Windows 10 graphics are very slow and flickering

[rootie]

Hi,

I've bought an iMac 2019 21" and use a Windows 10 64-bit Virtual Machine with 4 GB of allocated RAM memory and 256 MB allocated Video Card memory.

The general graphics performance is very poor. When dragging windows inside the VM it's chunky and if I enable the 3D acceleration the guest system becomes unusable (flickering graphics, etc.). I've already tried every possible combination but the best I could achieve was to enable 2D acceleration only and hence having sloppy graphics.

I use the latest version of macOS Mojave and the host system should be fast enough to run any VM in any configuration without issues.

The Guest drivers inside Windows 10 are installed.

I can attach logfiles if needed.

Best regards,
rootie

[socratis]

I can attach logfiles if needed.

Yes, they're needed. We need to see a complete VBox.log, from a complete VM run, where the problem occurs:

• Start the VM from cold-boot (not from a paused or saved state) / Observe problem / Shutdown the VM (force close it if you have to).
• With the VM completely shut down (not paused or saved), right-click on the VM in the VirtualBox Manager and select "Show Log".
• Save only the first "VBox.log", ZIP it and attach it to your response. See the "Upload attachment" tab below the reply form.

[rootie]

Hi,

sorry for the late reply - I was quite busy the last weeks. I've attached the VBox.log according to your instructions.

The graphics are set to VBoxSVGA with 2D and 3D acceleration enabled.

Best regards,
rootie

[socratis]

Not sure why this is on "OSX Guests", moving to "Windows Guests".

00:00:01.554888 GUI: UIMachineLogicFullscreen::sltHandleNativeFullscreenWillEnter:
                Machine-window #0 will enter native fullscreen
00:00:02.474625 GUI: UIDesktopWidgetWatchdog::sltHandleHostScreenWorkAreaResized:
                Screen 0 work area is formally resized to: 0x0 x 2048x1152

Avoid full-screen mode. Your Virtual Machines will never be as powerful as the host, especially on the video side. They use after all a virtual graphics card, not your host's real graphics card. The virtual GPU itself is from around 1995-2000 in terms of capabilities.

My VMs are running most of the time in normal, window mode, at 1280x1024.

[MontyMan]

Dear @socratis,

Are you recommending the OP avoid full-screen mode only because of these specific issues, or do you advocate against it in general? I've run both ways, and wondered whether it's a waste of resources to run in full screen mode.

Thanks
...Monty.

[rootie]

@socratis It's not that I would have tried everything before.

I have made a screenshot with 3D acceleration enabled and a _really_ small window. Still the flickering is there. This is definitely not a performance problem on my Mac's side. This is a bug in VirtualBox.

Unfortunately I can't attach it as an attachment as the file is too big (!) according to the forum software. Here's the link: https://imgur.com/a/rrz1ivu

Edit: I've just installed the demo version of Parallels and everything works just fine with that VM. No flickering, no graphics issues - and it runs blazing fast! So it definitely is not VM or hardware related.

Best regards
rootie

[socratis]

Are you recommending the OP avoid full-screen mode only because of these specific issues, or do you advocate against it in general?

I'm saying that if you have a 900cc Yugo, you don't put a ton of load on in uphill, you're trying to limit the load or you're going to be seeing problems.

This is a bug in VirtualBox

I know it's a bug, you're not the only one. This is what I get as well, with the VBoxSVGA+3D option:

• 

  Win10-VBoxSVGA.png (53.56 KiB) Viewed 8423 times

Here's the thing; unless we push, test and verify that the problems with the VBoxSVGA are solved, we're soon going to be facing the following dialog, already here with 6.0.11 and will be in the upcoming 6.0.12:

This VM is configured to use 3D acceleration using the VBoxVGA graphics controller. Support for this will be removed with version 6.1.0. ALL saved states and snapshots will cease to work when using this configuration. Either switch to the VBoxSVGA (or VMSVGA) graphics controller and update guest additions, or disable 3D acceleration.

Error ID: 3DCrDeprecated
Severity: Warning

[rootie]

Is there any ETA for this fix? And will the performance significantly improve on the graphics?

[socratis]

I'll quote part of the signature of fellow user 'andyp73':

My crystal ball is currently broken.