Fusion Pro 12 Graphics Perfomance Poor

[krisk09]

Just updated to 12 Pro from 11.5.6 Pro.  The graphics performance is noticeably slower.  Tried reinstalling VMware tools and tried different Display settings with no change.  Just using some apps for programming.  In the apps you can basically see it slowly rebuild a toolbar for instance one icon at a time basically.

VM is Windows 10 Pro with latest updates.  2 CPU and 4gb dedicated to it.

Mac is a 2017 MBP 3.1ghz i7 with 16gb ram and an AMD Radeon Pro 560 4gb with MacOS 10.15.6

[helge_vm]

...could you find anything helpful in my mksSandbox.log-files? What i tried in between: the hardwareversion has been on 16, i increased it to 19 but also didn't change anything...it is not really useable...thanks

[MihailMladenov]

Sorry for the late response. There doesn't seem to be anything suspicious in your mksSandbox.log that indicates what's causing the issue. One thing you can do is to go into the "Advanced" tab in your VM's settings inside Fusion's UI and set the "Trobleshooting" option to "Performance". This will make Fusion log stats that are useful for tracking down performance issues. Those stats are logged inside a "Stats" folder in your VM's directory. You can try running Fusion with that option on then attaching the "Stats" folder alongside the newly created mksSandbox.log .

[helge_vm]

...here is a zip with all requested files: stats folder and vmware.log were newly created while the mksSandbox.log didn't change so no new file for this one. Graphics are really not usable which is quite bad for me as I wanted to use the VM to run some 32-bit Apps which don't run on Big Sur...so for the moment I am quite disappointed as on the same machine using Mojave as host and guest was running smoothly...

[helge_vm]

Anything new?

[joserfonseca]

Hi @helge_vm .  Thanks for the logs.  They gave us some leads.  Your particular issue (with macOS guest) seems unrelated to the other graphics performance regression previously reported on this thread (which were windows guest specific.)  We're investigating.

[joserfonseca]

@helge_vm the performance bottlenneck you see seems tied to your particular CPU generation plus the lack of VMware Tools in the guest, plus limitations introduced on macOS Big Sur (namely the inability to install 3rd party kernel extensions.)

Please try (re)installing VMware Tools as described on https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1032440 if you can.  It should hopefully avoid the performance bottleneck you experience.

[helge_vm]

@joserfonseca

Thanks for replying: Strange thing is that VMware Tools should've installed...in between I reinstalled them, sadly no change. I attached a desktop screen recording to see what it looks like, it looks&feels very sticky and slowy/sluggish...or when seeing the video do you think this the maximum that is achievable on this hardware? As mentioned before, on the same machine when running Mojave as guest and host it felt so fluid that you could see no difference what is guest and what is host---now with Big Sur it is not really usable...

[joserfonseca]

@helge_vm , there was some confusion from my part: after further exchanges, reinstalling Tools isn't really expected to make a difference, because macOS guests graphics will use legacy VGA, with or without Tools.

Yes, the problem is tied to the host macOS version (Mojave -> Big Sur, which required radical changes to the way virtualization works) and Ivy Bridge CPUs, which are particularly slow for some operations.  We can reproduce the issue, and are investigating potential solutions.

In the meanwhile, you could try using Apple's paravirtualized graphics device, as described in https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/81657 .  There are known caveats, as described on that article, but overall it might be a more usable solution.

[helge_vm]

@joserfonseca ...have tried it but did not work: when I inserted those lines and started I got a message saying "this vmachine may get instable when using multiple cores", choice was either "continue" or "shut down". When clicking "continue" the boot process stalled/got stuck at approx. 3/4 of the progress bar before the Apple logo appears,..

After removing those lines the vm started normally...

[helge_vm]

@joserfonseca Hi there, anything new with this issue? In the meantime I updated from Big Sur to Monterey but sadly no change/improvements with this issue...would be glad to hear if there is something in the making?

[markshel]

We have reproduced the issue internally and expect the performance to be better in a future release.  The issue is specific to the changes made when the host is updated to macOS Big Sur.  The performance problem is worse on older CPUs such as Ivy Bridge.  The performance issue scales with the screen resolution so reducing the resolution (or turning off retina resolution support in display settings) might lessen the problem for the time being.

[wlochner]

FYI, audio input is unfortunately also not really usable.

I do seem to get a bit better video performance once I disabled “Use full resolution for Retina display”.

I am on a 12.0.1 16-inch 2019 MacBook Pro, 64 GB memory, Intel UHD graphics, 2.4 GHz 8-core Intel Core i9

[wlochner]

FYI, I am up and running again. I had to go to the Apple Store to get firmware and factory default macOS (Big Sur) reinstalled, as online tech support after 4 hours could not get the machine reinitialized. after two hours in the store, it turned out you need a LAN connection - WiFi was unsuccessful at home and in the store. I was told that they can only get macOS down to the version that originally shipped with my Mac in November 2021.

From there, I did a restore from a timemachine backup disk from an older Mac, to Catalina, which per website is supported on the last generation of Intel based Macbook Pro (2019).. Well, that did not work, but it at least initialized the disk to Catalina, it did not boot, though. Once again, into the disk utility to re-install Catalina over WiFi - no success. So I tried Ethernet LAN again - and, voila, it worked!

Next step was installing Fusion 11 from an old timemachine backup DMG image. It worked.

Then I copied over an older macOS (Catalina) VM image, but had to figure out how to downgrade the VM. In Compatibility, I selected the last version (16). Heureka, it booted successfully.

So, in summary, after about 10 hours of installation attempts / work, plus 2 hours travel, I am up and running on my new Mac, on Catalina as host, Catalina as guest, and Fusion 11.

Performance for video is good, close to native, and audio input/output is working fine as well per a test with Skype.

Needless to say that I will not upgrade to a newer version of Fusion nor touch the macOS host version. I probably will clone the VM and see how the performance looks like on macOS Monterey as the guest OS.

Hope this helps.

[joserfonseca]

I'm sorry to hear you had to go to such extent to attain the previous performance.

I'm surprised using an old Fusion version was necessary, as my understanding was that performance of Fusion 12 on Catalina was the same as Fusion 11.  If that's not the case, then there might be an additional performance regression we are not aware.

At any rate, if Catalina works best for you, it makes sense to keep it as long as sustainable.  But when Catalina goes out of support, I wouldn't recommend continuing using.  Hopefully by then a newer version with Fusion with the performance fix is out, and it meets your needs.

If/when time to upgrade macOS comes, I'd recommend you to install the newer/latest macOS on an external USB drive, test Fusion, and make sure it all meets your needs before actually upgrading.

[wlochner]

I have not tested all permutations - I hope you understand why. However, I did run Fusion 12 on my older Mac with Catalina as host. Performance was bad.

[ColoradoMarmot]

Mac guest graphics performance is always problematic, especially with pre-big-sur versions.  There's simply no way to enable 3d acceleration for those guests, and a whole lot of the OS requires it.  Some things simply won't work at all.

There's a preview of 3d acceleration support for a big sur/big sur combo, but I haven't tried it since I got my M1. 

[wlochner]

My problems started with Big Sur and Fusion 12. Things were fine before. Also, my old Macbook Pro 2012, 16 GB memory, 2.3 Ghz Quadcore works fine with same Catalina host, Catalina guest and Fusion 11. 

Anyway, I would hope that VMware QA and Development would have a look at this scenario of Monterey macOS and Fusion 12

[tomntomn]

I'm just dropping a few lines here to let you know that I have the same problem on iMAC. 

macOS Monterey Version 12.2.1 iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020) Processor 3,8 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i7 Memory 64 GB 2667 MHz DDR4 AMD Radeon Pro 5700 XT 16 GB.

I usually run 2-3 VMs at once, but even with one VM I'm experiencing the problems outlined by the OP. I have tried different settings but with little effect..