virtualbox.org

Hi,
I've got latest version of Ubuntu and I installed VB with Windows XP as guest. I find everything to be a bit slugish. ... When I drag a window in XP, it looks slow... Not sure how to explain. It's just not smooth at all.

I've allocated 1.5 Gb of memory to XP and 128 Mb of video memory (which is the maximum). I've also defragmanted the hard drive.

Config:

AMD 64 3000+
3 Gb Memory Corsair 400Mz Dual Channel
GeForce 5200 Ultra
Seagate HDD 120 Gb


Any idea on how I could improve performances ?

Thanks
Sam

Turn the RAM for the guest down to 512 Meg no more than 1024 Meg and the VRAM down to 12 meg.
Once it is running like you want then you can try to change the setting a little at a time until you see degradation.
Almost anything over 64 meg in the guest for video memory is a waste and takes away from the RAM of the host since this memory is not used to access the video card.

Perryg wrote:Turn the RAM for the guest down to 512 Meg no more than 1024 Meg and the VRAM down to 12 meg.
Once it is running like you want then you can try to change the setting a little at a time until you see degradation.
Almost anything over 64 meg in the guest for video memory is a waste and takes away from the RAM of the host since this memory is not used to access the video card.

Thanks for quick reply. I had read somewhere that I should allocate as much video memory as possible to the guest. But maybe that was wrong. However I did try with 12 Mb and it wasn't that great either.
Is 512 Mb enough to run XP ?

So basically you are saying that I'm not allocating enough resources to the Host OS, right ?

I'll try your recommendations.

Thanks

What I am saying is to start with the least amount to get the job done and see if it works for you. Then you can turn it up a little at a time to find the sweet spot.
Not all PC's are alike and most people that have problem are simply trying to get too much out of the guest to start with. This does produce a load on both the host and guest as well as the PC itself.

As for does XP run on 512 Meg of RAM? Sure it does. I have most of my XP testing machines turned down to 128 Meg and they work well. When I require more I turn it up a bit. That allows me to run 5 to 6 VMs at the same time with a little over 3 gig of memory total in the host.

Graphicsxp -

I have almost the same setup that you list. AMD3400+ with 3 gig mem, and GEforce something or other.

I started out giving my XP machines 1024 MB of memory, and everything was fine, until the day I tried to run two machines at the same time. UGGHH!!

Ubuntu on my machine seems to use in excess of 1 gig all the time - partly because I have Boinc installed. So, as soon as I started two VM's running, each using 1 gig of memory, Ubuntu started using virtual memory. It simply doesn't matter what operating system you are using, virtual memory just SUCKS.

Windows XP will run with as little as 128MB of memory - Compaq among others sold machines with that in them. Again, it SUCKS. In my experience, 256MB of memory is workable, but I consider 512MB of memory to be minimum for WinXP. More is better, but not necessary at all.

Do as PerryG suggests, and your problem should be solved.