Increasing VirtualBox's CPU Utilization

dcbdbis · 2011-08-28 20:29:23

Arch x86_64, everything's current with pacman as of today. 8Gb ram, Intel Core2 Quad extreme proc @ 3Ghz. Latest VirtualBox

When running an XP-x32 VM, I can only get VB to utilize about 25% of my host's CPU bandwidth. If I increase the VM's CPU count, then the IO APIC is forcibly enabled which makes any VM run so slow as to render the VM unusuable, and then my host CPU goes to 100% load, but the VM's performance goes into the toilet. And I have tried freshinstalls of XP to a new VM where the IO APIC is enabled out of the box. The result is the same, an unusably slow VM.

I've posted on the VB forums but it is silent. It seems that when you hit a "nerve" on the VB forums, the Oracle folks go silent on you. I've only had one user reply, but their reply wasn't really on topic. I appreciated their post, but their bug was different than what I want to do with VB.

The question I have, is how can I configure VB to use more of my host's CPU?

Since hal has been depreciated, VMWare isn't viable, and the VMWare folks won't respond to my post when/if they are going to release updates to their products that use dbus instead of hal.

It seems VirtualBox right now is the most viable of the VM solutions.....

I have converted the XP vm to use sata, and that decreased the VM's need for CPU....but I still cannot (under CAD) get the VM to use more than 25% of the host's CPU.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thank you!

Sincerely and respectfully,

Dave

R00KIE · 2011-08-28 20:35:48

Why not use KVM? It might work better than VBox and no more needing to rebuild any modules after a kernel update, the downside is that some things VBox can do KVM can do _yet_, it all depends on what features you need to use.

karabaja4 · 2011-08-28 20:38:57

dcbdbis wrote:

Since hal has been depreciated, VMWare isn't viable, and the VMWare folks won't respond to my post when/if they are going to release updates to their products that use dbus instead of hal.

VMware depends on HAL? Since when? I doubt VMware even needs dbus, let alone HAL. I'm running my box HAL-free for quite a while now without any problems, with VMware or otherwise. VMware Workstation 7.1.4.

.

Last edited by karabaja4 (2011-08-28 20:40:42)

gerald82 · 2011-08-28 20:54:18

dcbdbis,
I just tried the same config - VBox running an WinXP 32bit VM - I can't confirm the problem. I ran Prime95 in the VM for the test on a single thread and noticed one host CPU core running 100% load. Seems OK

I will reconfigure the VM for more than one CPU and retry, though.

gerald82 · 2011-08-28 21:08:06

mkay, seems like I can't use more than one CPU core in the WinXP VM. It shows multiple cores in the device manager, however, Prime95 won't let me set more than one thread to run, and the task manager also shows only one CPU. Could be a Windows-Licence problem (duh).

Sorry, I can't test your fault message in a multi-CPU scenario.

gerald82 · 2011-08-28 21:09:23

Oh, one more thing: I noticed there's a CPU usage setting in VirtualBox. Make sure there's not a limit for 25% in that configuration.

dcbdbis · 2011-08-28 21:16:00

To karabaja4,

The ArchLinux wiki instructs to install hal. Also, in the current version of VMWare Player, the player GUI refuses to start without hal, as per the wiki. If you've got a way around hal.....I would sure like to know how you got around it! :-)

For gerald82, my CPU cap is at 100%.....

For ROOKIE, I do a lot of CAD work that requires some graphics acceleration to work correctly. I'm not aware that KVM would support any type of graphic acceleration. If I am in error, please point me to a wiki and I'll give it a shot.

I appreciate all who are responding. Thank You!

Dave.

karabaja4 · 2011-08-28 21:28:03

dcbdbis wrote:

To karabaja4,
The ArchLinux wiki instructs to install hal. Also, in the current version of VMWare Player, the player GUI refuses to start without hal, as per the wiki. If you've got a way around hal.....I would sure like to know how you got around it! :-)

Sorry, I thought you were using Workstation (which doesn't need hal, but is also not free).

R00KIE · 2011-08-28 21:38:31

@dcbdbis
As far as I know KVM graphics do not support graphical acceleration (no 3D stuff at all and I think only some 2D acceleration depending on the emulated card, but don't quote me on this one), there is pci passthrough though, that might allow you to use a second card directly inside the virtualized environment but I'd say that's way overkill for what you want.

As for XP not detecting 2 cpus when the number of cpus is increased in the virtual machine configuration, I think that's sort of by design, if you install XP on a single cpu machine and then "transplant" it into a multicore machine it will not use the extra cpus automatically. If I remember correctly you need to do a few tricky steps to install a different acpi driver to enable smp.

dcbdbis · 2011-08-28 21:40:52

Thanks for the reply rookie,

In each case, I do not modify the VM. I install a new one clean, with the different VirtualBox settings adjusted upfront at XP install time. If you tweak VB's settings after install, you run the risk of running afoul of Window's own HAL layer....

Thanks!

Dave...........

Cdh · 2011-08-28 22:03:39

dcbdbis wrote:

If I increase the VM's CPU count, then the IO APIC is forcibly enabled which makes any VM run so slow as to render the VM unusuable, and then my host CPU goes to 100% load, but the VM's performance goes into the toilet. And I have tried freshinstalls of XP to a new VM where the IO APIC is enabled out of the box. The result is the same, an unusably slow VM.

I have noticed that extremely poor performance too, in some cases.

Have you tried in the settings of a VM in the "System" tab setting the Chipset from PIIX3 to ICH9? Although marked as experimental that worked very well in the cases I experienced the poor performance.

edit: XP probably doesn't like the exchange of a chipset so you might want to back it up first / reinstall it.

Last edited by Cdh (2011-08-28 22:04:59)

dcbdbis · 2011-08-28 22:26:26

Hello Cdh,

I have indeed tried that combination. On my system, even with the ICH9 enabled, it still requires IO APIC to be enabled. Any time IO APIC is enabled, the systems performance is unacceptably slow. I'm speaking about boot times ~8 minutes for an XP VM to better define slow.

It seems on my system, the IO APIC is the culprit, and the Oracle folks are keeping quiet about a work-around, so I'm going to assume that there isn't any. The web is full of IO APIC slowness issues, so I know it's not specific to my system.

To clarify, my VM's are usable and functional as is.....I was just simply looking for a way to get VB to use more than one core (25%) of my multi-core CPU. Enabling multi-core in VB brings with it the IO APIC issue so I can't do that. The CAD software when doing a "regen" could just use some more horsepower.

Again, thanks to all for the help.

Dave.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-08-28 20:29:23

Increasing VirtualBox's CPU Utilization

#2 2011-08-28 20:35:48

Re: Increasing VirtualBox's CPU Utilization

#3 2011-08-28 20:38:57

Re: Increasing VirtualBox's CPU Utilization

#4 2011-08-28 20:54:18

Re: Increasing VirtualBox's CPU Utilization

#5 2011-08-28 21:08:06

Re: Increasing VirtualBox's CPU Utilization

#6 2011-08-28 21:09:23

Re: Increasing VirtualBox's CPU Utilization

#7 2011-08-28 21:16:00

Re: Increasing VirtualBox's CPU Utilization

#8 2011-08-28 21:28:03

Re: Increasing VirtualBox's CPU Utilization

#9 2011-08-28 21:38:31

Re: Increasing VirtualBox's CPU Utilization

#10 2011-08-28 21:40:52

Re: Increasing VirtualBox's CPU Utilization

#11 2011-08-28 22:03:39

Re: Increasing VirtualBox's CPU Utilization

#12 2011-08-28 22:26:26

Re: Increasing VirtualBox's CPU Utilization

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