virtual OS on macbook pro is slow - need advice

[goclarkgo]

Over time my virtual environment has become slower and Apps become unstable at times. This may be due to updates with both VMware and macOS. Below are the technical details about my host machine as well as the virtual.  My primary functions are done through the macOS side while I use a few Windows specific programs in the virtual environment, which are rather low data usage programs (example: Hex Editors, Excel, MS Word). The MS defragmenting tool is setup to run weekly.  Any advice on speeding up the virtual side would be greatly appreciated. I attempted to contact Customer Service and alas, they have every possible road block and hurdle in place to ensure a human is never reached. My hunch is to dedicate more RAM to the virtual machine, but I wanted input from a more knowledgeable source prior to trying this.  

Example of speed issue:
it may take 1-2 minutes for a simple program like Excel to launch and stabilize. 

Host machine
2019 Macbook Pro
macOS Monterey 12.1
Processor: 2.6 GHz 6-core Intel Core i7
Memory: 16 GB 2667 MHz DDR

VMware Fusion
Player version 12.2.1

Virtual environment (windows 10 Home)
Processor: Intel Core i7-9750H CPU at 2.6GHz
Memory: 2 GB
Capacity: 70 GB, 45 GB Used space, 24 GB free space
64-bit OS

Thank you for your time.

[bluefirestorm]

For a Windows 10 VM, allocate at least 4GB of memory. For better results give it 8GB. How many vCPU did you assign the VM? Give it at least two.

For defragmenting, there should be no need to schedule such a task, as rightfully, the Windows 10 OS should see the VM storage as SSD (being inside a MacBook Pro SSD).

[goclarkgo]

bluefirestorm - thank you for the reply. My prior settings were 2 Processor Cores and 2 MB memory. For a test I changed it to 6 Processor cores and 4 MB of memory. The machine is much quicker now. Over time I plan to drop the vCPU from 6 down to 4 to see how the performance does on both machines (host and virtual).

I did notice when the VM machine first starts and launches the first few Apps that the CPU speed is at or near 100% of 2.59 GHz for about 60 seconds. It may be a coincidence, but the 100% GHz seemed to be shorter when using 6 vCPU versus 4 vCPU. Is this 2.59GHz limited by the Host's processor, and can't be changed without upgrading hardware? After the virtual machine settles down, then it does not hit 100% again. Looking at the Startup Apps I'm finding Dropbox is quite processor intensive (65-75% of CPU), which probably explains the 100% CPU limit until it, Dropbox, has finished running its processes.  

Host
Processor: 2.6 GHz 6-core Intel Core i7

[ColoradoMarmot]

Never allocate all the physical cores to any individual guest - always reserve at least one for the host.

[goclarkgo]

I"m a bit conflicted, the host machine shows it has 6 cores, but Fusion settings show up to 12 (see attached). Am I to assume the Fusion settings 1-12 are VMware defaults and do not take into account the actual physical cores? 

My heavier processor use is on the Host side

Host Machine
Processor: 2.6 GHz 6-core Intel Core i7

[ColoradoMarmot]

Virtual cores don't count for host starvation - the guidance is no more than N-1 cores max for any given guest.  On a 6 core machine, no more than 5 for a guest.

If your host is heavier on CPU usage, then cut back accordingly.  On my old Intel machine, I could do 3 cores on 3 guests at once without impacting performance.  If I moved one of them to 4, then the host suffered.

[goclarkgo]

Topic has been resolved. The virtual machine now works properly with the higher RAM and vCPU allocation.