Virtualizing OS X

[497902]

I recently installed OS X 10.10.1 inside a virtual machine using VMWare Fusion 7.1. Unfortunately, even after I installed the guest additions, the whole system was extremely laggy. Why is that? Is it so hard to virtualize OS X?

 

[b0fh666]

haven't tried that, but I'd guess it's the 3d/transparency thing that taxes the virtual video driver... see if the VM has acceleration enabled and try disabling the eye candy stuff.

 

[maflynn]

I recently installed OS X 10.10.1 inside a virtual machine using VMWare Fusion 7.1. Unfortunately, even after I installed the guest additions, the whole system was extremely laggy. Why is that? Is it so hard to virtualize OS X?

Mostly because Apple doesn't want you to do it, and so any specific drivers needed are not available, that is the vmware's graphic drivers are not optimized for OSX.

Its disappointing to be sure but that's apple's standpoint and since they own the OS, its there right I suppose.

 

[497902]

See if the VM has acceleration enabled and try disabling the eye candy stuff.

The effects are already disabled from the beginning.

Mostly because Apple doesn't want you to do it.

Why would Apple have a problem with people virtualizing OS X when it runs perfectly fine on an external hard drive? Oh, and why did they allow the installation in the first place? Virtualizing OS X was reserved for the Server variants until Lion came out, so now they do allow it.

 

[b0fh666]

scratch that... from the vmware kb (for mavericks, but doubt yose is different)

Some features of VMware Tools do not work in Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks virtual machines. These features include:

Unity
Mirrored folders
3D acceleration. SVGA only.
Drag-and-Drop / Copy-Paste of files
Multi-monitor support in full screen.
USB 3.0 support.

i suppose that alone would make it run like a pig...

 

[chrfr]

scratch that... from the vmware kb (for mavericks, but doubt yose is different)



i suppose that alone would make it run like a pig...

There are Yosemite-specific graphics performance issues in Fusion as of version 7.1. There's workarounds here:
http://blogs.vmware.com/teamfusion/...sues-running-os-x-yosemite-vm.html#sf35313754
Running the Beamoff app listed there makes a huge difference.

 

[497902]

There are Yosemite-specific graphics performance issues in Fusion as of version 7.1. There's workarounds here:
http://blogs.vmware.com/teamfusion/...sues-running-os-x-yosemite-vm.html#sf35313754
Running the Beamoff app listed there makes a huge difference.

Thanks, that must be it!

 

[Traverse]

Question:

Running OS X as a guest system on a Retina screen gets proper scaling, but it's not HiDPI so it's very blurry, so I have to use a standard screen. Is there any way around this?

 

[dyn]

Run it natively instead of a vm. OS X is indeed rather difficult to virtualise properly. With the new graphics system it seems that El Capitan is running better in a vm albeit still a tad bit slow. Running any other OS X version in a vm requires patience, mostly due to the graphics system.

 

[Traverse]

Run it natively instead of a vm. OS X is indeed rather difficult to virtualise properly. With the new graphics system it seems that El Capitan is running better in a vm albeit still a tad bit slow. Running any other OS X version in a vm requires patience, mostly due to the graphics system.

I'm virtualizing for software that won't run on current OS X versions. Also, running it native isn't future proof because when I get new hardware, the OS won't run.

 

[dyn]

Then the only thing you can do is to live with