VMWare Player 15.5.1 poor performance on Ubuntu 19.10

[Rattle189]

Hardware Specifications:

500W PSU

MSI B450 TOMAHAWK

AMD Ryzen 5 2400G 3.6GHz 4c/8t

8GBx2 2666MHz

1TB 7200RPM Seagate HDD

AMD Radeon Vega 11

Ubuntu 19.10 64-bit

Virtual machine settings:

Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit and Windows 10 Home N 64-bit

2 cores

3GB RAM

60GB HDD

1GB of video memory

Using VMWare Workstation 15 Player 15.5.1 build-15018445

VMWare Tools is installed

I recently transferred to Ubuntu 19.10 from Windows 10 and read up that Linux uses fewer system resources than Windows and is more favored in development environments. Gaming performance is better in comparison to Windows and is generally more stable and faster. A standard VM configuration I set is that it will use 2 to 4 cores with 1GB to 4GB of RAM as its supply. In Windows, this was not a problem and I could still multitask on my host machine with the virtual machine running on the same drive. I could even play some lightweight to moderate games alongside a virtual machine.

On Linux, however, the story is quite different. Running a 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate virtual machine with 2 cores and 3GB of RAM is enough to cause the system to stutter and at times freeze for a minute but can also end up freezing the entire system to the point I need to restart my computer. I keep a close eye on System Monitor to see how much system resources are used. Usually, the CPU usage tops out at 60% at 3 threads best with the RAM only being used up to somewhere along the lines of 6GB.

The purpose of my virtual machines is for mostly running Windows programs that don't play nicely with Linux but also for some lightweight gaming on older games such as Warcraft III.

When the slowdowns start, I'm usually unable to remove my input from my virtual machine or any input (keyboard or mouse) to the host machine is usually delayed. The cursor becomes invisible but I can highlight the objects found in my taskbar but not click on them and any key I press on the keyboard does not register until after a few seconds. I usually press the NumLock/CapsLock key to test it out and after a few seconds, the lights on my keyboard would flicker as if the input was just registered.

I don't understand as to how or why my system would begin to stutter or even freeze when not all of my system resources are used as in Windows this was not a problem. Any help or advice is appreciated.

[wila · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Linux _can_ be more performant than windows, but it depends on so many factors that there really isn't a single answer for it.

VMware Player itself is dependent on good low level support of the hardware, the host OS and the drivers used.

If -for example- your graphics drivers are much better for Windows than they are for Linux, then you might be out of luck on that part.

Besides that, things are in a constant flux and what works well today, might not even be supported in the next version of Linux.

This is not just true for Linux, as the world changes for Windows as well, but there are more changes on Linux.

Anyways... as none of that helps you at this moment.

Have a look at the following post:

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/161858/arch-linux-becomes-unresponsive-from-khugepaged

Perhaps, it is relevant for your case too.

--

Wil

[Rattle189]

Hello again!

I'm sorry for reviving an old dead post of mine, I lost the credentials zof the account as I was migrating e-mail addresses and switching to a new password. The link you provided wasn't exactly the issue but it did point me to the right direction. For anyone else that view this post and want the solution to the problem, it's related to Linux's memory paging:

• I ran VMWare Workstation Pro 16.2.1 as root, went into Preferences, then into Memory, and selected Fit all virtual machine memory into reserved host RAM.
• I also edited /etc/sysctl.conf and added vm.swappiness=10 at the bottom of the file

This resolved most, if not, all of the issues I have been facing with poor performance of virtual machines under Linux. I now however face a new problem that I will open up in a different thread instead. Once again, thank you for your answer wila and my apologies for necroing this post.