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best vm software for fast UI?

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omega-x

2[H]4U
Joined
Jun 21, 2003
Messages
3,073
things i've tried so far....
free:
hyper-v, tried it on my server 2008 box and it slowed the host OS down noticably AND had a very laggy interface to the guest OS. so i uninstalled it.
virtualbox, ok but lacking features.

paid:
vmware workstation. unbearably slow emulation of a linux box, decent at windows.


maybe i'm missing a product or 2 out there that give you a "native" feel to the user experience?
 
this all depends how much you are going to throw at it!

Get a ESXi box sorted and remote desktop to the VM.... your wouldn't even notice its a VM! but if you are running on a low end system then its not going to work.
 
the system im testing on is currently core 2 duo / 2gb running server 2008 64bit.

i looked at ESXi. does it allow full access to hardware? (ie, gaming/gpu folding)
 
Are you able to upgrade the RAM at all? That right there is why the VM's are slow.
 
If you have virtual linux systems look into using nxserver/freenx, nx client is available for both windows and linux so doesn't really matter. I have 8core server running vmware server 2.0 and the web interface thing is ungodly slow. Instead I just use freenx.

Plus I can log in remotely from work and pretty much feels like a local system.

Short of this I think the vmware client windows client is the best (fastest) viewer... but makes you run friggin windows :(.
 
omega-x said:
paid:
vmware workstation. unbearably slow emulation of a linux box, decent at windows.


maybe i'm missing a product or 2 out there that give you a "native" feel to the user experience?
Click to expand...

slow at linux? did you install vmware tools?
 
omega-x said:
the system im testing on is currently core 2 duo / 2gb running server 2008 64bit.

i looked at ESXi. does it allow full access to hardware? (ie, gaming/gpu folding)
Click to expand...

No. ESX is a non-realtime hypervisor.
 
meaning ESX is its own "host"?

that's fantastic for servers but all im looking to do is emulate linux on top of windows and keep some semblance of speed on both the host and guest OS.

how does the free VMware server compared to paid VMware workstation?
 
omega-x said:
meaning ESX is its own "host"?

that's fantastic for servers but all im looking to do is emulate linux on top of windows and keep some semblance of speed on both the host and guest OS.

how does the free VMware server compared to paid VMware workstation?
Click to expand...

yes, and ESX does not guarantee realtime processing - it's for servers and non-realtime applications, not gaming or folding, so it gives no access to hardware.

Server is like ESX dumbed down - also non-realtime. Workstation/player are both realtime emulation.

Use workstation, and install vmware tools. You won't see any slowdown of note. without tools, it'll be dog slow though.
 
The suggestion about increasing the RAM is the best and most immediately performance boosting suggestion and should be the primary one to implement. Running VMs - even if they aren't assigned a lot of RAM to run with - is still a system RAM intensive process, so give the machine hosting the guests as much RAM as you can put in it affordably.

There really is no better suggestion unless you can add a separate hard drive designated for running only VMs from. That will seriously boost VM performance as well instead of running such machines off the same drive the host OS sits on.
 
omega-x said:
the system im testing on is currently core 2 duo / 2gb running server 2008 64bit.

i looked at ESXi. does it allow full access to hardware? (ie, gaming/gpu folding)
Click to expand...

VM software currently cannot fully utilize your hardware as you are wanting it to.

ie, Gaming will work kinda, but it cannot utilize the capabilities of your GPU,
Folding does not work at all.
 
The soon to be released VirtualBox 2.2 will support 3d acceleration for Linux guests. Hello compiz.
 
nitrobass24 said:
VM software currently cannot fully utilize your hardware as you are wanting it to.

ie, Gaming will work kinda, but it cannot utilize the capabilities of your GPU,
Folding does not work at all.
Click to expand...

3d acceleration for windows is in most of them now, and Vbox is getting it for linux soon.

but no, no folding.
 
3d Acceleration is not Full Access to the hardware like the OP was thinking.

Yes 3D acceleration is there but all it is really, is a Virtual Graphics card, created by a driver, and you allocate memory to it. That memory comes from your System Ram.

It in no way interacts with your GPU.
 
If I'm correct, I believe that VirtualBox is the only one that provides DirectX 3D support. The others sure don't as Xen emulates a Cirrus 5441 VGA adapter, while Microsoft uses S3 emulation.
 
nitrobass24 said:
3d Acceleration is not Full Access to the hardware like the OP was thinking.

Yes 3D acceleration is there but all it is really, is a Virtual Graphics card, created by a driver, and you allocate memory to it. That memory comes from your System Ram.

It in no way interacts with your GPU.
Click to expand...
Granted -
VT-D will eventually give you that.

bellisca said:
If I'm correct, I believe that VirtualBox is the only one that provides DirectX 3D support. The others sure don't as Xen emulates a Cirrus 5441 VGA adapter, while Microsoft uses S3 emulation.
Click to expand...

Not true.
VMware workstation does DX9.0C 3d acceleration
VMware Fusion does the same as workstation.
 
bellisca said:
If I'm correct, I believe that VirtualBox is the only one that provides DirectX 3D support. The others sure don't as Xen emulates a Cirrus 5441 VGA adapter, while Microsoft uses S3 emulation.
Click to expand...

First off I didnt say no one provides DirectX, or VGA acceleration.
I said they dont provide Hardware Access, which they dont.

Yes some of the products provide psuedo VGA support throught dx9c.
Last time I checked DX9c is software...
These virtual machines thtat support it support it throught software emulation of a GPU.

It will still work even if you do not have a GPU installed in the host system.
Dont beleive me? try it out for yourself.

Vbox, and VMware Workstation, and Fusion have GPU software(driver) emulation that allows you to allocate System memory to a virtual GPU.

It in no way accesses the physical GPU (if present) on the host system.
 
omega-x said:
things i've tried so far....
free:
hyper-v, tried it on my server 2008 box and it slowed the host OS down noticably AND had a very laggy interface to the guest OS. so i uninstalled it.
virtualbox, ok but lacking features.

paid:
vmware workstation. unbearably slow emulation of a linux box, decent at windows.


maybe i'm missing a product or 2 out there that give you a "native" feel to the user experience?
Click to expand...

I guess no one has really answered the OP's question.

Honestly if you want native "desktop" feel.
Then VMware Workstation I beleive is your best bet, followed by Hyper-v, and VirtualBox in that order.

Also you NEED to upgrade your ram situation.
For Vista/Server2008 2gb should be a minimum requirement for the Host OS.
Im not surprised at all you were disappointed with VM performance.

VM's eat RAM like its their job.
 
nitrobass24 said:
First off I didnt say no one provides DirectX, or VGA acceleration.
I said they dont provide Hardware Access, which they dont.

Yes some of the products provide psuedo VGA support throught dx9c.
Last time I checked DX9c is software...
These virtual machines thtat support it support it throught software emulation of a GPU.

It will still work even if you do not have a GPU installed in the host system.
Dont beleive me? try it out for yourself.

Vbox, and VMware Workstation, and Fusion have GPU software(driver) emulation that allows you to allocate System memory to a virtual GPU.

It in no way accesses the physical GPU (if present) on the host system.
Click to expand...

Um, there is ~some~ passthrough, as they do actual 3d acceleration faster than a software rendering engine could - it's just not direct access. It abstracts away the exact details of the hardware, but from what I've seen it's using the actual hardware - the guest OS just isn't exposed to it, it's exposed to a HAL. There's no way to render SM2 graphics with a software engine and expect more than a frame a minute :p


Basically, workstation/whatever run as a 3d program then, using the GPU, and just passthrough commands from the guest to it as needed, although the guest is oblivious as to what the actual hardware is its talking to.
 
VT-d should allow for this, right? My i7 MB seems to have VT-d available but it defaults to disabled in BIOS. I'm wondering why, and to what degree virtualization software needs to act to support it.
 
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