workstation 16 - windows 10 host - RHEL family guest problems

[scerruti]

Hello,

I have problems in virtualizing some RHEL family distros in windows 10.

I'm using workstation pro 16 - 16.2.4 build-20089737

I tried 

• Rocky Linux 9
  • Plasma & Gnome desktop
• Alma Linux 9
• Fedora Spin

In every OS I get sound problems and video play in browsers stuttering. Also clipboard doesn't work from host to guest and viceversa.

In the vmx I had to add these lines to try to make some improvements, but I had no luck:

• sound.virtualdev = "hdaudio"
• isolation.tools.copy.disable = "FALSE"
• isolation.tools.dnd.disable = "FALSE"
• isolation.tools.paste.disable = "FALSE"
• isolation.tools.hgfs.disable = "FALSE"

My PC is configuration is

• CPU AMD Ryzen 9 5950x
• 64 GB RAM
• MOBO ROG Strix X570-E Gaming
• VGA RTX 3080

With Kubuntu I had no problem at all, all is working fine. with Rocky Linux (the Os I want to use ) it seems that performances are really poor.

Have you any idea how to solve?

Thank you very much.

[Technogeezer]

Is Hyper-V enabled? If so, try disabling it. There's plenty of advice here in the forums on how to do that.

[scerruti]

hi, thank you for the answer.

no the Hyper-V is not enabled

In the windows features all the Hyper-V checkboxes are not checked.

[Technogeezer]

If you look in the vmware.log file of the VMs that are exhibiting the problem. look for a line that indicates which monitor mode Workstation is trying to use. It should be either ULM or CPL0. Which does it indicate for you?

[scerruti]

thank you again.

Here I found this:

In(05) vmx Monitor Mode: CPL0

[Technogeezer]

Thanks for double checking on that.

It's funny/strange that the RHEL 9 "downstream" releases are having these performance issues. I do assume that both open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-desktop packages are installed?

What kernel versions are in use on these VMs, and how does that compare to the kernel version used on the Kubuntu VM that works properly?

Is the vmwgfx driver being used (lsmod | grep vmwgfx)?

Are side-channel mitigations disabled or enabled in the RHEL VMs?

One additional thought. Is Wayland in use on those VMs? 

[scerruti]

Hi!

Let's see..

• both open-wm-tools and open-vm-tools-desktop are installed with version 11.3.5 
• kernels
  • rocky linux 9:  5.14.0-70.30.1.el9_0.x86_64
  • kubuntu kernel: 5.15.0-52-generic

• with lsmod command i got

  • vmwgfx 393216 22
    ttm 86016 1 vmwgfx
    drm_kms_helper 311296 1 vmwgfx
    drm 634880 16 vmwgfx,drm_kms_helper,ttm
  • in the kubuntu VM is the same with the numbers slightly different
• the side-channel mitigations option is not present in the advanced settings. I added to the vmx file this line: ulm.disableMitigations = "TRUE" but nothing changed.
• wayland vs x11
  • in the rocky linux VM was running wayland. Switching to x11 didn't fix the audio/video issues.  
  • in the kubuntu VM is running x11

thank you for your time!

-- ps I don't kwon if there is an error in the forum, this is the 3rd time I try to post this text and the previous time nothing happened. I apologise If it will result in a triple posting.