virtualbox.org

(apologies for two different questions in the subject, but I think they might be related to each other)

I'm running VirtualBox 6.1 (specifically 6.1.6_Ubuntu r137129) on an Ubuntu host (5.4.0-58-generic). Plenty of memory available, reasonable CPU and GPU, all files are on SSD (again, reasonable performance). The GPU is a GeForce GTX 1650, and I've got version 455.38 of the Nvidia driver installed. I have installed Guest Additions on the relevant guest systems, and have 3D acceleration turned on.

I am experiencing performance problems on all my VM guests, but it is most pronounced on Windows 7 and Windows 10 guests. I appreciate that "running slowly" is subjective, but, to put it in context, I've recently upgraded to a 1920X Threadripper from a 12+ year old machine that wasn't exactly state-of-the-art when I got it, and VM performance has, if anything, degraded. (The old system was a Windows 7 host. Some of the VMs have been migrated from the old system, and some are new installs; the problem affects them all equally, as far as I can tell).

Specifically, graphics performance is poor (for example, Windows desktop effects seem to be running at < 5 f.p.s., and window redrawing is often noticeably slow whereas previously it behaved similarly to the window redrawing on the host system).

I am also having problems with applications reporting that 3D acceleration is not working properly (for example, Autocad 2018 is reporting that hardware acceleration is not available. In case it's useful, it is telling me that the video card is "VirtualBox Graphics Adapter (WDDM) 6.1.6.37129", and the virtual device is "gdi14.hdi (Software)". This is on a Windows 7 guest, with 16GB of RAM allocated, 4 CPU cores, no execution cap set (it's at 100%), 256Mb of video memory, the VBoxSVGA controller and 3D acceleration switched on. I will attach the log for this VM.

I have also been encountering problems with the display of some Windows 10 guests (it happens with the Win10 Professional installs, but not with the Win10 Enterpise install I've tried), where the screen redraw is badly degraded (seems to be transparent windows) when 3D acceleration is turned on. This can be resolved either by switching off transparency on the guest, or by switching off 3D acceleration on the VM settings. I suspect this may be the same issue; if not, I will re-post it in its own topic.

I would be grateful for any suggestions/assistance with this problem.

6.1.6_Ubuntu

That is not VirtualBox, that is the Ubuntu fork of VirtualBox. If you want support here then you need to be using actual VirtualBox downloaded from here, rather than a tribute band version. It would also be useful I think to install a more recent release, e.g. 6.1.16 (rather than your 6.1.6), and update the GAs as well.

Thanks for that. I've updated to the genuine 6.1.16 version and updated guest additions on both VMs I've tested, and that has slightly improved overall performance (I would say it's about the same as it was on my older system) but the problem with 3D acceleration is still there (both on Windows 7 and Windows 10 pro).

I'll attach log files for both VMs, and a screenshot of what's happening with Win10 transparency.

Typical advice for strange Start menu etc in 3D-accelerated Windows 10, like you show in your W10 screenshot, is disabling Settings > Personalization > Colors > Transparency Effects in your Windows 10 guest, as you noted before.

You also have the old Guest Additions still installed in the Windows 10:

00:00:05.933751 VMMDev: Guest Additions information report: Version 6.1.6 r137129 '6.1.6'

Neither log doesn't show anything weird, and 3D acceleration seems to be working in both VMs.

andy28 wrote:I am also having problems with applications reporting that 3D acceleration is not working properly

Have the programs ever run correctly in a Windows 7 VM? Or is this the first time you're trying these programs in a Virtualbox VM? Virtualbox's video cards won't give full host-strength video, even with 3D turned on.

Yes, the log does show the wrong version of Guest Additions. I have no idea how that happened -- I must have sent you the wrong log file somehow. It might be that I only rebooted rather than restarted the VM. Anyway, my apologies for wasting your time with the wrong log file. I have checked again, and the problem is still there.

I know that it's possible to mitigate the effects of this issue by switching off transparency, but hoping there might be a solution to the issue, as (I'm assuming) it might affect other functionality than the (admittedly somewhat pointless) desktop effects. I'm guessing that's not the case though? Thanks for looking into it for me anyway.

No, this version of Autocad has never run properly in a VM, so it could simply be that it's trying to do something unusual/unsupported, and then assuming that 3d acceleration is just not available. In any case, the software still works, so it's not the end of the world. I was only looking into it in the first place because I thought it might be related to the performance issue I have been having. These are at least partly resolved now, although I'm still seeing far worse performance than I would expect... is there some factor I'm missing here? (as in, a reason that my VMs are running the same way on a modern system as they were on the ancient computer I was using recently)

andy28 wrote:Yes, the log does show the wrong version of Guest Additions. I have no idea how that happened

The most popular way to get this is to insert the CD but not actually install the GAs.

No problem about the log, it happens.

As of today I think there is no fix yet for the odd transparency failings on 10 VMs, and switching off transparency is the only known workaround that I know of (and I only got it from Mpack )

I often turn off the extra animations and such that Microsoft thinks is neat in my Windows VMs, it takes what should be a responsive OS and makes it look like it's running on a 386. (First time I installed ME in 2001 I said, Cool, it makes noise for everything I do! 5 minutes later, I was "How do I turn all this noise off?!" )

I have run Autocad in a Virtualbox VM before, it does not perform as well as on the host PC (though I got used to it) and it does complain about not having full graphics acceleration. This is because Virtualbox's video cards are just not that strong. But it did work well enough for me.

It sounds like there won't be a way to fix the Autocad performance.

Ah well, at least it's usable now. Thanks for the help!