Video performance of Windows 7 guest very poor

[loukingjr]

I have no idea what people are doing. My Window's 7 experience as a guest in VB 4.2.12 is 5.5 with a graphic's experience of 6.0. OSX 10.8.3

[Perryg]

Strange. This is the lowest I have seen on my Windows 7 guest for some time.

[loukingjr]

mine might be a bit higher because of the 3.4 GHz i7. and fast video card.

[Perryg]

Re-ran with new Gallium drivers on host and got this.

[loukingjr]

yes, as I said, I don't know why people are getting a 1.0 for the graphics index. maybe they're running a Z80.

[gupta58]

yes, as I said, I don't know why people are getting a 1.0 for the graphics index. maybe they're running a Z80.

As I mentioned in my original posting, my Mac is slightly better than Z80 But seriously, if you are getting WEI better than 1.0 that is a good sign, and I must be doing something wrong which can be corrected. Only thing I am not clear is where do I start, what do I look for.

[loukingjr]

I'm not sure. I know some people installed the guest additions in safe mode which I didn't. when I installed the GA's I checked DirectX and it asked if I wanted to install WDDM instead and I said yes. other than that I don't know.

[Thorsten77]

I have the same issue as the original poster with a Macbook Pro Retina (new Model). All values in the experience index are between 7 and 8 except for graphics/gaming graphics which are both at 1.0...

Looking through the previous posts it looks to me that the issue only applies to Macbook's. One possible cause might me that the notebook contains 2 graphic adapters, one slow Intel HD Graphics 4000 and a fast NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M. Is it possible that Virtualbox only uses the Intel card, but now the Nvidia? How to check this? Furthermore, is there anyone with a Macbook Pro running VirtualBox on OSX and not having graphic performance issues in the VMs (i.e. you can move windows fluently)?

[loukingjr]

The problem I'm fairly certain is the Retina display. As I have mentioned elsewhere you may have to drop to a lower resolution on Macbooks with Retinas. Most apps for Macs need to be rewritten to support Retina displays so I don't see why VirtualBox or Windows for that matter wouldn't be the same.

[Thorsten77]

Just to make it clear, even when using low resolution, e.g., 800*640, the graphic performance is super poor, for instance a window makes big jumps when moving. I can't see how this is caused only by bigger the amount of pixel, especially with a pretty high performance graphic adapter. In my Parallels VMs, I don't recognize a difference in the user experience compared to a native windows setup.

[loukingjr]

Just to make it clear, even when using low resolution, e.g., 800*640, the graphic performance is super poor, for instance a window makes big jumps when moving. I can't see how this is caused only by bigger the amount of pixel, especially with a pretty high performance graphic adapter. In my Parallels VMs, I don't recognize a difference in the user experience compared to a native windows setup.

I have no performance issues with Windows 7 running on an iMac. It has to be related to the Retina display and VirtualBox. It is certainly possible Parallels is written to support Retina displays seeing it's a native Mac application. It's not just the amount of pixels that makes a Retina display different. I have a 27" iMac with a resolution of 2560x1440 and yet Windows 7 runs just fine on it. My feeling is VirtualBox is just not written to support Retinas. Not yet anyway.

[Thorsten77]

Seems I have to wait until its supported. One thing I tried today as a work-around: installing the extension pack and using RDP (with the free CoRD MacOS client) to connect to the VM. This is not 100% the speed of a Parallels VM but significant faster than the VBox window, so I will stick to this.

[ialexryan]

Hi guys,

Just wanted to chime in with a reproduction and to address some ineffective solutions proposed here.

My host is Virtualbox 4.2.16 on Mac OS 10.8.4 on a MacBook Pro Retina 15", 16GB RAM, 2.6GHz quad i7, Nvidia GT 650M w/ 1GB VRAM. My guest is Windows 7 x64 SP1, fully updated and clean off the disk, no applications installed. When I run Windows Experience Index on the guest, I get a score of 1.0 for both graphics and gaming graphics.

First off, the Retina Pros are graphical beasts. This graphics card unquestionably should not be getting a 1.0 in WEI, even through virtualization, so there is an issue here.

- Using one or multiple CPUs: I reproduced this problem while installing and/or running using one CPU, and while installing and/or running using two CPU's. It has no impact on this issue.
- Integrated vs. Discrete graphics. In OS X, graphics switching is accomplished at a operating system level. Using a program like gfxCardStatus, you can see that from the moment you open the VirtualBox application or any VirtualBox guest machine, the OS switches to the discrete (Nvidia) card and stays there until they're all closed. So those scores are indeed obtained while using the discrete graphics on the host.
- Retina display. This one is a little more complicated to explain. OS X presents the screen, which is technically a 2880x1800-pixel panel, as a 1440x900-resolution display. Only those few applications that are retina-aware know to render certain things at double resolution. Windows as a VirtualBox guest, as you can tell by going into the Control Panel on the guest, is understandably Retina-blind and only sees the screen as 1440x900 and renders everything as such, which should make it even easier on the graphics card, since it only has to render 1/4 of the pixels. (Furthermore, I've run Windows in Boot Camp at full 2880x1800 on this computer and gotten a 5+ graphics score.)

However, this issue seems to be exclusively affecting Retina MBP's. I am at a loss to explain that, especially since this seems to be a VirtualBox-specific bug and not a larger issue with all virtualization programs on the machine (i.e. Parallels and VMWare run fine).

Any input from the developers?
Cheers,
Alex

[ialexryan]

POTENTIAL SOLUTION:

After reading @Perryg's comments a hundred times, I was finally able to decipher them and what he suggested did indeed fix my problem! I just went from a 1.0/1.0 to 5.4/6.0.

Here's what you have to do. Install (or, if they're installed already, re-install) the latest version of the Guest Additions extension pack on the guest. During the installation process of the Guest Additions on the guest, after you verify the installation directory, it will prompt you to choose the components you want to install. There will be an unchecked box next to Direct3D Support (experimental). We want to install this. Check the box, then on the popup that appears, CLICK NO. Verify that the previously unchecked box is now checked and proceed with installation. Reboot at the end and you should be set.

I should note that just in the few minutes I've had these drivers installed I've found them very buggy. I had to reboot a few times to get them to find a resolution they like and stay there. That said, the improvement in the usability of the guest system is notable, and worth it in my opinion.

Can anybody else verify this works for them?
Alex

[loukingjr]

I don't have a Retina display but that has always been the preferred method to install the GAs from Windows 7 on. I find it surprising no one else had installed the WDDM driver on their Retina enabled Macs but I suppose that's possible.

edit: btw, you don't install the extension pack in any guest.