue box saying that it's detecting slow responses from my graphics card, and would I like to go back to Aero Basic? Using Basic has helped a little, but it's still a couple of orders of magnitude slower than VMWare 2.0.6 was yesterday morning.

I'm pretty confident that something's wrong here and this isn't how it should be, but whether or not it should be, it is.

I can't do my day-to-day work like this, it's unusable. My earlier statement that the CPU speed is OK appears to be partly wrong — if I run a benchmark, it's fine, but in real-world usage (where there's a mix of processing and screen updates) everything keeps stopping while the screen updates take place, and it's just too slow to use. The performance varies from uncomfortably slow to totally unbearable. I'm going to have to go back to VMWare 2.0.6 and keep an eye on this forum for any potential fixes. Most disappointing.

Thanks for the suggestion, MaLaun — it was worth a try. Got any other ideas?

-Jef.

[MaLaun]

Sorry nothing more i can think of. I've also tried a lot of different combinations to no avail.

[JeFurry]

It seems to be the 3D graphic driver.

If I shut down the VM and turn off 3D graphics support in the VM settings, then restart the VM (I didn't quit VMWare or reboot the Mac), performance is MUCH higher. Video updates are jerky — dragging windows around fast results in breakup and lag, but when I stop everything catches up correctly. Windows Experience Index cannot be calculated, it fails to benchmark video decoding performance and quits with an error.

But the basic machine becomes usable again.

VMWare, are there log files that might prove helpful that I can send you? Clearly there's a problem here.

[brucoder]

I know that this doesn't help, but I wanted to share that I am actually using Win 7 x64 on my MBP and everything is good (I even run ACID Pro 7 in Unity Mode successfully).

Speed seems to be fine and I'm using full Aero effects.

1CPU, 1.5GB RAM

Leopard 10.5.8

MBP 15.1", 2.53GHz C2D, 4GB

Internal 1280x800 and external 22" 1680x1050 monitors

Now, if I could just get networking sorted...

[paulcurtis]

brucode,

i'm on something similar, would it be possible to list your windows experience scores on your configuration. Or better still (if you have the time) download Performance test from passmark, 30 day trial and give us your benchmark scores?

cheers

paul

[QFactor57]

You may need to tweek the Windows 7. I have been running Fusion 3 Beta for several months on a MacBook Pro w/ 4GB of ram and have had very few problem._I am an IT Professional and use Fusion Everyday, All day_.

I am seeing WAY TOO MANY WHINNERS on this blog.

Cheers!

[woodmeister]

I've done a significant amount of playing around with windows7 today and can't understand why

a high horsepower machine like a MacPro you guys have are having issues. I'm running

with full Aero effects and tested with mac in both 32 bit and 64 bit mode. I am, however,

using a regular 32 bit VM, with one core, and not a bootcamp type.

My configuration:

Imac 9.1

2.66 GHz, dual core

4 GHz RAM

NVidia GeForce 9400

OSX 10.6.1

Windows experience scores:

Processor: 4.6

Memory 5.5

Graphics 2.9

Gaming Graphics 3.5

Hard disk 6.6

Have any of you guys taken a look at Activity Monitor on the Mac side and Task Manager on the

windows side to see if there are any processes really hogging up the cpu? Also check disk

activity as well?