Hello, Curious if it's possible to get a Windows 10 x64 VM to run smoother. I have a 8700k/16GB RAM/1070ti, enabled VT-d (in case it matters), a Win 10 x64 guest and same as host. I'm using a 7200 rpm HDD, I could use an SSD, but I just don't feel like writing so many GB to it, because I'm not using it a lot, it's more of a test machine, for apps I don't trust, or to see if some buggy app is now fixed after an update etc. The thing is, I'm almost always limited by that SCSI HDD VMWare simulates being at 100%. What I tried: - giving the VM more RAM (now it has 8 GB), it seems to have helped some, but I don't have so much RAM to continue increasing that - giving the VM more CPUs (no effect basically, now it has 1CPU 4 cores, but I'm sure 2 would be the same). I have no idea how a 6 core with HT translates into VMWare. Did I actually give 4 physical cores to the VM? Cause if I did, it's definitely excessive. - cleaning the disk, defragging (tried VMware's defrag or OS defrag, nothing). - adding Vm folder to the antivirus exclusions, using Defender now, even with Kaspersky it had no effect I've read guides suggesting to basically turn off basically whatever can be turned off in Win 10 to reduce I/O. While it's not like I need all that stuff on a test PC, it still seems excessive. Maybe it's important that Task Manager shows 100% disk activity even with just 3-4MB/s being written/read. It's just sooooooo slow, it's like a 5400rpm HDD from 15 years ago that was never defragged. It goes away a minute or so after a boot, i guess after the OS cached whatever it felt it needed caching. I have 3 disks, an SSD and 2 HDDs. The one with the VM shouldn't be accessed by anything else, I don't have any OS/apps on it, although I'm sure the Windows host just can't be stopped from also accessing that HDD for w/e reason. Is this common for VMs with my components? PS: second small question. I see that the WDDM 2.4 driver model allows for "Adapter paravirtualization". I wouldn't mind trying to virtualize the Geforce card, I know it's supposed to not be a thing, but still possible. This is just a curiosity so I can see how games would run in a VM. Is this "paravirtualization" of any practical use, if yes, what for?
Windows 10 was running very slowly in VirtualBox (4GB RAM, 2c4t, 7200rpm, 2d/3d) until I disabled windows defender, most services and scheduled tasks. Now it's fast enough but it can't compare to WinXP which is super fast.
It's mostly Windows Update and Disk Indexing that consumes a lot of HDD reads, after disabling my VMs are far more responsive.
So I guess it's back to disabling stuff. I'll do that later and hopefully it will improve. Any idea if this "paravirtualization" for GPUs can be of any use?
Interestingly enough, this looks to have been either an issue with Vmware Pro 14 or Windows 10 RS4/1803. I've sadly deleted the old VM so can't test RS4/1803,but the new VM with RS4/1809 on VMWare Pro 15 is simply working as a normal PC, no HDD thrashing, at all. It's fluent to use and I could even reduce the RAM to 4GB without any negative impact. Tried it with Windows Defender and Kaspersky IS, neither had any negative effect. I wonder what caused past behavior, it was more than annoying, performance was pretty damn bad until the OS "stabilized" after a while.