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

[brucoder]

Here they are. I've added the differences in graphics for running in dual monitor or just the laptop display.

Processor: 4.5

Memory (RAM): 5.5

Graphics: 2.9 (1680x1050) 3.2 (1280x800)

Gaming Graphics: 3.4 (1680x1050) 3.6 (1280x800)

Primary Hard Disk 6.7

[brucoder]

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

And that may be the difference (discounting that you're not running Win7 x64) - I'm also runing from a pure VM and not a bootcamp partition.

[typemismatch]

just some more info.

My primary image was a bootcamp import to a regular image. On my 2xQuad it idles at 80-100% (whatever that means in osx land).

Clean images, ie: those built initially as 32bit Windows 7 images idle at 15-25%.

My XP images idle at 5%.

There is clearly something different about an image that was imported from bootcamp.

In terms of graphics, no matter how the windows 7 image was created or 32 versus 64 bit - the title bar text is fuzzy.

It does appear "something" sleeps after awhile, if I haven't been active in a running Win7 image for awhile, when I go back the lag is killer and then after a few seconds things speed up. Power management is set to always max out the cpu.

[wtrose]

I am having the same issue, and it is not just limited to Win7 64-bit. I have several XP VMs that are all also running much more slowly.

I've already tried the following, mostly suggestions from this forum:

- reinstalled VMWare Tools

- made sure I was running the SVGA 3D video driver

- turned off folder sharing

- turned off 3d accelleration

- new VM, fresh install of Win7 64-bit.

I'm running on a Mac Pro, 4-core, 12GB Ram and ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB video card. I haven't upgraded to Snow Leopard yet. Running OSX 10.5.8. I know there was an issue with the ATI cards a few months ago. Wonder if it has resurfaced in some way...?

VMWare has always been super reliable for me. I run VMWare Server at work and used Workstation and now Fusion. I've always been impressed with the performance, reliability and stability of their software....until now. Very disappointing. Hope it gets fixed soon.

Unless anyone has any other suggestions as to what to try, I'm probably going back to v2.

[JeFurry]

I am an IT Professional and use Fusion Everyday, All day. I am seeing WAY TOO MANY WHINNERS on this blog.

So am I, Sue2407, yet I see problems with Fusion 3.0 in my setup. I don't claim to know everything, but I'm good at my job, and I'm (among other things) an Apple certified support technician, so I'm unlikely to make a novice mistake (though it's possible, of course). Now you seem to be implying that (a) being an IT Pro means you're right and others are wrong, and that many (b) people are complaining about nothing or not understanding what's going on. While there are some cases like this, and it's true that the happy people rarely post as they don't need to, this does not mean that the problem is imaginary. It's real. However, we don't know the cause, and it's entirely possible it's not due to VMWare, but something else interacting with it, be it flaky stuff like haxies and inputmanagers or something unexpected like an incompatibility with a particular display configuration.

I understand you probably get tired of inept questions from non techies — I know I do — but please try to remain civil. We're trying to solve a problem, and if you prevent that, how will things improve?

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?

Yes. This is what makes me think that it's not a CPU problem — both Activity Monitor on the Mac side, and Process Explorer on the Windows side register relatively low CPU usage — a few percent. Single digits. Yet at the same moment, screen updates are painfully slow. For example, If I type normally, Windows 7 in Fusion can just about keep up, but if I type random garbage (faster than real typing) it can't. If I drag a selection rectangle on the desktop, then when it gets bigger than about half the screen, it's updating only about once a second. Turning off 3D improves this to a usable (but still slower than I expect) level. This shouldn't be.

Today I'm going to try building a new VM from scratch in Fusion 3, rather than importing one from Fusion 2.0.5/6. I had a recurring problem in Fusion 2 when I imported a VM from Fusion 1, and the performance was abysmal in Unity but fine in fullscreen, and building a new one in Fusion 2 massively reduced that problem. Perhaps the same thing will happen here. But if that doesn't help (and I'll report back either way) I'm going to have to abandon Fusion 3, because I need to get on with other day-to-day work.

EDIT: I just tried to download the VIsta trial VM, as it seems the perfect test case. However, parts 1,4 & 6 appear to be missing.

[JeFurry]

It's bad form to quote oneself, but...

Today I'm going to try building a new VM from scratch in Fusion 3, rather than importing one from Fusion 2.0.5/6.

Interesting. I installed a VM from scratch using the RTM version of W7 x64, on my Mac Pro (2008, 8x3GHz,18GB, 64-bit kernel mode) using Fusion's default settings with no changes at all. The Windows Experience Index was 3.3, same as my previous build, but the details were quite different:

Processor: 4.7 (the old build imported from Fusion 2 was 6.3, but it was dual-core, this is the default single core)

RAM: 4.5 (was 7.1, but my old build has 4GB, this is the default 1GB)

Graphics: 5.4 (Wow! My old build got 2.9!)

Gaming graphics: 3.3 (was 3.3 before, too)

Disk: 6.3 (was 6.6, but this could be due to using the mac for mail while the VM benchmark was running).

The desktop graphics rating is almost doubled. Oddly though, it's still slow enough that Windows initially defaulted to Aero Basic and didn't offer me the full Aero experience until I turned it on manually. Is this normal? EDIT: I see from the release notes that it is.

Dragging windows is much smoother than my old build, and is acceptable, but still juddery and not great — I'd expected that dragging a Windows window around (in full-screen or single window mode, perhaps not in Unity) would be as smooth as the Mac natively, more or less — it certainly was on the Boot Camp partition I used to have.

It will take a while to migrate all my Windows development stuff and network config to the new build, and I can't spare the time now, so I'm going back to VMWare 2.0.6. However, I'll keep the 3.0 VM and a 3.0 installer handy, so I'll be able to try again if any suggestions for things to try turn up. If there are any config files, diagnostics or logs that I can upload to help with this, let me know, and I will.

[MaLaun]

I found my Performance problems

First off for 'Sue'. I too am an IT professional. Have been at it for 35 years. I have build and desgined OS Kernals Compilers etc... but: Being slightlyy dyslexic make me a poor speller

Now to the Analysis and fix ( following text has been passed on to vmware support):

-

---

I ran all my benchmarks on the console of a linux VM. Nothing else running to minimize interference.

What happens is following:

Fusion 3.X has a new feature in the 'Virtual Machine Library' that always shows a small image of the screen of the guest in real time. It is this feature that is eating performance. My compile jobs are very verbose.

To test this i simply booted the guest. Logged in to the Linux via a Terminal emulation (zoc) which means that the output of the guests screen is always unchanged as the output is being sent to the telnet session instead. I reran my benchmarks like this and BINGO everything is fast. With Snow leopard in 64 bit mode and Fusion 3.0.0 I'm even app 4% faster then with fusion 2.0.6. With SL in 32 bit mode and fusion 3.0.0 I'm taking a slight hit of app 5% vs fusion 2.0.6

TODO: Development should release a patch for Fusion 3.0.0 that allows us users to deactivate the new 'real Time' feature.

-

---

Imagine an intense 3D graphics program running in windows 7 with aero and a high resolution. All the images being miniaturized....

For now closing the 'Virtual Machine Library' window helps me with Windows XP. Win7 is improved but still sluggish with aero but for me it's usable.

[intenost]

I haven't tested this scientifically but I noticed on my latest gen 17" MBP that when I changed the VMWare config to run on 2 cores, it got very sluggish, back to 1, and it's much better, even with Aero. I allocated 1.5 GB RAM. Might be worth checking.

[typemismatch]

What is generally considered better, installing the 32bit Win7 or the 64bit?

I just got F3 installed on my MBP (4GB Ram, Dual Core). It runs better than my 8 core Mac Pro ... which makes no sense

I will say that XP smokes it! but I'd really like to get Win7 figured.

thanks

[JeFurry]

I haven't found the cause of my speed problems yet, though I have found a few interesting things.

In 2D mode (with 3D support turned off in VM settings, and Aero Basic on Windows 7):

- I can use multiple monitors (I have 3)

- Graphics performance is slow on the primary screen (Apple Cinema Display, 30", 2560x1600)

- Graphics performance on the other two (smaller, 1680x1050 in portrait mode) screens is MUCH faster — it's fine!

In 3D mode (3D support on in VM settings, Aero Full on in Windows 7)

- Attempting to use multiple monitors fails — Windows can't detect the other monitors at all, and they simple show shrunken mirrors of the main monitor

- Graphics performance is abysmal, like using VNC over ADSL

Oh, and (with 3D mode on) the built-in VNC server doesn't work well at all in my setup — it shows the right half of the VM display on the left, the left half on the right, the whole image very dimmed, and no screen updates (although looking at the real screen shows that they are happening and remote control is working).

This still suggests the performance problem is related to the centre screen, either its size or its display card.

Are other users with performance problems using really large screens? Anyone got one of the new 27" iMacs to try?

-Jef.

PS Since I can get usable (but much slower than VMWare 2.0.6) performance in 2D mode, I'm not going to go back to 2.0.6 just yet, though I can't hold out more than a week or so.

[wtrose]

@JeFurry: you may be onto something with the multiple / large monitor suggestion. The Mac Pro where I had terrible performance has 2 23" Cinema Displays and a 19" older Dell monitor. I also have two video cards driving them. An ATI RadeonX1900 XT, 512MB driving the Cinema Displays and an nVidia GeForce 7300GT, 256MB driving the Dell monitor. I'm having serious performance issues even when I run the VMs in windowed mode, or full screen on only 1 of the Cinema Displays. I haven't even attempted to turn on multiple-monitor support inside the VMs.

The interesting thing is that I installed V3 on my MacBook Pro (2 years old and considerably less memory / hardware than my Mac Pro) and it screams. I'm running all the same software on both systems. To me, the most suspicious and relevant difference between the platforms is the amount of screen real estate to contend with.

I say "had" above regarding my Mac Pro performance because I went back to v2. Everything is fast again.

Would be great to hear from VMWare on this issue. I hope they are reading these forums and can get us some sort of patch or at least work-around in the near future.

[JeFurry]

I have a 27" iMac on the way (when Apple ship the Quad-Core i7 machines) and I'll try Fusion 3.0 on there if the problem not already been sorted by the time it arrives. Although I have many other Macs I could try (I'm a mac support guy, though not employed by Apple) none of them have the Aero-capable graphics cards, so there doesn't seem much point. That said, I'll try one anyway next week (it's 4:17 on Friday here).

Meanwhile, I too hope for more information or comment from VMWare staff, assuming they see this thread. If they haven't said anything by next week, perhaps we should mail them to ask if they would take a look at this thread and our well-intentioned ham-fisted attempts at discovery…

(VMWare staff, if/when you see this… sorry to whine and nag you. It's a little frustrating to be stuck with this problem. If there are any diagnostics I can perform or logs or VMX files I can upload to help diagnose this, please just let me know…)

[MaLaun]

I've downgrade to 2.0.6. Have to get work done. My linux VMs run fine with 3.0 but the windows vm's are just that tad too slow. Hope they have a fix comming, i'd prefer to run Snow-Leo in 64 bit mode...

[francis_carden]

I am using MACBOOK PRO 4GB. Using multiple VM's for a year now (all XP) , no performance issues. Just upgraded to 3.0 and whow, it's a dog. Very lack responsiveness on menuis/drop-downs and apps generally.

Here's something strange though, when I just opened the 2nd VM, the first VM suddenly goes from being a DOG to going like light speed and the second one goes like a DOG now!

Weird - VMWARE - YOU LISTENING

[nothingboy]

I've noticed that Windows 7 x64 is running a bit slow. I decided to see if the 32 bit version was just as bad. Interestingly, I found the 32 bit version to be more snappy. Things like the IE and file browser launch faster. Also, I don't have as much lag with scrolling like I do with the x64. The weird thing is that the graphics performance for aero went down from 3.5 to 2.9, but it seems less glitchy.

Just so you know, I'm using the exact same settings for both x86 and x64: 2 processors, 1536MB of Ram, 3d turned on. I've seen no difference between having 1 or 2 processors. I have a macbook pro 2.53Ghz C2D, 4GB ram, 9400m.

[Tony_Hoyle]

Similar here.. Macbook Pro, 4GB. VM is 1GB, 1 CPU. Booting the bootcamp VM (which is 90% of my usage of Fusion) just now took 4.5 minutes to get past the windows 7 loading screen, and ran unbearably slow. It seems completely random.. just the other day it was running a lot better. On my work machine it's always like that (rolled that one back to 2.0.6, as it's needed for work).

I'll try reimporting the bootcamp partition... maybe something is screwed up with the upgrade.

Edit: Interesting.. that's a lot faster. To login in under 30 seconds, like a native boot. It's automaticaly reinstalled vmware tools

It remains to be seen if it stays like that though.. it's been that fast before.

[JeFurry]

I'm now more convinced than ever that screen size is an issue (although this could be due to running software emulation rather than hardware acceleration). My primary screen is a 30" Cinema Display, 2560x1600, driven by an ATi Radeon HD 2600 XT with 256MB, and the VM is a 64-bit Windows 7 setup running in a 64-bit VM on a Mac Pro running in 64-bit mode (though I also tried 32-bit with no noticeable changes).

If I fully shut down the VM and reduce the main screen size to (e.g.) 1600x1200, and restart the VM, my desktop graphics performance index in W7/x64 goes from 2.9 up to 5.5 and everything responds fairly well. It's not silky smooth, but it's fine.

If I then change the Mac screen size back to 2560x1600, the VM gets completely confused — icons appear in the wrong place, windows won't drag outside a small are of the screen on the right side, and snap to borders that bear no relation to the actual screen borders. It gets completely screwed, changing the window size or fullscreen mode doesn't fix it, and I have to reboot the VM.

If I boot the VM with the Mac display size set to the full 2560x1600, the desktop graphics performance index is merely 2.9 again… and things are so slow that it's pretty unpleasant to use. Unity is utterly awful — even dragging windows around is cripplingly slow.

If I turn off 3D support, it's faster, and is usable, but it's still sluggish, though interestingly the performance index fails to even run, so it's hard to judge performance.

My primary need for the VM is to do Windows-specific development using the Eclipse framework, which as anyone who uses it will know, is pretty inefficient in terms of excessive screen redraws. Under Fusion 1.0 through to 2.0.6, it was perfectly usable. (The only problem I ever had from 2.0 onwards was vmwareuser.exe taking up 100% of the VM CPU if I used Unity mode, so I simply didn't use Unity mode. A poor workaround, but there it is. VMWare never successfully fixed this problem in any of the 7 versions of 2.x.) Now, under Fusion 3.x, even fullscreen is unusable without compromise and adjustment, and I'm quite surprised that VMWare staff aren't commenting much on this — it seems unlikely they're unaware of the problem, but there's little response being heard. When I say the VM is unusable, I really mean it literally — something as simple as a large drag-selection rectangle on the desktop is so slow it's updating its position as you drag the mouse only 1-2 times per second. Turning off 3D support and returning to (presumably) software rendering should never be faster than hardware!

I'm the Mac support guy at the Faculty of Maths, Computing and Technology at the Open University, I support quite a few Macs and VMs, and yet there's no way I can roll Fusion 3.0 out to our users in this state. I haven't been able to verify yet whether it affects all machines or just certain configurations (which seems likely), but my own poor experiences plus the number of threads here suggesting performance problems makes me pessimistic.

I'm willing to answer whatever questions and run whatever tests are needed to help diagnose this.

[m40]

I'm experiencing similar on my MBP + Snow Leopard. On Fusion 2, Windows 7 Beta 7100 32-bit ran fine. After upgrading to Fusion 3, that image still works fine and is as snappy as ever. Windows 7 64-bit (retail version) is sluggish, though. Increasing memory and running it as two processors didn't seem to help. Maybe the Fusion 2 graphics driver was better? The sluggishness is such a bother that I'm still using my W7 beta image.

[typemismatch]

Well, still no word from vmware on these issues so I took it into my own hands to solve. I installed a trial of PD5 - wow, what a difference. Runs fast, more cores, idles 50% less and no fuzzy window bars, aero is great on that.

I already own Fusion 3 so that was my bad.

[jmstacey]

To add more information to my report I'm running Windows 7 64-bit as well while running Mac OS X 10.6.2 with the 32-bit kernel. The Windows 7 VM was also run off the bootcamp partition. I tried importing the BootCamp installation, but it was still just as slow.

It's definitely not a CPU/IO issue on either side. On the Mac side the disk activity is low and there's more than 40% CPU idle while doing something such as dragging a window around in the VM. Additionally, Windows reports low disk activity and low CPU usage.

I installed Windows 7 Enterprise x86 and there is a noticeable improvement. There's still a slight delay/sluggish, but it is definitely better than the 64-bit version.

Both machines were given 1.5GB RAM and 1 processor.