I have a powerful 12 core Dell Precision workstation on which I run a number of different VMs under VMware Workstation 10.0.1 build-1379776 for product testing. The system is more than capable of keeping up with what's done in the VMs, even several at a time.
Since loading VMware 10.0 (and 10.0.1) I have noticed in my Windows 8.1 guest that audio playing from within Media Player or Pandora in the guest will pop/crackle/experience dropouts of a tiny fraction of a second when I move my mouse over things such as IE11 windows. This even happens when I run only one Win 8.1 VM and nothing else on the workstation. It does NOT pop/dropout if playing on the host.
I'm not sure but it seems that the use of the GPU by the guest software may be causing an "interrupts disabled" condition for long enough that the audio takes a hit. The hits aren't long - only a tiny fraction of a second, but quite noticeable.
This happens even when NOTHING is installed in a fresh Windows 8.1 install, even without VMware tools. The host system is running an ATI 7850 with Catalyst 11.9 (latest release as of now).
As best I can recall this did NOT happen with VMware workstation 9.
- Are these audio dropouts to be expected with Workstation 10?
- Are there things I can do to diagnose this further, or provide more information?
- Are there settings I can tweak to try to overcome this?
Thanks.
-Noel Carboni
ProDigital Software
