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deac33
Contributor
Contributor

Moving windows in Unity Mode is very sluggish and very jittery

Moving windows in Unity Mode is very sluggish and very jittery, very very slow so as to be almost unusable. (However moving windows in Single Window mode is fast and fine).

To make moving windows in Unity Mode smoother can VMWare engineers modify the code to just show the frame of the window being moved until the move is finished?

Keeping all graphics detail in the window during the move isn't necessary and uses lots and lots of CPU. Just showing the window frame would take much fewer resources and I'm sure it would make the move much smoother. After the move stops then refill the detail of the window.

SYSTEM DETAILS:                     Jan 19, 2021
      HOST: macOS Big Sur 11.1 (20C69)
      GUEST: Windows 7
      VMWare Fusion 12: Player Version 12.1.0 (17195230)
      Fresh Install of Windows 7 to VmWare

 

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davidew
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Yes, just “freezing” the window content would be better, since I think that moving around a static image is simpler and would be smoother than current experience.

But I think that VMWare engineers could do something better; they could apply some changes so that when we are in Unity mode, and we drag the window, the window in the Guest OS virtual desktop stays still and the movement is performed by MacOs (host os). Now, when we are in Unity, dragging a window is laggy and painful because VMware fusion and the guest OS have to cooperate to make the dragging happen, but if I swipe with 3 fingers to open mission control the movement of the window (in this case it is operated by a MacOs feature and the guest OS doesn’t “know” about it) is perfectly smooth and I think vmware engineers could extend this approach to unity mode.

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davidew
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Looks like no no one cares

I also have problems with Solidworks... I'mma switch to Parallels

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scott28tt
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

@davidew 

Moderator: Please note that VMTN is a user/community forum where the large majority of posts are made by people doing so voluntarily in their own time.

 


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davidew
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi @scott28tt  and thank you a lot for the answer.

I know it, in fact when I say "no one cares" I'm not talking about people in this community, but about who manages the development of VMware Fusion. I found this ( https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-Fusion-Discussions/Poor-refreshing-of-windows-in-Unity-Mode... ) discussion where a VMware product line manager acknowledged the problem and liquidates it by saying that not using Unity mode is "perfectly reasonable to consider". If you read the discussion you'll agree with me that the "product manager" considers Unity Mode superfluous: I expect that as long as the product manager considers Unity Mode superfluous, no one will care about fixing it (note that prior to VMware fusion 11.5 unity mode worked perfectly).

I would like to say 2 things: first, the fact that the product manager considers a feature useless doesn't mean that it is useless for all users. Second, unity mode isn't just "not perfectly smooth", it is almost unusable because dragging and resizing the windows is really difficult (if someone needs more details about this, I'm available to provide screen captures and everything is needed)

So, if I say "I'm going to switch to Parallels because no one cares" is because I find that Parallels puts the needed care in developing features that users want, even though these features may seem not very useful to who manages the development of the product.

Sincerely,

Davide

rjhornsby
Contributor
Contributor

I dunno, in context it seemed clear that “no one cares” is referring to VMware inc, rather than the “community”. It’s a valid (and tame) conclusion from a customer.

As I noted in the other thread, this Unity problem is a usability issue, not a minor glitch. Sure, “don’t use the feature” may in some sense prevent encountering the problem, but that also prevents using the feature entirely. Reasonable folks have suggested possible reasonable fixes that didn’t require necessarily fixing the underlying redraw issue, but instead perhaps some method of suspending the redraw temporarily.

I gave up on the feature because it was pretty clear the folks at VMware inc who cared and saw this as a problem to be fixed got outvoted by the folks who decided they had better things to do, and those things were a higher priority to them than basic, broken UX. I personally don’t like Parallels. The attempts to, by default, integrate deeply into my host OS by associating file types with Windows applications in the VM, as well as the annoying and hard sell for upgrades or other products is imho software that’s intentionally obnoxious, putting itself directly in the path of where I need to go to get stuff done.

Especially because the sales/marketing folks behind Parallels won’t leave me the hell alone inside the application I purchased, I tend to prefer VMware. Vbox is fine for automation ie vagrant, but the vbox UI is a cluster - maybe designed by a committee of Oracle exec’s 5th grade nephews. Hint: it’s not whimsical if it’s nearly unusable.

Of the big three, that leaves VMware as the winner. Doesn’t mean I’m happy about it, or that I think the Unity issue as-is is acceptable. Rather, it puts VMware inc on thin ice where customers are left not to decide what’s best - but rather what’s not worst.

 

davidew
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

@Mikero Could you please reconsider the decision of leaving Unity Mode nearly unusable?

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ColoradoMarmot
Champion
Champion

Yup, they don't have unlimited development resources, so low-use features may lag getting touched (webcam in some linux VM's is another example).  Last year was all about migrating to the apple hypervisor framework.  Right now I expect they're all hands on deck just trying to get Fusion working on M1's.  Those are big rocks that take a lot of work and impact all customers.  Unity is a nice-to-have, not a must-have feature for a hypervisor, so it's down the priority list.

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davidew
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I find this answer to be [removed by moderator]; what you said is well known to all of us. I’d like to point out that even Parallels GmbH worked on switching to Apple Hypervisor, is now working on M1 supporti and doesn’t have unlimited resources but they offer a perfectly working Coherence mode

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Albion3187
Contributor
Contributor

If they don't want to fix unity, then fix multi monitor support. That's why I (and I think most people) use unity. Multi monitor setups are becoming the norm, and currently there is no way to spread the guest OS across multiply physical monitors. I have tried everything to get Windows 10 to work across 2 monitors in full screen mode, and I have concluded it's impossible. Unity works great, except the totally unusable UI when moving a window. VMware should consider fixing this, as the vast majority of their customer base has multiple physical monitors.