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sockmonkey72
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Fusion: text selection lag

Hi,

I'm experiencing a strange problem with a Windows 10 VM on my work computer, which is a Mac Pro 2009 with Quad-Core Xeon, 10GB RAM and an NVIDIA GForce GT 120 graphic card. I have two displays attached. Everything works great, except that text selection with the mouse is really laggy, as in it takes about 0.5 seconds after click-drag for the text to get highlighted. Typing, clicking, etc. all works as expected. I've tried launching the VM on both monitors, the same behavior occurs.

On my laptop (newer Core i7 15"), I'm not seeing this at all.

Any similar experiences here? Any ideas about what I can do or where I can start looking for a solution?

Thanks,

Jeremy

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hello Jeremy,

Is this in all programs? Eg. do you see the lag in notepad.exe as well as in your browser?

--

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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sockmonkey72
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Yes, the lag is in all programs. Browser, Text editor, wordpad.exe. Strange.

Perhaps of interest: if I leave the mouse button depressed for a few seconds, the interface somehow "catches up" and then text selection is as it should be. I've never encountered this behavior before, but can reproduce it on a newly created host user account, as well.

Thanks

Jeremy

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi,

I asked if it was in more as one program as some part of the office suite might try to use hardware graphics acceleration, as far as I know, wordpad would not fall in that category.

Similar laggy behavior makes me think of DNS issues, eg.. first DNS server times out and then the 2nd one gives the correct answer.

But... why on earth would a clipboard copy need a DNS server or internet connection at all?

Yes I read about all the 'Windows 10 sends everything to MS' stuff and some of those reports are worrying.

Yes I seriously doubt it is related to your problem.

As I have no other ideas at the top of my head, could you attach a vmware.log file from the trouble VM here?

Maybe that sheds a light on this case.

--

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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sockmonkey72
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I made a copy of the VM and ran it on my laptop without any noticeable lag. So VMWare is not liking something about my hardware. This is the same box which isn't getting OpenGL 3/DirectX 10 under Fusion 8 Pro. It's not the newest computer, but it's well within the supported specs.

Note that I'm just selecting text -- click and drag -- not copying anything to the clipboard.

A similar VM using Parallels on the same hardware does not exhibit this behavior FWIW.

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi,

Yes sounds like VMware Fusion doesn't like something about your host (hardware or host OS and config) which is why I still like to see a vmware.log file from the host where you have the problems.

re. clipboard, I stand corrected, you are triggering the drag and drop interface. Not exactly an operation that requires much graphical power either.

Don't think Windows 10 has a 3d animation on that (guess I'll have to check)

--

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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sockmonkey72
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

OK, here you are: thanks for looking at it.

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi,

The log mentions that there's a CPU microcode available for your CPU, but that wouldn't have anything to do with the drag and drop (DnD) lag.

Another thing I am noticing is that apparently the VMware Tools DnD is timing out.

What happens if -with the VM shut down- you change the settings on "drag and drop" for your virtual machine?

That is uncheck the following option: menu -> Virtual Machine -> Settings -> Isolation -> checkbox "enable Drag and Drop"

This will disable the VMware Tools enhancement on the drag and drop interface to drag and drop files between two virtual machines.

If you need that feature you can always enable it again later on, I'm just curious to see if disabling it makes a difference for the lag you are seeing.

PS: As you just bought Fusion 8, do note that you can open a ticket with VMware Support as well.

The community forums here are driven by peers helping peers, so often you'll have another user trying to help out (like now)

To get official support please go to: Fusion Support and open a ticket at File a Support Request

--

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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sockmonkey72
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

What is the advantage/disadvantage/relevance of a CPU microcode? The CPU is running the latest official EFI firmware, in any case: MP41.0081.B07.

I'll try the DnD thing in a few minutes -- I'm in the middle of doing a full backup before a clean install, just to rule a software cause out. DnD timing out could certainly explain the lag, although I have no explanation for the timeout itself.

Thanks!

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sockmonkey72
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

OK, on a completely fresh system/formatted drive, nothing installed but VMWare, I'm seeing the same lag. Very strange.

Disabling DnD doesn't fix the problem. I guess I'll be moving this up to support once my serial number appears in the registry...

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wila
Immortal
Immortal

Hi,

EFI is something else, EFI is the firmware that sits on your motherboard (or as apple calls it "logic board")

Intel CPUs have errata, that means that intel actually releases updates for their CPUs after they have been released, they do so in the form of microcode.

Modern operating systems usually have a mechanism to load that microcode right after boot.

This means that it doesn't actually change the code that runs on the CPU permanently, just corrects it on boot.

I've looked around a bit and while I know of microcode update tools for linux/windows/vSphere I have not found any for OS X.

As this is very techy and extremely unlikely to have anything to do with the problem you see, my suggestion is to just ignore the remark (and lines in the log mentioning there's an update)

Yes, best to open a support incident for this.

--
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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admin
Immortal
Immortal

Hi there,

Welcome to community!

NVIDIA GForce GT 120 graphic card is not in the DX10 support list of Fusion. Would you please try the following workarounds and give me feedback?


a. Increase processor more than 2 cores. By shut down VM->Setting->Processors and Memory->Processors.

b. use hardware 11. By shut down VM->Setting->Compatibility->Advanced Option->Use Hareware Version


Thanks,

Candy

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sockmonkey72
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi Candy1014,

I've already been in touch with support about the text selection issue (which is also visible using a VM created under VMWare Pro 7 IN VMWare Pro 7 [HW 11], as well, so unrelated to the hardware version). Disabling 3D acceleration entirely caused the problem to go away, although that's not a reasonable workaround long-term. Anyway, apparently the issue has been passed up to engineering, so maybe there will be some sort of fix in the future.

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