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CSL5000
Contributor
Contributor

Fusion 7 graphics performance - Windows Experience Index drops

I re-ran the Windows Experience Index following the upgrade to Fusion 7.

My CPU and Hard Drive results remained the same, and my memory result (operations per second) increased from 5.5 to 7.4 which is great.

I saw my graphics performance drop however :-

* Desktop performance for Windows Aero went from 5.4 to 4.4

* 3D business and gaming graphics went from 4.7 to 4.5

Anyone else seeing similar results? I am running on an early 2011 MacBook Pro with a 2.3GHz Core i5, 8GB RAM, Intel HD Graphics 3000 512MB, and my VM is running with 2 cores and 4GB of memory assigned.

62 Replies
kungfuu72
Contributor
Contributor

I have also upgrade from the previously latest 6 version to the latest 7 and my index went from 6.0 to 5.5 for graphics... I tried different settings and increased the virtual memory and also upgrade the VM file from 10 to 11 but, alas, none of it increased the score.

And to reply to bajx - I have also noticed that dragging windows latency has slightly increased and is a bit more sluggish that it used to be.

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rdpiccard
Contributor
Contributor

Me, too.

Mac Pro, early 2009:  quad core, 12 GB RAM, ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024 MB; two 1920 x 1200 Apple displays.

Windows 7 x64, with two cores and 4 GB of RAM, using one of the displays full-screen.    Under latest V6, Windows Experience graphics and gaming graphics were both 6.0; under V7 graphics is 5.9 and gaming graphics is 5.8, with a wide range of shared graphics memory allocated in the settings.

When I first upgraded the virtual machine and installed the drivers, the mouse went crazy, but I was able to do a Mac-menu shutdown (it did NOT require a forced shutdown).  Then shutdown and re-start Fusion, followed by reboot and re-install (repair) the VMware drivers.  After that it was usable, but still a bit slower.

It looks like they have optimized for the latest hardware at the expense of somewhat older hardware.  Since they can see what hardware they are running on, that is truly lame.

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NicBolas
Contributor
Contributor

I'm experiencing similar issues with Fusion 7 and Windows 8 (slow re-draw of windows when dragging [especially Chrome], general sluggish feeling when scrolling and clicking in cells in Excel, etc.  Worked great in Fusion 6, but its definitely downhill in performance in Fusion 7.  I've re-installed VMWare Tools and set the hardware version to 11, but it doesn't seem to help.

Setting the hardware version back to 10 did help, but it feels a lot more sluggish than Fusion 6. 

Retina MacBook Pro

2.8GHz i7

16GB Memory

I bought the upgrade because the performance was so great the 6, I thought it could only get better..  Hopefully there is some sort of patch in the works.

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bajx
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Come on, VMWare.. Acknowledge! At least give as a 'we're looking into this issue experienced by multiple users' or 'this is standard and we do not plan to fix it.' That way, I know whether or not I should spend my time going back to VMWare 6 or moving to Parallels or wait for a solution that may be available shortly. This is a real issue and it is causing productivity loss for developers.

Some further information:

If I check 'Accelerate 3d graphics' in the virtual machine settings menu, the performance is atrocious - whether or not Aero is turned on or off. Of course, if I uncheck 'Accelerate 3d graphics', performance is fine - but I cannot run Aero if I wanted. Aero ran fine with no performance issues in VMWare 6. Further, it does not matter which option I choose - even '3d performance mode' - the performance is terrible. There is definitely something wrong with the implementation. I have a 2012 Macbook Pro Retina 2.8ghz, 16gb memory..

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hieu1
Contributor
Contributor

I'm a fan of VMWare Fusion on Mac but I tried version 7.0 yesterday and wasn't happy with the graphic performance so reverted back to 6.0.4. I'm happy that I was at least able to successfully revert back.

The problem I was noticing was about a one second lag with various Window management operations like maximizing and resizing with two external displays connected to the thunderbolt ports on my Macbook Pro. The external displays were 2560x1440 and 1920x1200.

My specs are:

Late 2013 Macbook Pro 15" (Retina) Quad i7 with 16GB and 1TB SSD.

VM: Windows 7 Enterprise with 4 Cores, 8GB memory and 200MB SSD storage allocated

Hopefully these problems get fixed in 7.0.1. When they do, I'm sure 7.x will be a worthy upgrade.

Btw. I did try Windows 8 and that seemed to perform better but no idea why.

Now back to getting some work done.

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ColoradoMarmot
Champion
Champion

You're starving the host - on a quad-core machine, individual VM's need to have <4 cores (which means 2).

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ColoradoMarmot
Champion
Champion

This has been debated many times in this forum.  Virtual cores don't count - I haven't ever seen VMWare change the longstanding N-1 recommendation to avoid starving the host (would love a pointer if they did - don't want to give outdated advice!).

The v7 issues aren't universal, but aren't exactly isolated either.  Eliminating as many variables as possible is always a good troubleshooting tactic - and that's one to try and see if things improve.

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Rohland
Contributor
Contributor

Had a call with a VMWare support agent and managed to get 7 running, albeit on the V6 hardware profile. I could reproduce the issue and provided them with a video. To run 7 with the V6 hardware profile, install 7 then head to VM settings, compatibility, click advanced options and select Hardware Version 10. When launching your VM, it will ask to upgrade the hardware profile, choose No.

It sounds like they may be working on a patch. Until then, you can run V7 in this mode without experiencing graphics performance issues.

Hope this helps.

ColoradoMarmot
Champion
Champion

Cool, good to know!

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CSL5000
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks - helpful.  Reverting to hardware profile v10 improved Aero graphs performance from 4.4 to 4.7 for me (still down from 5.4 originally); no improvement in the 3D graphics.

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

user, replying to you, but it is a reply to all.

Some people mention they repaired the VMware Tools setup using the "repair" option, I sound a bit like a broken record now as I have said it many times before, but for the sake of having an additional troubleshooting step and knowing that repair isn't the same as a full blown uninstall/reinstall (even while it should be)

If there are VMware Tools problems (video card problems might be) it is best to:

- uninstall VMware Tools

- reboot guest OS

- install VMware Tools

- reboot guest OS

That has fixed many more vmware tools problems for me as "repair vmware tools" ever had.

If you are not comfortable with the steps above then you can take a snapshot before going through that motion OR make a full blown backup of your VMs.

hope this helps,

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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bajx
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Wila,

I have done this already. It did not improve 3d graphics performance.

Taking the hardware profile back to Fusion 6.0 increased performance a bit - where it is at least usable - but it is not as fast as when I was running VMWare Fusion 6. This is a legit problem and it does not feel to me like VMWare is even acknowledging an issue here.

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PaulDND
Contributor
Contributor

I've got a brand new Macbook Pro... (Not the upgraded graphics)

My office 2013 is so slow when scrolling... even mouse.., On Word and Visio...

I've tried to downgrade my hardware version.. but I can't 'apply' settings (VM off), anyone else have this issue, its greyed out when I try to goto 10.

I remember this working great on Windows 7 on an older laptop..

I was originally on 2 cores, I've upped it to 4 cores... I've also tried upping the graphic memory limit. nothing.

/PJH

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BrianSB
Contributor
Contributor

I have not yet upgraded to fusion 7. Every time I upgrade either a major release (and sometimes even a minor release), it turns into an all day project and I frequently end up reverting to my previous version.

My advice to other users is to ALWAYS thoroughly peruse the forums before upgrading Fusion. Like many other users here I run an MBP Retina and this seems to be an extremely common configuration. There are many of us here all reporting similar issues. Most of us are professionals, and I for one, greatly appreciate the level of detail other users provide when describing a problem.

Personally, I simply don't have the time to donate a day here and there to beta test VMware's latest "even better" releases. I wish they would beta test their product better BEFORE release rather than concentrating on getting upgrade fees.

Like many others, I like to keep everything up-to-date on my machines, and VMware makes this extremely difficult by releasing sub-performing and problematic upgrades. In fact, I have come to dread the dialog that pops up telling me that a new Fusion release is available. There is no feeling of eager anticipation here. Only that feeling of doom, that sooner or later I am going to have to spend a day of frustration trying to work around all the things that VMware didn't bother with testing.

Thanks to others here for your extremely helpful reporting!!

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bajx
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Once again, this issue is still unresolved and I do not see a single acknowledgment from VMWare that any of us are having this graphics performance issue with Fusion 7. What do I need to do to get a 'We'll take a look at it.' from VMWare?

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Linjo
Leadership
Leadership

If you read the whole thread you can see that krd from VMware have posted:

"Ok, thanks for confirming you updated VMware tools too.  Sorry, you experienced this performance issue.  We will investigate further."

Is that what you are after?

// Linjo

Best regards, Linjo Please follow me on twitter: @viewgeek If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".
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bajx
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Linjo wrote:

If you read the whole thread you can see that krd from VMware have posted:

"Ok, thanks for confirming you updated VMware tools too.  Sorry, you experienced this performance issue.  We will investigate further."

Is that what you are after?

// Linjo

Yes. I missed it. Thank-you for pointing that out.

Now we're just waiting on an update from krd.

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krd
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

It appears there are multiple issues here that are best addressed through the service channels.  Some customers had issues with tools upgrade that prevented them using 3d acceleration. Once tools were updated correctly, some reported acceptable performance, but others still reported performance issues. There are engineers looking at these issues.

Personally, I do not work with Fusion product so I'll let other provide updates.

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nickd3000
Contributor
Contributor

I was having similar graphics problems with the latest fusion update.

My machine is an 2014 iMac, I was getting slow scrolling in chrome, sluggish windows performance etc,

(2.9 Ghz intel core i5, 8g ram)

I changed the "Use Hardware Version" from 11 to 10 and rebooted the virtual machine, this fixed the graphic performance errors for me, my windows performance scores for graphics went from 4.1 to 5.9, chrome scrolls smoothly again etc.

This might be worth trying if you are having the same issues - If you do try remember to report back to this forum and let us know Smiley Happy

Here are screenshots of the windows performance scores before and after i downgraded the hardware version:

Version 11:

score00.PNG

Version 10:

score01_Switched to hardware version 10.PNG

As you can see this has made quite a big difference to Processor, Graphics, 3D and Disk.

Not sure why the new hardware version suffers from such poor performance but I'm surprised VMWare released it like this, either without testing it or without informing us of the issue.

cheers,

Nick

Yroktrch
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for this Nick,

Visual Studio and Chrome are now usable again.  Can't believe VMware pushed out such a shoddy update. I'll definitely think again before upgrading to a point release again.

Cheers

Steve.

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