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cgc · Apr 25, 2009, 05:32 PM

I run Vista Business (because I got it for free from college) in BootCamp and I get scores of 5.9 across the board using the Windows Experience Benchmark (that thing that came with Vista that says how well your computer will run Vista). I decided to install Vista under VMWare Fusion 2 and my Windows Experience score is below. Note that I have a MacPro w/ nVidia 8800GT and 7GB memory (allocated 2GB memory and 2 cores to Vista).

I'm curious how other virtualization solutions score in Vista. Thanks.

turtle777 · Apr 25, 2009, 09:03 PM

Similar results here. Graphics performance under VMWare seems to be bad. I dunno, maybe a driver issue

-t

besson3c · Apr 25, 2009, 11:53 PM

I haven't used Fusion, but if Fusion's vmx files are similar to that of Server (and I imagine there are), there are several variables and settings that can be used to improve performance. Examples:

- disable memory sharing

- put your memory files on a fast partition (some even advocate a RAM disk)

- experiment with using SCSI disks rather than IDE, or vice versa. I believe that SCSI is now considered the faster of the two in Server, but this wasn't always the case

- I know that this may not be applicable here since you probably aren't benchmarking network performance, but use the best network driver that is supported by your guest OS, which is either going to be vmxnet or vmxnet enhanced, but not vlance

- don't starve your host OS in memory, give your guest OS plenty... swapping will slaughter performance. Check to make sure both your host and guest OS are not swapping

- disable memory trimming

- make sure that your disk images are not competing for I/O with other I/O intensive jobs. If you have a separate hard drive for your images, that will help. SATA disks can be I/O saturated very easily running VMs.

The options in Server:

Code:
mainMem.useNamedFile = "FALSE"
prefvmx.minVmMemPct = "100"
prefvmx.useRecommendedLockedMemSize = "TRUE"
sched.mem.pshare.enable = "FALSE"
MemTrimRate = "0"

VMWare often simply doesn't provide GUI options for "unsupported" features, but many are available if you don't mind editing your vmx config files manually.

This may be more than what you wanted, but VM tweaking is a definite skill set of its own. You need to go beyond the default options to really maximize your performance.

turtle777 · Apr 26, 2009, 01:05 AM

That's all nice and dandy, but it doesn't explain at all why he gets top scores in Processor, Memory and HD, but the low scores in gaming and graphic.

Most changes you suggested will not help graphics at all.

-t

besson3c · Apr 26, 2009, 01:57 AM

Is Vista Experience some sort of graphics only benchmark? If so, it's no surprise that the scores are much lower than under Bootcamp. The Direct3D acceleration support (or whatever it is called) in VMWare Fusion is experimental and may not be fully compatible with all of the tests. I also can't remember if Direct3D accelerates both OpenGL and DirectX stuff.

The bottom line is that your VM guests do not have direct access to your video card, and are therefore running a basic emulated generic video card.

cgc · Apr 26, 2009, 10:11 AM

Originally Posted by besson3c

Is Vista Experience some sort of graphics only benchmark? If so, it's no surprise that the scores are much lower than under Bootcamp. The Direct3D acceleration support (or whatever it is called) in VMWare Fusion is experimental and may not be fully compatible with all of the tests. I also can't remember if Direct3D accelerates both OpenGL and DirectX stuff.

The bottom line is that your VM guests do not have direct access to your video card, and are therefore running a basic emulated generic video card.

I understand that, my question was geared more at comparing VMWare Fusion's scores with those of other virtualization solutions (e.g. Parallels, VirtualBox, CrossOver, etc.).

BTW, I gave my virtualized Vista 2GB of memory and 2 CPU cores...I realize it's probably complicated to share resources such as a video card. Would a dual-core GPU be a potential solution in the future? I mean, since we can assign the CPU the virtualization because we have more than one, why wouldn't we be able to assign a GPU core in the future as well for a nearly full speed solution?

It bothers me that the graphics are so slow...I feel the sluggishness (I've been using emulation and virtualization solutions for years and now just around to complaining

)

besson3c · Apr 26, 2009, 11:24 AM

Aside from installing VMWare Tools, there isn't much you can do. The hypervisor mediates access to hardware including VCPUs, but doing this with a video card is much harder. I think part of the reason it is so is because there are several different GPU drivers that may not have enough common ground (esp. ATI vs Nvidia) to standardize on a standard driver that is an enhancement over what is included now. This is really hard when the host GPU is unpredictable.

There are likely many other factors here which I don't claim to understand... What I've written is probably not quite right anyway

turtle777 · Apr 26, 2009, 12:23 PM

Whatever it is, I'm sure that VMWare could optimize graphics performance.

It doesn't make sense that GPU, memory and HD performance are top notch, and graphics really bad. There's something not optimized.

The GPU drivers shouldn't be a problem, since the drivers exist (he gets great graphics performance under Bootcamp). So it's gotta be some sloppy way of VMWare Fusion handling the the GPU.

-t

besson3c · Apr 26, 2009, 12:28 PM

I don't think that is a fair conclusion, turtle. The hypervisor still mediates access to all host hardware. Most likely the video card is not even touching the GPU, but just doing the video work with the CPU. I believe that VMWare Tools just taps into some of the basics of the generic video card such as the higher resolution and color depth.

It's not a case of optimization, you are not going to get anywhere near the performance of the native video card on the OS outside of virtualization until you deal with these issues as VMWare's Direct3D support does in part for some games.

turtle777 · Apr 26, 2009, 07:07 PM

Well, I was intentionally vague when saying something is not optimized.

However you call it.

-t

mduell · Apr 27, 2009, 07:43 PM

No surprise here, GPU virtualization is very immature.

besson3c · Apr 27, 2009, 11:06 PM

If you need accelerated 3D stuff, you are going to be best off looking at WINE/Crossover Office before virtualization solutions. You can play a *ton* of modern games using WINE, it really is quite impressive, although I can't vouch for whether or not the OS X version is at parity with the Linux version (although somebody here has said that it is).

cgc · Apr 28, 2009, 09:04 AM

Originally Posted by besson3c

If you need accelerated 3D stuff, you are going to be best off looking at WINE/Crossover Office before virtualization solutions. You can play a *ton* of modern games using WINE, it really is quite impressive, although I can't vouch for whether or not the OS X version is at parity with the Linux version (although somebody here has said that it is).

I go to BootCamp for gaming...I was curious if any of the other virtualization options for general purpose use was much better with graphics. BTW, I tried CrossOver Gaming and really disliked the feel of CounterStrike Source...though it almost played at full speed.