Bad video performance in VMware 8

tjdennis · ‎09-15-2011

I'm gettng some very strange video performance issues on a Vista x86 guest after upgrading to version 8. It's like it lost all acceleration and I get to watch it draw everything as I drag windows around within the guest. It acts almost as if I was using Unity and dragging a window around my host machine. You can see it drawing extra stuff around the edges.

I have upgraded the vmware tools. I've tried turning the preview windows on and off at the bottom. I've tried full screen and windowed.

Sometimes by switching to console view and back again, it fixes it and the guest's windows move around super fast again. But if I change tabs to another VM and back, it slows right down again. I tried rebooting the guest and got fast graphics again. But switching VM tabs slowed it back down. Even if I just switch to the Home tab and back again it causes the slow down. Is it trying to take screen captures for those preview windows that I don't have turned on?

I'm running the Vista x86 guest in classic theme and with 3D acceleration turned off (No Aero or 3D stuff enabled). My host is Windows 7 x64.

Any ideas?

0WayneH0 · ‎09-16-2011

I'm seeing the same thing as you after updating the VMware tools in my Workstation 8 VM (win7 x86 guest) from the beta tools to the latest tools. Fits exactly your description. Tearing on the edges of the window as you move it around and it moves slowly.

Same thing also about being able to speed it up temporarily.

I do have 3D acceleration enabled.

I never noticed this on the beta, but I assume I can't go back to the previous VMware tools.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Edit: I system restored my VM back to beta VMware Tools (usually I have system restore disabled, but since it's just a test VM I still have it enabled); now the performance is OK again. I'd have to hypothesize that its related to the VMware display driver then. I think I may be waiting for a few dot releases before upgrading, but that's OK; it's the reality of complex software methinks.

Andys201110141 · ‎09-19-2011

I thinkI am experencing the same issue. I didn't try switching tabs or whatever but I believe my problem is related or has the same roots.

Basically, when I run one single game in Vmware, all graphics become very slow and sluggish. If I right-click in VM's desktop while the game's window is running, it can take 10-20 seconds to draw the menu.

1. I did install new vmware tools in this machine.

2. I did try to switch 3d acceleration and install latest directx.

3. As soon as I remove vmware 8 and install vmware 7 back, everything is back and running fine, no more slowdowns. I left vmware 8's tools in my VM and they are running just fine.

Well, guess I'll have to wait a little more for a working version. Anyway, I do not see any new features in vw8 worth upgrading right now.

//================

Tech specs -

Host - Win7x64 SP1, i7-930/Ati 5850.

Guest - WinXP SP3

iPath · ‎09-20-2011

Just upgraded to VMWare 8 Workstation.

I experience the same bad video performance within windows server 2003 VM Guest. Even scrolling long text document seems sluggish in my VMs (compared to Workstation 7)!

VMWare Tools: 8.8.0 build 471268. Guest's display driver is version 11.8.11.0 and dates from 01.7.2011

I hope VMWare support will investigate the issue ASAP.

Thanks!

jtech201110141 · ‎09-20-2011

I've almost same graphics performance issue with Ubuntu linux guest as described there: http://communities.vmware.com/thread/329172?tstart=0

Tab switching & resuming causes bad graphics performance.

tjdennis, 0WayneH0, Andys, iPath what GPU do you have?

Message was edited by: jtech

0WayneH0 · ‎09-20-2011

The video card in the laptop I am trialing WS8 on is only an entry level laptop, so the video card is on-board Mobile Intel 4 Series. It still performs admirably with the beta WS tools, just not the shipping ones. I'll be on WS7 for a bit longer I think. I'm having a mind battle... issues with WS8 on these forums, versus stuff I suspect is better (USB, potentially audio) and also the ability to run WS8 as a server (although I'm not sure how much that differs in a pragmatic sense from running VMs on a server in WS7 and just using remote desktop to access).

EDIT: At as 9/24/11 I'm now convinced this has nothing do do with drivers; please ignore the above.

tjdennis · ‎09-20-2011

I have two NVidia GTX 560's in my host machine driving 4 monitors so it's not a matter of my host being good enough. I've tried running with 3D acceleration turned on and off in the virtual machine and it made no difference. I've tried using the guest on one monitor only, and on all of them.

I've also tried doing the system restore as 0WayneH0 tried but it didn't help in my case so it seems to be related to the main workstation app, and not the video driver in the tools. You never know for sure though...

I'm continuing to run on version 8 for now as everything else seems to be working okay. I work from home and run my employer's standard desktop image in a virtual machine on my home computer. It gives me the security of their desktop and tools along with my much better hardware. It's running usually non-stop for about 5 days at a time with no issues so far in VMware 7 or 8.

To get around this video performance issue for now, I've just set all the performance settings in the Vista guest to the minimums. The big one being "show window contents while dragging". I'm not sure if you can do similar settings in the various Linux desktops though.

0WayneH0 · ‎09-21-2011

I have been testing this on my very under-powered laptop.

I'm now running a very large client data set in my company's application that uses OpenGL for graphics and it's running quite admirably. Although I cannot yet test on my real machine I would even guess that the performance is better. I seem to get a lot of screen artefacts in WS7, but so far no evidence of that in WS8.

Normally I have all the regular OS performance settings dumbed down and I agree 100% "Show window contents while dragging" is the most obvious problem, but in practice its not really that big of a problem; it's just very easy to hit and notice initially. For me, I don't really care if I have to disable that; video performance seems to come up to snuff on the important stuff. Also, somehow also the Windows experience index values for graphics performance are all now a lot higher than before (I mentioned a reduction in these values in another post) so maybe I had an issue there somewhere that is now resolved.

EDIT: Remove superflous banter. Also, whilst the problem is most visible when showing window contents whilst dragging it's not limited to that, as becomes evident later in this thread.

iPath · ‎09-22-2011

Here is my video:

Video Adapter NVIDIA Quadro FX 880M
Video Processor Quadro FX 880M
Memory 1024 MBytes
BIOS String Version 70.16.61.00.03 Version 70.16.61.00.03 Version 70.16.61.00.03 Version 70.16.61.00.03
BIOS Date 03/08/10
PnP Device Id PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0A3C&SUBSYS_1521103C&REV_A2\4&556683&0&0008
Video Mode Description 1920 x 1080 x 4294967296 colors
Driver Version 8.17.12.8026
Driver Date 2011-08-03 00:00:00

It's the same as it was with VMWare W7

adispy · ‎09-22-2011

Have you tried upgrading your VMware machine hardware to version 8 ?

wd123 · ‎09-22-2011

I can confirm the exact same problem! I have also tried disabling 3D acceleration in the guest OS (Windows XP) as well as updating the VM to the 8.0 format, and no combination of those options fixed the problem. VMware Workstation 7 and previous versions were smooth as silk.

For what it's worth, on my host computer system, I've got:

Windows 7 x64 (Aero disabled)

NVIDIA Quadro FX 570

Driver Version 8.15.11.9038

0WayneH0 · ‎09-23-2011

Actually, I'm now noticing this sluggishness just scrolling text documents (Visual Studio) in an XP guest. It's workable, but feels like the display lags behind the input and is somehwat off-putting.

~~~~~~

Edit: Removing font smoothing improves things somewhat, but still not as fluid as a Win 7 guest on different host (and that's with a heavy duty test suite running on the same VM).

Edit 2: Rolling back display driver in Xp guest didn't help, however, making the Workstation window small (too small to reasonably use, but not ridicullously small) and the scrolling is smooth again. If I then make the window large (or maximized) its back to being slow.

Andys201110141 · ‎09-23-2011

Below's a quick summary what I installed in which order.

Vmware 7 + vmtools 7 (can't say which version but very old) = normal

Vmware 8 + vmtools 8 = slow

Vmware 7 + vmtools 8 = normal

See my first post for details of this 'upgrade' process. I am glad I used trial version and wasn't stuck with it after all of this.

lynxx · ‎09-23-2011

I can confirm this. When I drag any windows (even an empty explorer one) the performance is super bad. Feels a bit like it's waiting for a vsync or something.

VMware Workstation 8

Guests: Vista + several Windows XP (Workstation 8.0 hardware compatibilty)

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 (8.17.12.8527)

Host: Windows 7 64bit

0WayneH0 · ‎09-23-2011

I've been doing some testing on this; trying to figure out how to reproduce it on this machine with my XP VM, since when I start that VM running the video performance is fine (usual fast and responsive feel). After some period, however, the text scrolling in visual studio clams up and panning a window around (with show contents enabled) is quite slow.

To cut this story very short (since I'm spending too much time here) I tried a number of things, but one thing that seems to be reprodceable for me is this:

1. Start a VM (Win 7 x64 host). (I tried Win7 x86 guests and XP SP3 guests). (I tested in full screen mode, but it may not matter).

2. Ensure settings in the guest are such that window contents are visible when panning explorer windows.

3. Pan windows around; performance seems fine (maybe the odd jaggy, but its snappy and responsive).

4. Use arrow keys in floating toolbar to tab out of VM, then tab back into it.

5. Now pan a window around; the performance has regressed.

I can reproduce this on two physical hosts, with a Win 7 guest on one and an XP guest on the other.

Maybe someone out there can try these steps and report if they can also reproduce this.

~~~~~~~

EDIT: Doesn't need to be full screen to reproduce; in tabbed view I can get the same results.

EDIT 2: Not ideal, but running 2 VMs using separate Workstation instances seems to avoid the trigger for the performance issue. I've hidden tabs to avoid accidentially switching out of the running VM. I'll report back later if this is a sustainable work-around. I edited the title to indicate this might help someone.

0WayneH0 · ‎09-23-2011

Did anyone manage to reproduce with those steps? Should take no more than 2 minutes to test it....

Anyhow, the work around seems to work for me; yes akward, but better than the alternative.

tjdennis · ‎09-23-2011

Those were pretty much the steps I was following to produce the problem as well. Switching tabs whether by clicking on them or the arrows in full screen caused the slow downs. Clicking the console view button a couple times returned it to normal.

I'll try using the two workstation instances like you did. It sounds promissing if the tabs aren't involved. I actually do this sometimes when I want a different full screen VM on each monitor.

I also ran some tests with debug logs turned on. There is a particular log message that gets written when you change tabs or console mode. There is a counter number which goes something like this:

It starts at 3

Change tabs, it goes 3, 2, 1, then 0 (four lines)

Change tabs back, it counts 1, 2, then 3.

Click Console mode and it goes 2, 1, then 0.

Click Console again to return to the VM and it only counts 0, 1, then 2. It doesn't go to 3.

Change tabs, it goes 2, 1, 0

Change back, it goes 0, 1, 2, 3 and is slow.

I'm not sure what the lines really meen, but that 3 seems to be associated with the slow performance. Here's what the lines look like in the log:

mks| I120: MKS-SWB: Number of MKSWindows changed: 2 rendering MKSWindow(s) of total 4.

mks| I120: MKS-SWB: Number of MKSWindows changed: 3 rendering MKSWindow(s) of total 5.

0WayneH0 · ‎09-23-2011

Good thinking re the log; I too don't know what that all means, but since this issue can be initiated (and also rectified - see http://communities.vmware.com/thread/329172?tstart=0) it seems that it's the order/count of something getting out of whack that is the root of the issue. If these are one in the same issue (I am now also seeing it after suspend now I know what to look for) then it seems that VMware is on to it.

If I follow the steps in the thread I just linked to above and can also determinsitically recover from the bad performance, as much as I can now deterministically run into it.

Have a good weekend.

ps/ If multiple WS instances are not convenient then based on all the intel to date switching to console view, hitting F8 twice (to display and then un-display the thumbnail view) and then returning from console view isn't too much overhead to recover either. Learning to execute this sequence of steps quickly will also cover the resume from suspend use case.

Andys201110141 · ‎09-24-2011

Update - today I reinstalled and tried running vmware player 4 bundled with vmware workstation 8. The slow graphic speed was still there.

So, my problem COULD be different from this topic and totally unrelated to tabs switching.

After that, I run some other game (even more, with d3d requirements), and graphic speed was fine as usual.

I didn't notice any suspicious lines in logs.

p.s. please do not post silly comments like 'your game is at fault'. It was all fine and dandy in vmware 7 and vmplayer 3

SarahC9 · ‎09-24-2011

I've discovered something else!

Nothing I've tried gets the performance back as it was in Workstation 7, except one thing... when I open the Desktop properties window, click on the screensaver tab, and then select a 3D accelerated screensaver - such as the Flowerbox one.

All the speed comes back.

When I close the window, a few moments later the speed boost disappears and the display gets laggy again. Having a D3D app on the screen speeds things up.

I'm using Workstation 8 on Windows 7 64bit. My gfx card is a GeForce GTS 450, and I'm running with 8GB's using 2 Xenon 5150's CPU's. The guests are various installs of XP from different sources with different service packs (2 and 3) , and have at a minimum 1GB RAM each. (I've read low guest memory can cause problems with the VM display drivers)

Can we report this as a bug somewhere?

Suggested satirical workaround

Re-install Workstation 7 and use it for XP and other OS's of that time, and in one of those guests, install Workstation 8 for new OS's you'll be using.

It'll work with hardware virtualisation, and about 8 to 16 cores.... ;o)