Memory requirements / tips for VMware Fusion 6 on Mavericks?

[arang]

I updated my MBA with 4 GB of RAM to Mavericks today.

I have a Windows 7 VM configured for 1200 MB of RAM, which is suspended.  Trying to resume it results in a “not enough physical memory” message.  The logs show, in part, the following.

2013-10-23T17:18:17.312-06:00| vmx| I120: OvhdMem_PowerOn: lib/overheadmem:   paged   626512 nonpaged    37106 anonymous    18340

2013-10-23T17:18:17.312-06:00| vmx| I120: OvhdMem_PowerOn: initial admission: paged   590517 nonpaged    36271 anonymous     5715

2013-10-23T17:18:17.312-06:00| vmx| I120: VMMEM: Initial Reservation: 1270MB (MainMem=1200MB)

2013-10-23T17:18:17.312-06:00| vmx| I120: MemSched_PowerOn: balloon minGuestSize 104857 (80% of min required size 131072)

2013-10-23T17:18:17.313-06:00| vmx| I120: MemSched: reserved mem (in MB) min 128 max 2456 recommended 2456

2013-10-23T17:18:17.313-06:00| vmx| I120: PShare: enabled 1 adaptive 1 scanRate [16, 400]

2013-10-23T17:18:17.313-06:00| vmx| I120: MemSched: pg 590517 np 36271 anon 5715 mem 307200

2013-10-23T17:18:17.313-06:00| vmx| I120: MemSched: numvm 1 locked pages: num 0 max 180092

2013-10-23T17:18:17.313-06:00| vmx| I120: MemSched: locked Page Limit: host 188284 config 628736 dynam -1

2013-10-23T17:18:17.313-06:00| vmx| I120: MemSched: minmempct 50 minalloc 0 admitted 0

2013-10-23T17:18:17.313-06:00| vmx| I120: Msg_Post: Error

2013-10-23T17:18:17.313-06:00| vmx| I120: [msg.memsched.preNotEnoughMem] Not enough physical memory is available to power on this virtual machine with its configured settings.

Activity Monitor reports no swap used (unsurprisingly—Mavericks memory compression is working well), 5.26 GB of virtual memory, 1.08 GB wired memory.  vm_stat shows that some active memory would have to be reduced (or compressed pages swapped out) for 1.2 GB, or 307200 pages, to be wired down:

Mach Virtual Memory Statistics: (page size of 4096 bytes)

Pages free:                               89289.

Pages active:                            285658.

Pages inactive:                          183772.

Pages speculative:                        20062.

...

Pages stored in compressor:              328288.

Pages occupied by compressor:            180158.

How large of a VM should I expect to be able to run on this system with Mavericks? I've successfully run up to 2 GB under Mountain Lion, though that's probably pushing things a bit far. I haven't tried rebooting yet as I'm still downloading some software updates.

....

Well, I let the machine sit for a few minutes, and apparently something cleared up — I was able to resume the VM just now.  This does feel like a bug, though, in either Mavericks new VM subsystem or in how VMware is interacting with it.  My question still stands; any ideas on what a reasonable VM size is that I can reliably use here?

Message was edited by: Anton Rang (added “it works now” paragraph)

[doncalpe]

I see exactly the same behaviour as arang. ( MBA 4GB, 1024 MB of RAM, Fusion 6.01, Windows 7)  since upgrading to Maverick. The error message suggests a setting with 96 MB RAM which obviously does not make sense at all. I can only start the VM after a new reboot of the MBA. ( and after one opening and closing of Fusion I get the same error message again. ) I had no problems running Mountain Lion with the same configuration and guess the issue is related to the compressed memory in Mavericks.

[f1champ]

I am having the exact same problem. Most of the time I can't start the VM, it keeps asking me to reduce the memory to 996Mb or even lower to start the VM.

[qanomaly]

Same here, 4 GiB MBA. I tried using 5.x on Mavericks, the same error occured there as well. Upgrade to 6.0.1 didn't bring any change.

Worked flawlessly under Mountain Lion with 5.x. I think this is a bug, as a collegue with 16 GiB MBP occasionally encounters the same issue.

I also noticed that the recommendation from VMware Fusion about the memory for the VM fluctuates wildly, for me from 200 MiB to 1.4 GiB.

[rikkelange]

Same problem here, 2GB MBA, 1GB located for Windows 7, ran well on Mountain Lion with 5.x. Upgraded to Mavericks and 6.0.1. Now I get the same error.

Update: Parallels 9 saved me for now, waiting for an update from vmware.

Message was edited by: rikkelange

[jasturon]

I am having the same issue with VMware Fusion v6.0.1 with W7 on a MBA with 4GB, giving the VM 1024MB. I would regularly suspend and resume the W7 VM, but now every time I resume the W7 VM, I get a series of Fusion error messages like "Not enough physical memory is available to power on this virtual machine with its configured settings.", but if I clean boot, W7 starts without any issues.  I had never seen any of these messages before upgrading to Mavericks.

[vasilisp]

Same issue here... With VMWare Fusion 5 I didn't have those issues, only with version 6...

[RJIn]

See how mach RAM is free when Fusion and VM is not running from activity monitor.

If you have less then RAM what you have assigned to the VM, it might be the issue.

Also, there is a feature added in Mavericks about "App Nap". Did you tried preventing app nap?

To Do So:-

1. Shutdown VM and Quit Fusion.

2. Go to Applications Folder and right click on Vmware Fusion

3. Select Get Info

4. Select the option "Prevent App Nap"

5. Startup the VM and see

--Thanks

[vasilisp]

I do have available memory to use, also I assume it should use swap memory also ...

I had that issue with Mountain lion also, which didn't has that issue.

I tried Parallels and it is working as it should. I close VMWare fusion 6, opened parallels and could start 3 VMs, while with VMWare I couldn't start one...

[jblaty]

Same issue on my MacBook Air running Mavericks.  I have turned off App Nap.  This wasn't a problem with Mountain Lion.  Perhaps this has something to do with Mavericks memory management?

[Sorthum]

Filed this with VMware support.

"Your Support Request has been tagged to a Bug, which is under investigation by the engineering team"

So ideally we'll see something on this soon.

[thejapanese]

Hi,

I'm using 6.01 with 16GB of RAM. How much RAM would you give the guest? If Im using 3GB of RAM for the guest (Win 7 x64) the Win7 Performance Information and Tools has a RAM Index of 5,5.

If I change the RAM to 4GB than the Index goes up to around 7,6.

So 4GB of RAM is much better?

[xtian_]

Yet another 'me too'!

After upgrading to Mavericks and Fusion 6.0.1 on a MBA with 4GB RAM I can barely start my Windows7 VM but for the "Not enough physical memory ..." errors. I believe it is possible after a full physical reboot but the performance and stability of the VM are so atrocious that the VM is unusable when running anyway (MS Office crashes frequently and consistently). I was running the VM and Windows apps very happily and stably on 1400MB of virtual RAM and the previous versions of OSX/Fusion.

Suffice to say I am very unhappy ... especially after having to pay for a Fusion upgrade. I did this originally to save money on buying Mac-native versions of apps I already had. The business case no longer holds if I am paying good money to lock myself out of my work. Won't be recommending Fusion anymore to the large number of my colleagues that make the switch to Mac when they join my business.

[Sorthum]

I'm giving it a few days; bugs happen, and they get fixed. If not, there are other options, but it seems to me that hanging in there for a bit makes the most sense.

[Noel_J]

The same VM was working on my MyBook air since few years, and Maverick brings a much better memory management.

The issue is on Fusion 6.

[Noel_J]

I've solved my problem, by re-installing back Fusion 5 and it works like a charm.

So the issue is Fusion 6

[Australadian]

Same problem here. Pretty damning if they couldn't have this issues found during the Mavericks beta process.

What was once quite usable on previous versions of OSX on my MBA 4GB is now a mess - constant crashes of Fusion and requests for "please change your RAM to 966MB".

Hopefully a fix coming soon - or Parallels calls.

[dalupus]

unfortunately it "upgraded" my vm when I went to vmware fusion 6 so I think I am out of luck as far as going back to fusion 5.

And same thing here as far was refusing to start vm's saying there is not enough memory.   Knew I should have waited to install mavericks.

[dalupus]

Disabling app nap for vmware fusion fixed it for me.

[admin]

unfortunately it "upgraded" my vm when I went to vmware fusion 6 so I think I am out of luck as far as going back to fusion 5.

You can go into Settings > Compatibility and change it to Hardware Version 9, which is compatible with Fusion 5.