Video very slow with XP guest

[RickJones]

My host is Ubuntu 9.04, the m/c has a basic Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 graphics card. This card works fine in Ubuntu, and also in Windows running natively, but the graphics behaviour of Windows XP in VBox is terrible.

I'm not talking about 3D or anything "gamey", this is straight 2D graphics, doing normal stuff, image editing being about the most intensive. Just dragging stuff on the screen is really slow and jerky in the VM. I have 8MB allocated to video memory, but it makes no difference if I increase this.

The host is running the Nvidia driver version 173 (latest for this card). AFAICT all optimisations are on in both the host and guest.

I have the same setup on my little Asus Eee (Intel grahics), which is overall a slower m/c but the graphics performance in the VM is fine. There seems to be a mismatch between VBox and the Nvidia card - is there any way this can be tweaked, or is it a bug to be fixed.

I'm on VBox 3.0.2, but it's been like this since I first installed it on Ubuntu 8.10, version 2.x (can't remember exactly).

Any ideas appreciated.

TIA

[VirtualBrain]

Are you using multiple CPU cores? I have several problems using more than one core on Ubuntu 9.04. You should disable I/O Apic, but you had to re-install Windows for that (I think).

[RickJones]

Are you using multiple CPU cores? I have several problems using more than one core on Ubuntu 9.04.

No, it's a single-core AMD Athlon 32-bit CPU.

[ChangedSoul]

I am experiencing similar issues. Im not sure how VirtualBox formats the Hardrive for use, but I noticed a decrease in performance from an XP pro Guest install from VB version 1.6 to a XP pro install with VB version 2.x and now even 3.x. I descovered this after I seen my old VM slow down a bit and I figured I would do a fresh install and clean out all the non sense. Well upon installn a fresh new XP pro, I was greeted with an even slower performing vm than my old bloated one. Only thing diferent was which version of VirtualBox I had at the time to do the install.

By Slow I mean, clicking on the start menu, 2 seconds go by before it comes up, cursor highlighting in the programs section lags behind the mouse. opening programs takes about 5 - 10 secs to load, things like Task manager, control panel...normal system programs. And I know there is an issue, because I can boot my older bloated VM and it responds very well. Boot the newly fresh installed one and its slow as can be.

Any ideas what is causing this?

Setup for both VM's is:
General
Name: Windows XP
OS Type: Windows XP

System
Base Memory: 1600 MB

Boot Order: Floppy, CD/DVD-ROM, Hard Disk
VT-x/AMD-V: Enabled
Nested Paging: Disabled

Display
Video Memory: 120 MB
3D Acceleration: Enabled
Remote Display Server: Disabled

Hard Disks
IDE Primary Master: Windows XP.vdi (Normal, 15.00 GB)

Floppy: Not mounted

Audio
Host Driver: ALSA Audio Driver
Controller: ICH AC97

Network
Adapter 1: PCnet-FAST III (NAT)

Serial Ports: Disabled

USB
Device Filters: 0 (0 active)

Shared Folders: 1

[ChangedSoul]

I found a version that didnt mess with my performance. I reinstalled version 2.1.0 and did another fresh install of XP Pro, and whala, I have a great performing VM.

Must be somehting with the newer versions.

[ChangedSoul]

I was wrong. It had to do with IOAPIC. My old one that was running very well had it enabled, so i kept that enabled when I did the fresh installs. Turns out that the IOAPIC was what was causing it to slow down. And what I think happened with my old VM install was that I had originally installed that with IOAPIC disabled but then enabled it later for what ever reason. Because I did another Install with VB version 3 and IOAPIC dissabled and it ran very well for me, and then enabled the IOAPIC later and it still ran well for me. Not even sure if the IOAPIC is doping anything or not though.

[RickJones]

Hmmm, maybe I'll have a play with that.

According to the VBox manual, Windows installs a different kernel depending on whether IOAPIC is present or not. If you install with it, then disable, you will break the guest OS. If you install without it, then enable it, there should be no difference as Windows will ignore the APIC. It's only actually required for 64-bit OS (including Vista), or multiple CPUs.

It also says that having IOAPIC enabled increases overhead and slows the guest OS down a bit! Confusing

[RickJones]

IOAPIC doesn't make any difference, which is what I'd expected (the guest was installed with it off).

After more playing it just seems to be dragging windows that's the real problem. Other stuff is quite reasonable, even video (not as fast as native, but not as slow as window behaviour would suggest).

Perversely, if I connect to the VM using tsclient on the same machine, with the VM window minimised, window dragging is perfectly smooth! The general experience is actually better than using the VM directly. This doesn't hold up if you push it, video is virtually unusable for example.

There's definitely something weird and non-optimal about how VBox maps it virtual graphics adapter into the real one. Are there any Xorg settings that affect this?