SOLVED : VMware workstation 17 low performance compare to hyper-V

[sapeur3873]

i just change my computer

my old computer was a I7-1165G7 in dell xps13 windows 11 

my new computer is a I7-12700H  in yoga pro 14'' windows 11

i transfer my vm from one pc to the new one, transfer my workstation V17 pro license, and start.

i put some new parameter inside i upgrade my number of processor (2) and 8 cores by processor.

the result is very slow!

i check and disable the hyper-v on my host computer but is not difference (i use a online benchmark)

https://silver.urih.com/ 

i try to check everything, and i m not able to run it very well and i'm disapointe about this.

i copy my vmdk disk, and create an hyer-v (from windows) machine.

i start it with hyper-V, and the result is very good!

why my vmware is so slow, comparing to hyper-v, should i change all my vmware to hyper-V?

i can share with you some print screen about the result of the benchmark result. but is simple to double, and really visible when i run some software.

thanks for your help , for have vmware working fast enough than hyper-V

[sapeur3873]

nobody can help me to find a solution about improve VMWARE workstation?

the result is nearly double fast o hyper-V...

i would like to understand.

[wila]

Attach a vmware.log file from the slow VM and maybe we can see a reason for why it is slow.

--
Wil

[sapeur3873]

hello wila, 

thanks for can have a look

i already know that i have "vmx Monitor Mode: ULM",

but i tried also to remove hyper, to do the bcdedit, and the result is nearly same each time, with or without hyper-v.

i remember it was already samewith workstation 16. 

but where i am very surprising, it is that hyperV  can go 3 time faster!

i use to run vmware, i'm pretty sure, that it could be very faster than this.

thank for your help

[wila]

Hi,

So you're running VMware Workstation with the Hyper-V engine... not VMware's native hypervisor.

The question on why that doesn't perform as well as Hyper-V native is a question for VMware & Microsoft I'm afraid.

Especially if the configuration of the VM is comparable.

I'll copy & paste the standard answer I have for Hyper-V below, but I get the idea you already seen that elsewhere. Note that there are other settings in Windows that turn on the Hyper-V engine behind your back, such as Memory Integrity and IIRC VBS and also WSL2.

Your log file has this line:

2023-01-22T09:26:16.952Z In(05) vmx Monitor Mode: ULM

There can be reasons to keep it like that (see the KB article below), but it is also known for causing issues.

monitor mode ULM

means that you are running in User Level Mode and thus Workstation cannot use VMware's hypervisor, but instead it has to go through the Hypervisor API that Microsoft provides.

Only when Monitor mode returns CPL0 it is running in ring 0, a.k.a. no hypervisor.

Monitor mode CPL0 (Current Privilege Level 0) is required for VMware Workstation to be able to use their own hypervisor.

See also:

https://communities.vmware.com/t5/VMware-Workstation-Pro/MikroTik-RouterOS-boot-speed-is-drastically...

In order to turn off ULM/Hyper-V mode, run the following command at the host in windows command-line with Administrator privileges:

bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off

Reboot the system to activate your changes.

If you want to go back to Hyper-V mode again, then you can enable it like this:

bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype auto

See also:

• Workstation 16 Pro Error "Virtualized Intel VT-x/EPT is not supported on this platform
• https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2146361

Note that you also might have to disable Memory Integrity.

Windows Security -> Device Security -> Core Isolation details

Don't forget to reboot the host after making any of these changes.

--
Wil

[sapeur3873]

thanks for you re answer,

but i write before, that i already know all of this.

and i already try it.

i arleady before doing this post, 

uninstal hyper-V,  do the 

bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off

and restart my computer.

and the result was the same.

my vmware was not so responsive.

when i do the benchmark on vmware, i have a result around P11000

when i do the same benchmark on hyper-v , the result is P32000

(SilverBench · Online multi-core CPU benchmark & stress test · 100% JavaScript (urih.com))

i would like to understand why.

i try this benchmark on vmware, with hyper-v / without hyper-V, with memory integrity and without also...

the result is between P8000 to P12800

thank to you

[sapeur3873]

finally i did some test again.

remove hyper-v, 

bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off

and restart the computer...

the vmware was almost slow, and the vmx monitor mod : in ULM, like before.

i remove the memory integrity, restart again, and the vmware was faster !!!! YES!!!

but if in the parameter of vmware i check, virtualize intel vx, the vmware is more faster....

finally i got it!!!!!

[jpauljones]

That's how it is estimated, in order to use vmware workstation to its full capacity, it is necessary to first disable Hyper-V with the parameter "bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off" without having to remove it, I use it as the main hypervisor on my workstation and then disable the " Memory Integrity" in the "Kernel Isolation" option.

[JohnC80]

This is not really a solution.
If you happen to be in a corporate environment where they have enabled VBS and Isolated User Mode then you are out of luck.
You cannot disable HyperV.

The investment in VMware Workstation Pro is a total waste of money.

The performance is so bad, it makes the idea of using HyperV instead more palatable.

It is so slow, I can watch my VMs boot line by line.

Unfortunately I cannot recommend renewing the VMware workstation pro licence. VMware is letting Microsoft ruin its desktop virtualisation business. Its possible they don't even care.

I couldn't justify purchasing Workstation Pro again, its just not worth it.

[munrobasher]

Hardly VMware's fault though is it? Microsoft have made a breaking change that means Hyper-V is now running on most Windows 11 installations (for slightly dubious reasons). It's not surprising that you can't have two hypervisors running on the same CPU.

[Br_Silva]

Good morning!

How did you solve the problem?
I'm trying a slow disk reading and writing problem using vmware workstation on windows 11, when I use vmware workstation on ubuntu 22.04 I have no problem...

Would you help me?

Você me ajudaria?VM install windows 11Vm install ubuntu 22.04

[munrobasher]

I've got a background task to re-visit VirtualBox and maybe even Hyper-V. I've currently got a problem with my main development PC so I'm currently rebuilding it - whilst I do this, I'm working primarily in a Windows 11 virtual machine.

Most of the time, performance is perfectly fine for the admin/text based tasks I regularly do. I'm running 16GB with 8 vCPU. There are two slow downs that I notice - I use AutoHotkey to paste commonly used text (e.g. client email addresses) into web browsers and apps. Inside the VM, you can see it typing the characters. Outside the VM, it's instant. Second is cropping an image in photos.google.com. A lot of lag dragging the resize handles.

I've never benchmarked disks inside a VM but I will now 🙂

[munrobasher]

Interestingly, I'm getting some of speeds better in the VM than on the host. Maybe there is some caching. I'll run again with a bigger test file. With 1GB, some caching might be at play for sure.

Virtual machine C: drive configured as 200GB NVMe:

Host F: drive, a SATA-3 1TB SSD:

[munrobasher]

Even with a 16GB test file, the sequential read speeds inside the VM are faster than the raw host speeds. Sequential writes are 14% slower inside the VM. For the 1st random test, reads are 36% slower in VM but 2nd random is 20% faster in VM. For the random writes, the VM is 46% slower.

So the VM is clearly slower at disk I/O generally but still workable. VMware Workstation isn't really designed for production use is it? I see it more as a test bed/server backup maybe.

I wonder how this compares with a bare metal hypervisor? On my machine, VMware Workstation is running in it's owner hypervisor, i.e. CPL0 - as the host is Windows 10. I've got dual boot into Windows 11 which has the Hyper-V mode enabled 'cos of credential guard etc.

I'll do a test in that host...

VM C: drive:

Host F: drive:

[Br_Silva]

The reading and writing test done in vmware uses the RAM and ends up getting a little better than in the host itself, this is normal...

Here it was too...

HostVmware

The problem for me is this discrepancy between virtualizing using vmware on ubuntu vs virtualizing using vmware on windows 11...

The drop in windows performance is brutal... 2000 vs 8000 reading...

I'm looking all over the internet, to see if I can find the reason for the performance drop...

If you use hyper-v on windows 11... its performance is as good as on ubuntu 22.04 virtualizing with vmware...

[Br_Silva]

I just installed hyper v and did the same setup

4 vpcu
8gb of ram

I did the benchmark test and it was 4000 MB/s faster than vmware...ubuntu 22.04 on the hyper v

[munrobasher]

>The problem for me is this discrepancy between virtualizing using vmware on ubuntu vs virtualizing using vmware on windows 11.

As posted by somebody else above, by default VMware Workstation ends up using the Hyper-V API on Windows 11 because a small part of Hyper-V gets enabled even if the Hyper-V feature isn't installed - credential guard uses VBS (virtualisation based security). There are several threads about performance problems in this mode, i.e. not using the native VMware Workstation virtualisation technology. For example, taking snapshots can be problematic (slow). You can tell which mode your VM is running in by looking at the log file in the VM folder and searching for "monitor mode". 

I'm going to guess that Linux isn't doing virtualisation based security which might explain some of the performance differences. But not a factor of four. Can you look at the log on Ubunutu for that "monitor mode" line? Would be interesting to know what mode it's running in on Linux.

[Br_Silva]

It had many files with vmware.log, vmware-1.log, vmware-2.log, etc.

I deleted all..

I turned on the virtual machine again, it generated a new file...

Was it this?

2023-08-04T16:08:26.332Z In(05) vmx DEVSWAP: GuestOS does not require LSI adapter swap.
2023-08-04T16:08:26.332Z In(05) vmx Monitor Mode: ULM
2023-08-04T16:08:26.332Z In(05) vmx MsgHint: msg.loader.mitigations.wsAndFusion
2023-08-04T16:08:26.332Z In(05)+ vmx You are running this virtual machine with side channel mitigations enabled. Side channel mitigations provide enhanced security

I realized that on other days I had appreciated CPL0

which one would be correct?

2023-08-04T13:09:49.772Z In(05) vmx DEVSWAP: GuestOS does not require LSI adapter swap.
2023-08-03T13:09:49.772Z In(05) vmx Monitor Mode: CPL0
2023-08-04T13:09:49.780Z In(05) vmx nvmeShared size: 3752, numAdapters: 1

[wila]

Hi,

CPL0  uses VMware hypervisor, ULM uses the Hyper-V one.

The VMware one tends to be faster.

Having said that... you didn't by any chance ENCRYPT your disk? You know the requirement for vTPM... because that could also explain a huge drop in disk read/write performance.

--
Wil

[Br_Silva]

I'm not using any kind of encryption...

This is very strange, I'll keep looking to see what it could be!

Thank you very much for your help!