How fast is VMware

[homers]

Hi

I can't natively install this on my main Dual core 2GB machine. Would it run ok. Can you actually use any applications?

[homers]

HEllo???

[EtherealRemnant]

The reason why nobody has responded is because it was a stupid question.

 

VMWare is not the most optimal way to run OS X for sure but on a dual-core machine, with the settings in VMWare set to use both cores, it runs fine.

 

Its not like its PearPC or something... Install will be slow though due to the fact that nobody that makes discs anymore seems to care to enable the Intel ATA driver that VMWare uses so it uses a generic ATA install - its about 15-20 times slower than the Intel driver.

[delish]

I find VMWare quick to install with when using a iso image (of the instalation disk) mounted with Deamon Tools.

[bptba93]

It's slow period.

[skunkmere]

man nobody answers anybody on this forum, even if its a stupid question someone should answer. i answer dumb questions when i can. nobody learns stuff without asking questtions.

[phillipsart]

It is slow. I am trying it out on vmware now.

[~pcwiz]

Hi

I can't natively install this on my main Dual core 2GB machine. Would it run ok. Can you actually use any applications?

 

It runs slow, but it is usable unlike PearPC. If you can get VMware to run with 2 cores/processors, then it is a lot faster. You can use it for basic program developing and stuff.

[bonestonne]

speed is dependant on how much RAM you give the Virtual Machine. the more the better, but leave plenty for the host OS as well. if you have 2gb, i'd give the virtual machine at least 1gb.

 

cores aren't as important. i ran vista in VMWare on a dual P3 Xeon box and it ran. to say the least, it ran. [thats dual 783mhz CPUs]. mind you vista could only use one though.

[~pcwiz]

Hmm.....I have 1GB of RAM and I've allocated 512MB to my VM. It's really slow but it is still usable. It would be nice if there was a way that you could allocate part of your hard drive to virtual RAM for the VM.....That would be nice.

[cbmkgd]

Well, it wasn't a stupid question, really. It's just that after a certain version of tiger vmware wasn't supporting osx as guest as fast as before.

I remember maxxuss (the real original one) stating something about osx began using some specific cpu mode/function that vmware couldn't deal with as efficiently... sorry that i can't be more specific, don't have the quote on hand.

 

On my side, osx is quite slow (see sig for specs).

In fact, even when a guest osx vm is idle (guest activity at near 0%, except Activity Monitor), my host machine has cpu activity around 95%. So imagine when an app is run. I don't think adding more ram would solve this.

 

Of course, dual core (eg intel core2 duo's, etc) users might have different experiences, i don't know.

 

What about you, pcwiz, and bonestonne? When your osx guest is idle, what's the host cpu process usage/percentage?

[CJS]

speed is dependant on how much RAM you give the Virtual Machine. the more the better, but leave plenty for the host OS as well. if you have 2gb, i'd give the virtual machine at least 1gb.

 

cores aren't as important. i ran vista in VMWare on a dual P3 Xeon box and it ran. to say the least, it ran. [thats dual 783mhz CPUs]. mind you vista could only use one though.

i think you need faster cores... a core 2 duo would help or even a core 2 quad... but quads are more expensive...

[kamikaze]

on my config, VMware is about 30 times slower than a native install. unusable.

[~pcwiz]

Well, it wasn't a stupid question, really. It's just that after a certain version of tiger vmware wasn't supporting osx as guest as fast as before.

I remember maxxuss (the real original one) stating something about osx began using some specific cpu mode/function that vmware couldn't deal with as efficiently... sorry that i can't be more specific, don't have the quote on hand.

 

On my side, osx is quite slow (see sig for specs).

In fact, even when a guest osx vm is idle (guest activity at near 0%, except Activity Monitor), my host machine has cpu activity around 95%. So imagine when an app is run. I don't think adding more ram would solve this.

 

Of course, dual core (eg intel core2 duo's, etc) users might have different experiences, i don't know.

 

What about you, pcwiz, and bonestonne? When your osx guest is idle, what's the host cpu process usage/percentage?

 

 

I have a Pentium D 830 Dual core 3Ghz on my host machine and when the Guest OS is idle, the CPU usage is like 0-20%. Not bad I'd say, but my host RAM usage goes up to 96% when the machine is idle and running, normal I think.

[cbmkgd]

I have a Pentium D 830 Dual core 3Ghz on my host machine and when the Guest OS is idle, the CPU usage is like 0-20%.

Well then, the 95%+ host cpu usage (for idle osx guest) probably is amd and/or singlecore related.

 

/edit: I found the maxxuss bit about why (he thinks) the slow down occurred from OS X 10.4.3 8F1111a on. It's in his tuning_8f1111.html page.

(...) be aware that, due to the fundamental changes in the 8F1111 kernel (and in future releases), you cannot reach the same level of performance as with 10.4.3 8F1099 (especially under VMWare) (...)

One of the main reasons for the degraded performance is the virtual address space organization which was introduced with 8F1111.

(...) [T]he 4G/4G split causes a lot of virtual address space switches. These switches are expensive (...) and, under VMWare, trigger relatively high-overhead management routines of the virtual machine monitor.

(...) The VMWare issue could be solved in the long run with the new generation of Intel and AMD processors using the Vanderpool CPU-level virtualization technology (...)

Maybe that was solved with the Core/Core2 Duo, I don't know.

[~pcwiz]

Maybe that was solved with the Core/Core2 Duo, I don't know.

 

It is apparently solved in any dual core processor. not just the Core/Core 2 Duo series.

[saivert]

VMWare makes use of Intel VT (Vanderpool) when running 64-bit guests. VMWare never uses Intel VT when running 32-bit guests.

 

Read this discussion which makes you wonder why VMWare has this stance on 32 bit guest and VT technology:

http://www.vmware.com/community/message.js...essageID=376400

 

He is talking about Parallels running a lot faster with VT with 32 bit guests. This was before VMWare Fusion was released. And recent tests have shown VMWare Fusion to be faster than Parallels. But that's on MAC which makes it pointless for us.

 

And of course the virtualization speed depends on your host computer. 10.4.8 didn't run that slow on my AMD Opteron 150 computer a year ago. Sure it will always be slower but what did you expect?

[RDPetruska]

VMWare makes use of Intel VT (Vanderpool) when running 64-bit guests. VMWare never uses Intel VT when running 32-bit guests.

 

Read this discussion which makes you wonder why VMWare has this stance on 32 bit guest and VT technology:

<snip>

Read the whitepaper at http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/528 for the answer to this question.

And, actually, you can force the vt usage on 32-bit guests using 'monitor_control.vt32 = "TRUE"' in the vmx file.

[osxn00b]

Well, I was just playing around with my VM install, and it seems fairly slow. It's running on a Q6600 Quad core w/4 GB ram. The VM has 2 GB RAM allocated and 20 GB HD allocated. Does making the VM HD too large slow it down?

[Colonel Ingus]

The reason why nobody has responded is because it was a stupid question.

No question is stupid. People wouldn't be asking them if they knew the answers. However your response to him was rude, to say the least People are here to learn, not just rehash what they already know.

[OSX86Geek]

Well then, the 95%+ host cpu usage (for idle osx guest) probably is amd and/or singlecore related.

 

/edit: I found the maxxuss bit about why (he thinks) the slow down occurred from OS X 10.4.3 8F1111a on. It's in his tuning_8f1111.html page.

 

Maybe that was solved with the Core/Core2 Duo, I don't know.

 

Actually, that explains my Xbench results in VMWare (Core 2 Duo 1.83, 2GB RAM)

Look at the Memory Test (allocate) , the result is hilarious. Also GUI performance is bad, not talking about the disks. Without the memory problem maxxuss described, that thing would fly!

 

Results 22.34

System Info

Xbench Version 1.3

System Version 10.4.8 (8L2127)

Physical RAM 1024 MB

Model ADP2,1

Drive Type VMware Virtual IDE Hard Drive

CPU Test 76.21

GCD Loop 173.42 9.14 Mops/sec

Floating Point Basic 81.52 1.94 Gflop/sec

vecLib FFT 58.38 1.93 Gflop/sec

Floating Point Library 57.74 10.05 Mops/sec

Thread Test 140.07

Computation 138.91 2.81 Mops/sec, 4 threads

Lock Contention 141.24 6.08 Mlocks/sec, 4 threads

Memory Test 39.11

System 20.59

Allocate 8.30 30.48 Kalloc/sec

Fill 85.67 4165.24 MB/sec

Copy 73.75 1523.35 MB/sec

Stream 389.92

Copy 2902.28 59945.39 MB/sec

Scale 215.58 4453.73 MB/sec

Add 255.45 5441.55 MB/sec

Triad 734.96 15722.50 MB/sec

User Interface Test 7.51

Elements 7.51 34.46 refresh/sec

[~pcwiz]

I have dual-core where the problem apparently "may not exist :censored2:", but OS X on VMware doesn't exactly "fly". Its pretty slow. Its slow, but its not unusable.

 

Also, new discovery: Uphuck 10.4.9 1.4iR3 runs much faster than JaS 10.4.8 on VMware.

[OSX86Geek]

I don't think it's a processor problem. It a memory addressing problem, which occours on all proc types. Maybe you want to post your XBench results of Uphuck release?

 

regards

.gk

[~pcwiz]

I don't have Xbench yet. I'll post up my benchmarks as soon as possible

[gnubeard]

Well, it wasn't a stupid question, really. It's just that after a certain version of tiger vmware wasn't supporting osx as guest as fast as before.

I remember maxxuss (the real original one) stating something about osx began using some specific cpu mode/function that vmware couldn't deal with as efficiently... sorry that i can't be more specific, don't have the quote on hand.

 

On my side, osx is quite slow (see sig for specs).

In fact, even when a guest osx vm is idle (guest activity at near 0%, except Activity Monitor), my host machine has cpu activity around 95%. So imagine when an app is run. I don't think adding more ram would solve this.

 

Of course, dual core (eg intel core2 duo's, etc) users might have different experiences, i don't know.

 

What about you, pcwiz, and bonestonne? When your osx guest is idle, what's the host cpu process usage/percentage?

 

An idle/suspended VM takes no CPU time - period. That is a run-away vmware-vmx. Fix VMware. And don't install every flippin' patch to OSX. Stay behind the curve. Myzar's 10.4.4 is a masterpiece. It's still slow, of course -- but certainly not as slow as you're certainly seeing.

 

VMware/MacOSX is a great way to get familiar w/ OSX, to learn it .. even to do some porting of lightweight code from other platforms if you don't have a Mac. It's also a great way to maintain a high-degree of compatibility between your real Mac and your PC. You're not going to use it to run desktop apps and so on though. But use it. If you find yourself saying 'Wow, this is awesome' then buy a Mac. It'll blow your hair back.

 

I like the Mac. I have a Mac mini and a new iPod touch that are really fun. I wish MacOSX Server could seriously compete w/ Linux. Maybe Leopard will bring good things. Maybe in MacOS 11 they'll get rid of Mach and replace it w/ Xen and allow booting Vista or Linux into a dual-core sandbox on a 16-core Mac.