virtualbox.org

Having had issues with sound, I read several articles about virtualization, here, at the parallels forum, and at VMWare forums.

Timing issues are the biggest problems with getting good sound. But, sound isn't the only thing affected by time. The guest should be synchronized with the host for decent performance - that goes without saying. But, it isn't clear to me how the synch takes place. Does the guest machine need to have internet time turned on, for things to work correctly, or is it better to just turn it off? I can imagine that being synchronized to an internet time server MIGHT throw things out of whack, IF the host and guest aren't using the same servers.

I've almost arrived at the conclusion that the host should use NPT, but the guest shouldn't. I am just not quite smart enough and/or educated enough to figure that out for sure.

Thanks!

Try looking up time synchronization in the UG and in posts. If you have GA installed then a driver resyncs the guest clock. However, this really only corrects slow drift and gross shifts after savestate etc. Some audio drivers reprogramme the RTC to KHz type intervals and this really stresses any VMM. As you've said in other posts, picking VMM friendly drivers is an essential step in any guest OS tuning.