Performance Problems with Fusion 11 on 10.14.6 (Worse, after installing VMWARE Tools in Guest OS.)

[Cidenet]

So I am trying to resolve performance problems with VMWARE 11.5.7 on Mojave (10.14.6 with Latest Security Updates installed.) and have gotten nowhere.

As far as I am concerned and have experienced,
This trouble did not occur in VMWARE Fusion versions 7 and 8 which I had installed before but upgraded from with this 11 release.

I have to ask the community is this a hardware problem with my 2012-Retina Macbook Pro? Because I have no problems running multiple VMs in the past, and building them into servers from my Machine which ran them flawlessly prior to upgrading.

I was thinking this slowness and the 2 hours it took to install Windows 10 x64 to an SSD was because VMWARE Tools weren't installed yet. However, after installing VMWARE Tools my system is pegged even harder and the slowness is even worse! Imagine that.

I do not know if its a trouble with Mojave, with my System, or with various Kernel extensions. I have attempted to run EtreeCheck and it says my systems performance is good (Sometimes excellent. with Browsers closed), and that is the truth as long as it's not under load. As soon as I put a load on it the fans goto Max RPM and the system throttles itself with Kernel_Task. This is while running VMWARE Fusion, and my load average goes to 70+ just clicking around in the guest OS Virtual Machine. (In this case I was using Windows 10 X64 with latest updates embedded in the ISO.)

Does anyone care to assist me in this matter? I would greatly appreciate some more information, I have read countless threads here on this forum with Performance problems but nothing seems to be resolved, and everyone has either given up with their Mac, bought new hardware, or migrated to Catalina+ and Vmware Fusion 12. Why is it a solution to buy the latest software? this version SHOULD still be supported and these issues are not specific to me, It seems MANY are having these problems.

I would like to get to the bottom of it. What information could I provide you with if any that would assist in resolving this problem?

[Cidenet]

I have attached my EtreCheck report in the event anyone cares to look through it.

[Cidenet]

Note: 

I very seriously wanted to resolve this issue so since I have multiple MacBooks of the same machine (Mid-2012) I decided to Factory Install a fresh copy of Catalina via CTRL + Option + R on startup. 

I installed Vmware Fusion Version 12.0.0 (16880131) as a trial.

 Amazingly, I was greeted with the Broken Pipes message upon trying to start a new virtual machine, using the default settings. (I made sure the Allow app in Security was given for VMWare, and it was.) but after quitting the application and rebooting the machine (Prior to wiping out a certain folder in recovery console, or with System integrity disabled). After the reboot, everything fixed itself this time! Wonderful. 

But afterwards, installing Windows 10 X64 happened in 1/3 the time as it did on Mojave with Fusion 11.x.x (Latest version as of this post.)! And, after installing Vmware tools my processor is not pegged into the red! Cpu Load with Windows 10 loaded and idle is about 5-10% and there is no stuttering or huge delays when using Fusion mode or full screen, or even windowed. Whereas on Mojave, on an install that had been upgraded since 10.8 Mountain Lion (Consecutive upgrades) after installing VMWARE Tools it was practically unusable. So it appears this MacBook is prime still, for basic virtualization as I am now able to fluently work within the Windows 10 Guest OS without lag or causing runaway kernel_task.

It seems either the Logic board, sensors or the overall Mojave installation is corrupt on the other MacBook, Or the Catalina and 12 release is just that much better/faster. I'm not sure what the difference between the latest 11 release and this 12.0 build are, but I intend to license the software even though I was initially hesitant that it would run well-enough on this MacBook Retina Mid-2012, and it is. So I am very happy.

To avoid this Mojave and Fusion 11 headache I presume I will just Clone my Mojave to a Backup SSD and use it sparingly when old applications are needed to run from now on, and try to migrate what I can, license and overall machine to Catalina. It seems this Catalina doesn't run hot either, and the fans are at a quiet 1500-2000RPM when running Windows 10, Web browsing with 25 tabs, and downloads active.

The same exact tasking on previous install and MacOS would have made the machine run at MAX RPM, with most kernel_task in red in activity monitor, were talking 4000-5000 RPM doing what is just basic load, which is now working perfectly as I've said.

I am satisfied with this for now, And my problem is resolved for now. Good luck to anyone reading this. You should not be disappointed with a fresh install of Catalina and Vmware Fusion 12!

TLDR: Catalina and VMware Fusion is much better on the second Retina MacBook from 2012, performance is as expected, and it idles quietly, and uses very little power comparatively. 

[Technogeezer]

I had a chance to look through your EtreCheck report. You have what I consider to be an excessive amount of "cruft" installed. My gut feel when see behavior like this is that you have installed something that isn't playing nicely with others.

I'm going to preface my thoughts with this: I take a minimalist approach to running software on my Mac. If it' isn't absolutely necessary, don't run it. The less non-standard software you have installed, the less of a chance of harmful interactions (and it's easier to troubleshoot).

My initial thought for you on this particular Mac is to perform a fresh install of Mojave. Then install Fusion. Don't install ANY third party software other than Fusion. Add back what you need one thing at a time and see if anything breaks.

I have a few comments/observations that might help you (there are personal opinions contained therein which you may or may not agree with, so beware!).

• You look to be running Malwarebytes AV in the host (I see several kernel extensions). Make sure you are running a version that supports Mojave. And if it's doing any kind of real-time or scheduled scanning, make sure you exclude the virtual machines from scanning. Many false positives have been reported when doing so. If you want AV for a VM, run it in the guest and configure appropriately so that it doesn't keep the CPUs busy.
• On the other hand, you also seem to be running Bitdefender. Not sure if Bitdefender uses Malwarebytes tools but it's suspicious that the report shows dueling AV utilities.
• Get rid of Flash Player - its no longer supported by Adobe and we all know what an open invitation for malware it is.it is. (that's a general observation). If you have software that "depends on it", seriously consider upgrade or replacement. It's that bad.
• You seem to have Cocktail installed. Remove it. I'm not a fan of running these kinds of applications that clean/optimize/repair your Mac unless you have some pressing need to do so and even in that case run them manually and not continually. To me it's "Mac Voodoo" because many times these utilities delete caches which normally enhance performance and then the system spends time and resources to re-create them. All they do on a regular basis is to make you feel good and waste CPU cycles. I'm more a fan of Onyx which does not use kernel extensions and only does "cleanups/optimizations" when I ask it to.
• FlipForMac is listed as an installed Internet Plugin. Remove it. It's obsolete, hasn't been updated in years and I don't believe it is compatible with Mojave. 
• Alsoft DiskWarrior preview kext found. Remove it even though the kext is not loaded. Haven't heard that it's very compatible with APFS.
• You have Nvidia's CUDA tools installed. Remove them. They are not supported on Mojave (a casualty of the spat between Apple and Nvidia). It's also possible that they don't play nicely with the drivers that Apple provides for that GPU on the Mac.
• You also seem to have Promise storage tools installed, and there does not appear to be a Promise disk system in your report. Remove them if you don't need them, or make sure they're up to date for Mojave support if you really need them.
• iStat Menus also seems to be installed. Make sure it's the latest version supporting Mojave. Start with it uninstalled, then add it to see if there's any change in the VM behavior.
• You have user login items that you may want to review: AppCleaner SmartDelete, BatteryHealthHelper, Disk Drill, Flux, Promise Utility, Viscosity are running, and a whole other group that aren't. Again, start with out of the box settings (that is, no additional user login items), and add back (at latest version that supports Mojave) to see if things change.

[ColoradoMarmot]

Wow - that's about as much junk as I've seen on a single machine.  FWIW, I agree on all your comments and would go one further on that last list of login items:  remove them all (or at least only run manually when needed).  That *easily* could explain poor performance and/or odd behavior.