How to set video memory properly

Discussions related to using VirtualBox on Windows hosts.
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gladiatoreAde
Posts: 2
Joined: 15. Jan 2013, 18:45

How to set video memory properly

Post by gladiatoreAde »

Hi guys,
i use VB on a dual XEON p4 quad core with 8GB RAM and only 16mb sdram (WINDOWS 2003 SERVER R2)
I have 3 VM always on

1)Windows 7
4 CPU
with 2 Gb ram
24mb sdram

2)Windows server 2008
3 cpu
with 1,5 GB ram
24mb sdram

3)Windows server 2008
3 CPU
with 1,5 gb ram
24mb sdram

I use all the machines in desktop remote environment. And i see that the appears sometimes really slow. All has guest additions and VTX support enabled.
What i can do to improve performance? My host CPU never reach 100% (25% - 50%).
If i change video memory setting can i have some benefits? And if i change video card on host?
Other suggestions will be appreciated

Regards
Perryg
Site Moderator
Posts: 34369
Joined: 6. Sep 2008, 22:55
Primary OS: Linux other
VBox Version: OSE self-compiled
Guest OSses: *NIX

Re: How to set video memory properly

Post by Perryg »

Over committing CPU cores has a negative effect on speed in a virtual environment.
gladiatoreAde
Posts: 2
Joined: 15. Jan 2013, 18:45

Re: How to set video memory properly

Post by gladiatoreAde »

Perryg wrote:Over committing CPU cores has a negative effect on speed in a virtual environment.
so you are saing that i need to remove some cpu? Also if i never reach 70% of load on cpu of the host??
Perryg
Site Moderator
Posts: 34369
Joined: 6. Sep 2008, 22:55
Primary OS: Linux other
VBox Version: OSE self-compiled
Guest OSses: *NIX

Re: How to set video memory properly

Post by Perryg »

I'm saying that over committing causes negative effect. If the host has 4 cores and you give the guest 4 of those cores the host has no independent core for itself. Depending on what the guest/s are doing you have assigned way more cores than available. While this will work it has a tendency to slow guests down. My suggestion would be to tweak the amount of cores you are assigning and see if it improves. I rarely give any of my guests more than 1 core because it never seems to improve things much and never more than 2 if I must have SMP. Also large pages help if your CPU supports VT-x/AMD-v and nested paging.
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