Incredibly slow Fusion 3.0.1 with Snow Leopard on MBPro

[cindycc]

I have a MacBook Pro with dual CPU and 4 GB memory - have been running Fusion nicely for two years. I upgraded to Snow Leopard, and upgraded to Fusion 3.0.1. What a mistake - it runs so slow (Windows XP) that it takes about 5-10 min. to start up the Windows and log in, then another 5-10 min. to get to the Windows desktop. I have reinstalled VMWare Tools - no change. I notice that this problem is shared by others - is there a fix other than going to a different system such as Paralells? I would like to stay with VMWare, but not if it is unusable.

Waiting for response from VMWare.

CC

[lugesm2]

cincycc -

While I don't have a solution, I also have a very slow system since installing Fusion 3.01 and Snow Leopard.

I am running a 24" iMac @ 2.4Ghz with 4GBmemory. OSX 10.6.2, Fusion 3.01, Windows 7 (latest updates). AERO DISABLED ON WINDOWS 7

I have just run some carefully-controlled comparison tests between my Mac system (above) and an old HP notebook computer. The HP notebook is also running Windows 7 with AERO disabled.

Results:

After Power-up the HP requires 44 seconds to launch Win7 and settle down.

After Power-up the iMac with Fusion requires 1 minute 19 seconds. (Win 7 had been shut down under Fusion earlier)

After Power-up the iMac with Fusion requires 48 seconds (This time "Resuming" Win 7 which was Suspended before Power down)

After Win7 Fully launched and settled, launching TurboTax takes 36 seconds on the HP notebook.

After Win7 fully launched and settled, launching TurboTax takes 46 seconds on the iMac with Fusion 3.01.

These results are really irritating in light of the fact that Fusion 2.0x and WinXP was ALWAYS faster on the iMac (and slower on the HP) under all conditions.

One other observation: If I launch Fusion 3.01/Win7 and wait for Win7 to settle out; suspend Win7; shut down Fusion

THEN, restart Fusion 3.01/Win7 . . . . it only requires about 11 seconds for Win7 to launch and settle. I am assuming the difference is that (if the iMac has NOT been powered down after the first Suspension of Win7) some of the data from the first launch of Fusion/Win7 must be still retained in my iMac's memory.

Any thoughts ?

[DaleRaymond]

I am experiencing the same conditions on a new MacPro running SnowLeopard with a Mac 24" Cinema display. (Monitor resolution; 1821 x 1024 ) I have the 8-core 2.66GHz Nehalems with 6GB available. I'm running VM Fusion v3.0.1 with Win7 installed.

I've run Win7's Performance Information & Tools available within the Control Panel with some very disappointing results;

With a potential high score of 8,

Processor sub-score = 4.8

Memory at 4.5Gb = 4.5

Graphics = 5.9

Gaming Graphics = 4.1 , . . . (no, I'm not a gamer, but the score indicates coordination between processors and display/video capabilities.

I'm experiencing very slow screen response,

Saving the Virtual Machine state can take up to 8-minutes,

Resume from Suspension can take up to ~90-seconds before the desktop reappears, with full availability at ~150=seconds,

Almost any activity seems to result in a high rate of drive access,

Desperately looking for a solution. I've acquired one of Nvidia's Quadro 4800 video accelerators with 1.5GB of video memory, but I'm quickly losing my optimism for Fusion's place on my task bar-

-Dale Raymond

[wingdo]

I'm glad I found this thread as now I know I am not alone. Since moving to Snow Leopard and 3.0.1 my XP system is dog slow.

2.33 GHz MBP, 3GB RAM, ATI Radeon card, 1GB given to the VM, nothing else running on OS X and I can take a shower between when I launch VMWare and when the icons on the XP desktop finally show up.

I did not have this issue with Leopard and Fusion 2.0.6

[no1tmorrow]

So did anyone come to a solution on this? My XPPro since version 3 is dang near unusable and it also affects my performance on my Mac OS....

Thanks

Thom

[DaleRaymond]

All-

I've detailed the issues in requesting complimentary customer support and have been contacted by VMware Technical Support last Friday.

Since then, I've spent many hours in tracking and isolating the issue with direction by Tech-Support along with numerous automated response e-mails.

Yesterday, I was involved in an hours-long virtual-control conference with a rep to understand and isolate the problem. This seemed to center on removing VMware Tools, and any traces of its existence on my client. This process involved following the complete instructions on http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1001354 in an attempt to clean my Win7 registries of VMware Tools data branches under Host Keys Local Machine found by running regedit from run. Then, a clean install of VMware Tools was undertaken and a system log dump (752K zipped!) was forwarded to my contact. I learned more about Win7 than I needed to know.

To date, we've reduced my core availability from 4 down to a single core, dropped my available ram from 5-gigs to 1024Mb, and any resolution to the speed problem appears to be as far away as when I initially began. I am estimating that VM Fusion reduces screen response rate by an order of magnitude, with a very high rate of accompanying disc access activity. Mouse control commands often take as long as 30-seconds to show response in Wildfire, with horribly slow refresh rates on executing a command taking 8-10-seconds. This is unworkable.

Last week, in an attempt to accelerate screen/video response I ordered an Nvidia Quadro 4800 for Mac, (~$1500) only to discover that there is only one connector on the market that enables me to connect an Apple 24" cinema display to my MacPro. This 4-component set (complete with 5-v power brick!) made by Gefen consists of a Mini-DVI connector which couples into a small 'converter-box' with i/o ports which then connects to a DVI cable, connecting into my video card (Nvidia GeForce GT 120) This little rig is priced at an unbelievable $149, . . . I ordered one! I'm desperate!

I'm sending the new Quadro back. I'm sending the Gefen Mini-DVI connector back. And I'll probably buy a large monitor and dock for my wife's HP laptop which is running the software with fine speed and reliability under Vista (yeah, I know, . . )! My back-up plan involves a new laptop running Win-7. This will be more cost effective than attempting to run a MacPro with a "bag on the side" of it. I need to be able to be productive, and running a client system within SnowLeopard does not appear to be effective.

Though I'm still waiting for a response from VMware, . . .

-Dale Raymond

[no1tmorrow]

I uninstalled VMWare Tools and re-installed them. I have to reboot my XP every morning since it stops at either: when I click login after my password or at applying computer settings. I have let it sit for 10+ minutes with no luck. This sucks.

Thanks

Thom

[francis_carden]

I indeed went through this whole process with VMWARE (conference call / webex with 3 people from VMWARE). I seem to have the problem back - I've just posted it in another thread then found this. I too am MacBook Pro. I wonder if the common theme is that the VM originated from a PC, i.e. not Fusion but VMware native! That's the only thing I can think of. With 2 VM's running, the one that comes up second seems to be the slow one... If the slow one is brought up with no other VM, it seems to be pretty quick. This shows the settings must be OK and some conflict is going on!!!!

This is 100% the exact same symptoms I was getting in Nov, pre 3.01

[DaleRaymond]

Sorry for not posting earlier, but I just received CindyCC's response, and needed to bring everyone up to date;

During last week's marathon WebEx session with VMware-India. We've un-installed fully all traces of VMware-Fusion v3.0.1, leaving VM-Tools intact with Win7 inside it. We cleaned a few registers (?) to complete the first phase.

We then downloaded a clean version of Fusion v3.0 build and re-installed it. After a full re-boot of the host, we again started VM-Fusion and booted Win7. On attempting to run Wildfire, I encountered the same slow command response to mouse-clicks and motions with incredibly slow screen re-fresh and command response.

The issue has been reported within VMware's engineering organization as a possible bug.

My tech-support Kumar Saravanan has indicated that he believes it may be an issue with not handling OpenGL code correctly. OpenGl within the Windows environments drives most 3-D and vector-based and faceted rendering applications.

The ability to effectively work within an OpenGl environment was key to my adopting the platform and application path that so many had had such good luck with when running Fusion under Windows XP. Being an early adopter of v3.0 & v3.0.1 running Windows7 has proven to be unworkable, and I've retrenched with a new large HP flatscreen driven from my wife's HP dv6000 laptop running ProE Wildfire 4.

Also waiting a response from WMware, . . . Though by now, I've wasted enough effort on their beta version. I'll wait for them to try and fix it.

[gooeymac]

I seem to have specific conflicts with the Mac side's Mail and iTunes whenever Fusion is only active - even with 2 suspended machines (launched, but no machines running) My iMac becomes almost unusable due to the delays. It seems to be a memory leak of some sort as it gets better after a period of time that I put the machines into a suspended state. When either XP or W7 is running, my iMac comes to a near standstill.

[admin]

I seem to have specific conflicts with the Mac side's Mail and iTunes whenever Fusion is only active - even with 2 suspended machines (launched, but no machines running) My iMac becomes almost unusable due to the delays. It seems to be a memory leak of some sort as it gets better after a period of time that I put the machines into a suspended state. When either XP or W7 is running, my iMac comes to a near standstill.

Sounds like your computer may be starved for RAM. How much does your iMac have, and how much have you given to XP and Win7?

[Entegy]

I seem to have specific conflicts with the Mac side's Mail and iTunes whenever Fusion is only active - even with 2 suspended machines (launched, but no machines running) My iMac becomes almost unusable due to the delays. It seems to be a memory leak of some sort as it gets better after a period of time that I put the machines into a suspended state. When either XP or W7 is running, my iMac comes to a near standstill.

Sounds like your computer may be starved for RAM. How much does your iMac have, and how much have you given to XP and Win7?

If he indeed starving the host for RAM, why would it affect him when they're suspended as well?

[admin]

I seem to have specific conflicts with the Mac side's Mail and iTunes whenever Fusion is only active - even with 2 suspended machines (launched, but no machines running) My iMac becomes almost unusable due to the delays. It seems to be a memory leak of some sort as it gets better after a period of time that I put the machines into a suspended state. When either XP or W7 is running, my iMac comes to a near standstill.

Sounds like your computer may be starved for RAM. How much does your iMac have, and how much have you given to XP and Win7?

If he indeed starving the host for RAM, why would it affect him when they're suspended as well?

I read that as "even after I suspend a virtual machine, things are slow for a while but get better eventually" which might be due to flushing the vmem file to disk and OS X paging other apps back in once the RAM is available.

[Entegy]

I seem to have misread that sentence. Never mind.