Need help with performance issues

[r3plica]

I have no idea why this is happening, but for some reason I have some seriously annoying performance issues. When I am on my guest OS there is a lag between doing anything. I can be typing and it will not show for a split second and when I try to rename something, it took 5 seconds to actually allow me to edit the name.
Those are just a couple of issues, there are a lot more to do with any task, the slight delay gets annoying and it's not always a split second, it can be up to 5.

I have checked my settings and really it shouldn't be happening. I have assigned 12Gb of memmory (I have 24Gb), 6 CPUs and I don't have 3d accelleration enabled, but it still seems to be lagging.
My power settings on the Host machine are set to High Performance.

Can anyone help?

Work-2019-07-27-19-10-15.log

VBox.log

(101.75 KiB) Downloaded 23 times

[scottgus1]

Assigning more CPUs may not and most times will not make the guest OS run faster; more often it might slow down, due to all the scheduling that needs to be done.

Here's going to be a slowdown:

00:00:02.273019 NumCPUs <integer> = 0x0000000000000006 (6)
00:00:02.726981 CPUM: Physical host cores: 6

Virtualbox uses the cores not the hyperthreads, so all your cores are in the guest and nothing for the host.

00:00:02.273099 [/Devices/ahci/0/LUN#0/Config/Parent/Parent/Parent/Parent/Parent/Parent/Parent/Parent/] (level 13)

That's a lot of snapshots, and a lot of disk files to read through. Maybe a slowdown there.

What kind of disk is drive F:, platter or SSD? USB? If USB, 2 or 3? Best performancs is SSD on SATA port. Worst would be USB2 platter drive.

Try a new fresh Windows 10 guest, 2 cores, 4GB ram, 128MB video ram, use the template defaults on all other settings, and see what that guest does.

[r3plica]

I am not sure what happen with the disks, I used to have clones but I have deleted them. I tried to remove all the snapshots, but if I remove any the VM won't start. It also shows a comment that shouldn't be there anymore:

Untitled.png (18.9 KiB) Viewed 3012 times

As you can see, it shows (Lined Base for Work and Topspin), but these no longer exist.

F:\ is a m.2 drive, so it should be really fast.

[socratis]

Your log is not from a complete session. Launch the VM, observe the problem, shutdown the VM (not pause, not saved state, full shutdown). And then you should ZIP your logs. It helps you, it helps us, it helps the server, it helps save a (virtual) tree or two...

00:00:02.256743 File system of 'F:\Work\Snapshots/{79d06787-4c3f-4065-919d-bb315413c728}.vdi' is ntfs

What's "F:\"? Internal or External? Answered in the mean time.

00:00:02.195837 GUI:  Resize mini-toolbar for window #0 to 3440x1440
00:00:03.232691 GUI: UIMachineLogicFullscreen: Additions-state actual-change event, rebuild multi-screen layout

That's a lot of pixels! Maybe you should consider the normal, windowed mode? With a resolution of 1280x1024 (or less). And since you're on HiDPI, see if going into the VirtualBox Preferences » Display » Scale Factor » All Monitors = 200% helps the whole setup. That's how I have it on mine at least, and it's really responsive.

00:00:02.273019 NumCPUs <integer> = 0x0000000000000006 (6)
00:00:02.726981 CPUM: Physical host cores: 6

You have assigned all your CPUs to the VM. The host is going to run low on resources, since VirtualBox cares about physical processors (cores), not logical ones (threads). See "CPU Cores versus threads" and "Why is it a bad idea to allocate as many VCPUs as there are physical CPUs?".

00:00:02.273099 [/Devices/ahci/0/LUN#0/Config/Parent/Parent/Parent/Parent/Parent/Parent/Parent/Parent/] (level 13)

Are you sure you have enough snapshots?
Seriously now, you should cut down on your snapshots, sooner rather than later. Read the Snapshot basics thread to understand why. I would take a backup of the whole VM folder before merging the snapshots, just in case...

and I don't have 3d accelleration enabled

00:00:38.305306 VMMDev: Guest Log: VBoxMP::DriverEntry: 3D is NOT supported by the host, falling back to display-only mode..

Why is that? Please enable 3D acceleration and max the VRAM.

00:00:02.728125     Host path 'C:\inetpub\wwwroot', map name 'wwwroot', writable, automount=true, automntpnt=, create_symlinks=false, missing=true
00:00:02.728199 ERROR [COM]: aRC=E_INVALIDARG (0x80070057)
        aIID={872da645-4a9b-1727-bee2-5585105b9eed} aComponent={ConsoleWrap} aText={Shared
        folder path 'C:\inetpub\wwwroot' does not exist on the host}, preserve=false
        aResultDetail=0

Remove the SharedFolder from the VM Settings » Shared Folders.

Edit:

'scottgus1' replied to you while I was doing the same thing. I'll post my thoughts, if nothing else to show you that two old-timers are thinking the same...

[r3plica]

So last night, I did some reading and found that I could clone the machine (full) and just use the last snapshot, which I have done. It took a while, but I now have a new machine using the latest snaphot and it runs and appears not to have the sluggishness, which is good.

I do have a new issue now though, it cloned all the settings so it's 4 cores, 12 Gb memory and what I am finding is that the CPU seems to hit 100% a lot and the memory is usually at 70% which seems like a lot.
When the CPU hits 100% it does slow things down.

Any ideas what I can do to help with the CPU?

Also, I still have 3d acceleration disabled. When I enabled it the other day, my screen started flickering.
I have a GForce GTX 1080 Ti, so should I enable 3d acceleration?

[r3plica]

Your log is not from a complete session. Launch the VM, observe the problem, shutdown the VM (not pause, not saved state, full shutdown). And then you should ZIP your logs. It helps you, it helps us, it helps the server, it helps save a (virtual) tree or two...

After a couple of days using the new clone, it has started to lag a bit.
I have followed your instructions and shutdown the VM after the lagging started. I have zipped up my logs and attached them to this post.
I really hope someone knows why it's lagging

[socratis]

Well, turns out that the instructions were not my usual copy/paste excerpt, and you started the VM from a saved state. Not good. You're supposed to start the VM from a cold boot, not from a paused or saved state:

00:00:02.348103 Console: Machine state changed to 'Restoring'

But even with that, I can see some anomalies...

00:00:02.386015 File system of 'Z:\Work\Work (Old) Clone-disk1.vdi' is ntfs

What is "Z:\"? Internal, External, Network? And how exactly was this VM created? I see "Old", I see "Clone", I see "disk1". Care to shed some light?

00:00:02.994022 PCI:     ahci/0: 16-bit field COMMAND: 0 -> 7
00:00:36.847784 TM: cTSCTicksPerSecond=0xdc4c7fa0 (3 696 000 928) enmTSCMode=1 (VirtTscEmulated) (state load)

These are two successive entries in the log. There's a 34" gap between them! Do you have any 3rd party antivirus installed on your host or your guest?

00:00:02.354892 GUI:  Resize mini-toolbar for window #0 to 3440x1440
00:00:36.849225 GUI: UIMachineLogicFullscreen: Additions-state actual-change event, rebuild multi-screen layout

That's a lot of pixels to move around! Especially with a virtual GPU. You should be using your VM using windowed mode, with a somewhat smaller resolution. Since it looks that you're on HiDPI, you should set the VirtualBox Preferences » Display » Scale Factor » All Monitors = 200%.

00:00:02.411872 3DEnabled <integer> = 0x0000000000000000 (0)
00:00:02.411875 VRamSize   <integer> = 0x0000000008000000 (134 217 728, 128 MB)

Go to the VM Settings » Display » Screen. Enable 3D acceleration. Increase the VRAM to the max 256 MB.

[r3plica]

Hi,

Answers to your questions are as follows:

Z: is an internal m.2 drive, should be really really fast.
I mentioned earlier that I cloned my old "Work" VM so I could clone the latest snapshot and not all the ones it has created with the old VM (which is why it's called Work (Old) Clone).

I have windows defender on my guest machine

I have an ultra-wide monitor and I need that resolution. I really really don't want to have to scale it down.
I must have done that 3d settings yesterday, because that is what they are currently at.

[r3plica]

This morning I have done a cold boot and a proper shut down after it started lagging.
Here is the zip:

VBox.log.zip

(146.23 KiB) Downloaded 14 times

[socratis]

I'm afraid that I've suggested everything I can, with the most important being that you have to understand the limitations of virtualization, and specifically that software rendering is really slow and CPU intensive.

If you really, really need that resolution, you got to really, really learn to live with the lag.

[r3plica]

Ok, thanks for your help.
The thing that bothers me is that it hasn't always lagged; it was nice an fast before I made my first 2 clones.

I give up now then; I have decided to not use a VM and just have everyone installed on my host OS instead