2019 i9 iMac very laggy VMWare Fusion Pro

[jonatious]

So I have given 8 processor cores and 12.5GB RAM. I have Windows 10 Pro on VMWare Fusion Pro. I have only installed Visual Studio and Google Chrome.

I've never seen more than 40% CPU and 50% RAM. But I have severe lagging when any Windows animation happens like a new tab on chrome or when a new window/app is opened. I do not any lag or stutter when playing a youtube video.

Any idea why this might happen or anyone has faced this issue?

 

[jerwin]

I don't have VMFusion Pro-- but...

is "accelerate 3d graphics" on, or off?

 

[chrfr]

So I have given 8 processor cores and 12.5GB RAM. I have Windows 10 Pro on VMWare Fusion Pro. I have only installed Visual Studio and Google Chrome.

I've never seen more than 40% CPU and 50% RAM. But I have severe lagging when any Windows animation happens like a new tab on chrome or when a new window/app is opened. I do not any lag or stutter when playing a youtube video.

Any idea why this might happen or anyone has faced this issue?

What hardware does your Mac have? (CPU, RAM, etc.) You may be overallocating resources to the virtual machine which can cause a deterioration in performance.

 

[jonatious]

I don't have VMFusion Pro-- but...

is "accelerate 3d graphics" on, or off?

I just checked this and it was ON. I turned it off and it gave slightly better performance weirdly. I turned it back on and gave the max graphic memory and still have lag issues

What hardware does your Mac have? (CPU, RAM, etc.) You may be overallocating resources to the virtual machine which can cause a deterioration in performance.

I have the i9 990K processor with 580X and 40GB RAM
I am also monitoring the CPU and Memory utilization on Mac, RAM is at around 75% and CPU at 30-40% on Mac

 

[Bohemien]

What happens when you reduce the number of cores allocated to the VM? Better or worse?

 

[chrfr]

I just checked this and it was ON. I turned it off and it gave slightly better performance weirdly. I turned it back on and gave the max graphic memory and still have lag issues



I have the i9 990K processor with 580X and 40GB RAM
I am also monitoring the CPU and Memory utilization on Mac, RAM is at around 75% and CPU at 30-40% on Mac

You have too many cores allocated to the virtual machine. While that may not be the only problem, that's not helping matters. I'd use 6 cores at the very most, and probably not even that many.
https://pubs.vmware.com/fusion-7/in...UID-4EABCE73-69AB-4665-A5BB-B34C5B736CC7.html

Assigning all processors on the Mac to the virtual machine results in extremely poor performance. Mac OS X must continue to perform background tasks even if no Mac applications are running. If you assign all processors to a virtual machine, this prevents important Mac tasks from being completed.

 

[jonatious]

But the dropdown actually had up to 16 processor cores. So I thought it was the processor threads. And it automatically showed the warning that all cores will slow down the performance when I chose over 10 cores. So I went for 8. I will try to reduce it to 4 and see if that helps.

 

[mj_]

It probably won't help. What you're seeing is a hit in GPU performance, not CPU performance. I'm afraid that's quite normal - the animations are not geared towards virtual machines but physical hardware. Not much you can do about it other than maybe trying a different hypervisor. I've heard good things about Parallels, it is supposed to be pretty snappy. VirtualBox, on the other hand, is more than lethargic and only barely good enough for basic non-interactive mostly static 2D interfaces.

 

[chrfr]

But the dropdown actually had up to 16 processor cores. So I thought it was the processor threads. And it automatically showed the warning that all cores will slow down the performance when I chose over 10 cores. So I went for 8. I will try to reduce it to 4 and see if that helps.

Higher end Intel CPUs have what's called Hyperthreading. The extra 8 cores you see are virtual.

 

[jonatious]

It probably won't help. What you're seeing is a hit in GPU performance, not CPU performance. I'm afraid that's quite normal - the animations are not geared towards virtual machines but physical hardware. Not much you can do about it other than maybe trying a different hypervisor. I've heard good things about Parallels, it is supposed to be pretty snappy. VirtualBox, on the other hand, is more than lethargic and only barely good enough for basic non-interactive mostly static 2D interfaces.

I purchased the VMWare Fusion Pro license Can't go for Parallels now.

Also how is the basic animations not being able to be handled by the 580X 8GB memory but can play games? Haven't tried games yet though
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Higher end Intel CPUs have what's called Hyperthreading. The extra 8 cores you see are virtual.

Yeah I understand that, so since I allocated 8 virtual processor cores, it is half of the total cores right?

 

[chrfr]

Yeah I understand that, so since I allocated 8 virtual processor cores, it is half of the total cores right?

Not really. Hyperthreading doesn't translate well to use in virtual machines. Just try running your VM with 4 cores allocated, and I'm sure you'll find it works better.

 

[mj_]

Also how is the basic animations not being able to be handled by the 580X 8GB memory but can play games? Haven't tried games yet though

Again, this has nothing to do with the underlying GPU. Hypervisors are not designed to fully utilize a powerful GPU. Instead, they only offer basic 2D acceleration at best. You could throw the fastest RTX2080 GPU at it, or the slowest Intel HD Graphics 615 iGPU it won't make a difference. It should, however, run somewhat usable. Slow, but usable.

Did you make sure to install the VMware Tools in your virtual Windows 10 machine?

 

[BigMcGuire]

Only use physical cores. I have an i5 and the most I do to my VMWare Fusion instance is 2 CPUs. Anything more and it grinds to a halt.

On my 2017 MBP TB i5 16GB Ram --- Windows 10 operates surprisingly well. I can't do 3d gaming+ but I can run VS 2019 at almost normal speeds - sometimes I'll get a small lockup.

VMWare seems incredibly picky when I use my EGPU --- found it prefers to run in full screen mode vs not.

Definitely make sure to install VMWare tools.


Some side comments: Found external drives to be unusable inside of VMWare. I don't think 3d acceleration works for gaming because of the way Mac is. Even with my EGPU I get a notice that the host system doesn't allow it. I am no expert on VMWare and Mac tho.

But, Windows runs surprisingly fast/well on my MBP - with almost no lag.

Keep an eye on your Windows Task Manager. I have Office 365 click to start (or something like that) always using 20% CPU until I kill it - that can slow down the entire instance unnecessarily so.

 

[jonatious]

Not really. Hyperthreading doesn't translate well to use in virtual machines. Just try running your VM with 4 cores allocated, and I'm sure you'll find it works better.

Really excited to go home and try that. I really hope it helps. Also just wondering, if the CPU usage is under 40% on both the OS, then how could the CPU be the reason?

Again, this has nothing to do with the underlying GPU. Hypervisors are not designed to fully utilize a powerful GPU. Instead, they only offer basic 2D acceleration at best. You could throw the fastest RTX2080 GPU at it, or the slowest Intel HD Graphics 615 iGPU it won't make a difference. It should, however, run somewhat usable. Slow, but usable.

Did you make sure to install the VMware Tools in your virtual Windows 10 machine?

Yes VMWare Tools was automatically installed as far as I saw.
So what is the fix? How do people play high end games with this kind of deterioration of performance on VM?

Only use physical cores. I have an i5 and the most I do to my VMWare Fusion instance is 2 CPUs. Anything more and it grinds to a halt.

On my 2017 MBP TB i5 16GB Ram --- Windows 10 operates surprisingly well. I can't do 3d gaming+ but I can run VS 2019 at almost normal speeds - sometimes I'll get a small lockup.

VMWare seems incredibly picky when I use my EGPU --- found it prefers to run in full screen mode vs not.

Definitely make sure to install VMWare tools.


Some side comments: Found external drives to be unusable inside of VMWare. I don't think 3d acceleration works for gaming because of the way Mac is. Even with my EGPU I get a notice that the host system doesn't allow it. I am no expert on VMWare and Mac tho.

But, Windows runs surprisingly fast/well on my MBP - with almost no lag.

Keep an eye on your Windows Task Manager. I have Office 365 click to start (or something like that) always using 20% CPU until I kill it - that can slow down the entire instance unnecessarily so.

Yes VMWare Tools was automatically installed as far as I saw.
The CPU usage on my windows is always less than 40%. Also how do I use physical cores if the dropdown only shows to choose virtual cores?
So how do people play games on VM?

 

[mj_]

Who plays high-end games in virtual machines on macOS/Windows/Linux?
You get by playing older games, running emulators, etc. But current AAA titles or even yesteryear's games? No dice.

Where did you get the idea from that people play high-end games in virtual machines?

 

[jonatious]

Who plays high-end games in virtual machines on macOS/Windows/Linux?
You get by playing older games, running emulators, etc. But current AAA titles or even yesteryear's games? No dice.

Where did you get the idea from that people play high-end games in virtual machines?

Yeah nvm, I think people play games on Bootcamp not VM. My bad lol

 

[BigMcGuire]

Yeah nvm, I think people play games on Bootcamp not VM. My bad lol

Correct. Bootcamp. I've been tempted to do this on my Mac, I'm leaning towards it because I want a full speed windows machine that can do games and Visual Studio development with Oracle. But I guess my EGPU won't work on bootcamp? So I dunno. That and I love my 700GB free on Mac. I really don't want to have to set up windows AGAIN so ... I keep talking myself into it and out of it.

But I'm probably going to do bootcamp. I'll keep VMWare for when I need windows for a quick task.

 

[jonatious]

Correct. Bootcamp. I've been tempted to do this on my Mac, I'm leaning towards it because I want a full speed windows machine that can do games. But I guess my EGPU won't work on bootcamp? So I dunno. That and I love my 700GB free on Mac. I really don't want to have to set up windows AGAIN so ... I keep talking myself into it and out of it.

But I'm probably going to do bootcamp. I'll keep VMWare for when I need windows for a quick task.

I don't play games and I don't really think I need super high performace. I really love coding on Visual Studio on my VM and copying files/folders to Mac or even my production server remote connected through my Mac. It is just seemless to transfer from Windows VM => Mac => Remote Windows. And I kinda love browsing on Safari and copy pasting code into VS on VM. So Bootcamp is kind of out of scope for me

 

[BigMcGuire]

I don't play games and I don't really think I need super high performace. I really love coding on Visual Studio on my VM and copying files/folders to Mac or even my production server remote connected through my Mac. It is just seemless to transfer from Windows VM => Mac => Remote Windows. And I kinda love browsing on Safari and copy pasting code into VS on VM. So Bootcamp is kind of out of scope for me

I do this all the time too. Damnit, I've convinced myself not to do bootcamp again, lol. Thank you .

 

[jonatious]

I do this all the time too. Damnit, I've convinced myself not to do bootcamp again, lol. Thank you .

hahahaha

 

[hfg]

If you do a BootCamp Windows 10 installation on a partition of your disk, you can have VmWare Fusion use that installation for the VM too, thus only using a single installation of disk space.

Then, when playing games, simply re-boot into the BootCamp installation directly, but when doing less intensive tasks, you can run the same Windows install as a VM in a OS X window. Since they are the same installation image, any changes made in either environment will, of course, appear in the other.

 

[jonatious]

If you do a BootCamp Windows 10 installation on a partition of your disk, you can have VmWare Fusion use that installation for the VM too, thus only using a single installation of disk space.

Then, when playing games, simply re-boot into the BootCamp installation directly, but when doing less intensive tasks, you can run the same Windows install as a VM in a OS X window. Since they are the same installation image, any changes made in either environment will, of course, appear in the other.

I am completely okay to have a separate physical partition on the disk. Does that improve performance compared to virtual disk?

 

[hfg]

When you install Windows via BootCamp, it will create a separate partition out of necessity (you choose the size) and when done will be a NTFS bootable Windows. You can then use VmWare Fusion to create a "bootcamp VM" using that disk image.

The bootable Window will be just a fast as a normal PC running Windows, since that is what it actually is. The VM access will run at pretty much the same performance as the VM you are now running. But now ... you have a choice!

One small caveat ... a true VM will only consume disk space as needed, and will grow in size as you add content. Your BootCamp disk space is defined by you when created, and probably has unused space for growth. It cannot be expanded easily, although you can put programs on an external disk for more space. Also, a true VM will be part of your normal Mac backup process using Time Machine or a cloning program. The Windows partition must be separately backed up. I prefer using WinClone for this backup since it runs under OS X and won't screw up your boot tracks. You can also use WinClone to expand the size, or move Windows to an external disk if desired. On my iMac, I have Windows 10 on an external 500GB Thunderbolt3 SSD velcro mounted to the iMac stand and bus powered. It is working great for me (done this many times over the years).

 

[chrfr]

I am completely okay to have a separate physical partition on the disk. Does that improve performance compared to virtual disk?

Running a virtual machine from a physical partition does not affect performance of the VM in any noticeable way. I'd stick with the virtual disk– it'll save you more space than dedicating a full partition.

 

[cram501]

The VMWare tools video drivers for Windows are decent. You should see little lag as long as the resources are allocated properly. On most of my VM's I will use 2 cpu's. Unless you are doing something that really needs the added power, that should suffice for most situations and won't hog resources.

Parallels works pretty well but I would rate it about equal to VMWare. They both have their strengths and weaknesses.

VirtualBox is great for servers where you don't require a UI... basically Unix varieties.

Visual Studio works decently in the VMWare VM although use caution when sharing drives. Windows has issues when trying to detect updated files that have changed on the Mac side.