Fusion 3.0.1 - Performance even worse

[wtrose]

I've posted a couple times on the forums about my frustrating experience with 3.0. On my MacBook Pro, 3.0 runs fantastic, with full Aero. However on my Mac Pro which is my main work machine, 3.0 is running so slow that it was unusable. After attempting to fix it for a couple of days I went back to 2.0.6 which is very responsive.

Was glad to see an update to 3.0 this morning. Again it runs great on my MacBook Pro. Aero experience jumped over 3 points (though the 3D score dropped a tenth of a point). It definitely feels faster. Completely opposite experience on my Mac Pro. What was already poor performance actually got even worse. The splash screen "freezes" for several minutes during bootup. Cursor is extremely laggy. Windows could not even calculate an experience score.

I'm running Windows 7 64-bit on both machines - in fact they started out as the same VM image. Same experience with a freshly built Win 7 x64 VM.

I don't know if multiple large displays, or multiple video cards are confusing it, but VMWare 3 continues to be a major disappointment. I used to enthusiastically recommend VMWare to everyone because of my experience with Fusion, Workstation and their server products has been fantastic. I sincerely wish that could remain the case.

Mac Pro Config (in case VMWare is listening):

• Dual Core Xeon - 2.66 GHz

• 12 GB Ram

• ATI Radeon X1900 XT - 512 MB,

• nVidia GeForce 7300GT - 256 MB

• 2x 23" Cinema Displays

• 1x 19" Dell LCD monitor

• Leopard 10.5.8

[auroradesign]

This is similar to my experience. On my Macbook Pro, Fusion 3.0 and 3.0.1 seem to perform well. My iMac i7 is basically unusable. I paid for a support request and reported this issue right after 3.0 came out and was hoping 3.0.1 would be the fix. My problem on the i7 is the disk performance is horrendous making the whole system crawl. With Disk Buffering disabled on a correctly aligned VM, I get on the order of 1-2MB/s disk performance! (this on a system that can sustain over 120MB/s) With Disk Buffering enabled I can get this number to about 20MB/s. Still abismal but tolerable except that after working with large files for a while, Fusion has sucked up all 8GB on the system forcing page swaps.

Unfortunately I also used to spout the virtues of Fusion to everyone, but after wasting enough money and time on the upgrade and support incident with absolutely no resolution (So what did I just pay $30 for a support incident that yielded nothing? I guess I had to pay to do the debug on their software for an issue that is clearly with Fusion) I'm sadly going to need to move on.

Darryl

[metdivo]

I found 3.01 worse also. I am running on Mac Pro 2.32 GHz Quad-Core/8 GB ram, snow leopard 10.6.2 and Windows 7. I did find that in full screen mode the cpu on windows 7 was running at 100% and I could barely get anything to open. When I changed to single window mode the CPU usage dropped appreciably and it was as slow as 3.0, but at least I could get some things done.

[HPReg]

Folks,

In Fusion 3.0, there were a few perf issues which affected a minority of users. There were very vocal about it We listened to them and we fixed their issues in Fusion 3.0.1. But the world does not end with Fusion 3.0.1.

Thanks for reporting these new issues with Fusion 3.0.1. Please specify your exact Mac model (i.e. the output of "sysctl -n hw.model") when you report issue, not just "MacBook Pro early 2008". As soon as we pinpoint the common denominator to these performance problems, you can be sure we will implement, test, and release a new version of Fusion which addresses them.

Please give as much info as you can. Help us help you. Fusion is a very complex product which has explosive, combinatorial testing scenarios. It is unfortunately very hard for us to cover all of them in-house. But when we hear something is wrong, we are very prompt to fix it.

[auroradesign]

Hi HPReg,

My issue is not new with 3.0.1 and is actually the same as it was in 3.0. It was reported in case #1459354854. My frustration stems from the lack of knowledge if this issue has even been duplicated at your facility and is being addressed. It was just suggested "wait until 3.0.1 for a fix" which unfortunately has not changed the issue. This issue is a very obvious problem with disk performance on a newly created VM.

Additional frustration has been paying for a support incident, not for an issue with my setup, but with a bug in Fusion, waiting for a dot release, and still having the same issue. I do not understand why this should have to be a paid support incident.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Darryl

[metdivo]

Here is more info on my machine:

Model Name: Mac Pro

Model Identifier: MacPro3,1

Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Xeon

Processor Speed: 3.2 GHz

Number Of Processors: 2

Total Number Of Cores: 8

L2 Cache (per processor): 12 MB

Memory: 8 GB

Bus Speed: 1.6 GHz

Boot ROM Version: MP31.006C.B05

SMC Version (system): 1.25f4

Fusion 3.01 windows 7 and windows xp are both considerably slower to boot and applications are slower than the last 2.x version. On windows xp, which was almost zippy before, it now takes 30 seconds for firefox to load. I found that running windows 7 in full screen kept the cpu at 100% (I have tried 1 core, 2 core1, 2, 3 GB memoryno difference) but when in single window mode it was 'normal' but slower than 2.x. If you need any more info, just tell me how to get it for you and I'll be happy to send you any logs, etc.

Thanks. Stephen

[wwjjss]

My Fusion performance has not improved and in some ways has deteriorated with 3.0.1. I am running: iMac model 10,1; 3.06 processor; 8 Ram; 64x; 10.6.2.

I am still unable to use the Aero themes. With the themes enabled, I get strange graphics quirks in the VM. Of more concern, the Aero themes cause my system outside the VM to slow down and experience repeated locks (spinning rainbow in OsX) that have lasted for several minutes -- an unacceptable condition. My only option is to run W7 with the old fashioned basic theme. When I disable Aero, similar to Fusion 3.0, it works adequately.

So, I'm not sure what the graphics improvements were with 3.0.1, but it seems as bad as ever from my experience.

[dosers]

Yeah, I just updated to 3.0.1. and have decreased performance at least as far as Windows 7 64-bit measure it as well.

I am on an 8-core Mac Pro (2009 Nehalem) system with 10.6.2 (64-kernel mode) and an nvidia GeForce GTX 285 card (1GB) Mac Edition.

I ran the Windows 7 test again, and while my Aero number stayed the same as before (5.9) my '3D Games' number went down from 4.0 to 3.5.

Cheers,

Dan

[kthacher]

HPReg,

"A few perf issues"!? Tough to test - of course it is. Your post borders on trivializing the problems 3.0 has. I have nothing complex or unique in my system at all, and 3.0 pretty much destroyed my ability to get my work done - my machine just yesterday went completely unresponsive at least 10 times. I can't figure out how that release ever got out the door. I sure hope 3.01 fixes it for me, or I am going to have to convert to Parallels or downrev to the previous version which was just fine. I don't even know if that's an option now that I am on Snow Leopard.

So please don't come here and spout excuses for such a major letdown. I know that every upgrade will have issues but this one was the worst "upgrade" experience I have ever had with a software product. You turned a vocal advocate of your product into someone who now warns everyone to stay as far away from Fusion as possible. You owe your customers a better experience.

[kmunoz]

Since upgrading to 3.0.1 from 3.0, most of my 3D applications have stopped working properly. Either I get a lot of video artifacts or I get the Fusion error message saying that my 3D has been turned off. I can't really tell whether or not it's any faster; I never can get it working for long enough to find out. This happens both when using my Boot Camp partition in Fusion, or a true VM.

I used to use Parallels, but switched to Fusion because I'd heard and seen that it was better, at the time. Now, I regret switching, when such a small incremental update can make Fusion completely useless for me.

[HPReg]

Darryl,

I looked at your Support Request #1459354854. You wrote:

"Disk performce seems to be VERY terrible in win xp VM.

File copy takes forever.

WITH disk I/O BUFFEREING ENABLED THIS WORKS FINE but I don't want to

do that.

"

My questions:

1) Is this a Boot Camp VM, or a normal one?

2) Which one of the I/O buffering switch do you toggle? The one in Fusion (VM > Settings > Advanced > Other > Hard disk buffering) or another one?

3) Why don't you want to enable hard disk buffering?

4) Disk fragmentation on the HFS+ host filesystem could be a problem: can you try copying the VM to another volume, and see the copy works faster?

Thanks!

[HPReg]

Just to confirm, you have updated the VMware Tools in your VMs, right?

[HPReg]

kmunoz,

We need more information from you to be able to reproduce (and eventually fix) your problem:

1) What is your Mac model (sysctl -n hw.model)?

2) What is your video card model (system_profiler | grep 'Chipset Model:')?

3) What is the guest OS you are running in your VM?

4) Which 3D applications (names, version numbers) have stopped working properly?

Thanks!

[auroradesign]

HPReg,

I've been working with William R. on this and he may have further info for you.

1) This is a newly created VM under Fusion 3.0 with a newly installed XP.

2) Yes, the one in Settings > Advanced > Other > Hard disk buffering

3) Because it eats system ram to the point I start getting swaps and the entire system comes to a crawl. With 8GB of ram in this system, 2GB assigned to the VM and nothing else running, just start copying large files and watch how fast all the system ram is grabbed.

4) Clean install, new drive. Even if I create a dummy drive in the VM and copy a file to it, and then duplicate it, the performance is the same.

This is definitely an issue with the file system on the i7 iMac and Fusion and is not associated with the VM or guest OS. I have moved a copy of this exact VM to (2) MBP's and a C2D iMac and they all perform fine.

[HPReg]

Darryl,

OK thanks for the extra info. Our support team does not have an i7 yet, which is why they haven't been able to repro this. My understanding is that they have started the process to purchase an i7. They will update your service request once they have received it.

[dfort]

Just installed 3.01 hoping for better graphics performance ... it's worse. I ran the windows experience index in Windows 7 and my graphics rating went down from 2.9 to 1.0. I'm thinking maybe I should go back to ver 3.0.

MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard 10.6.2

Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo

Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz

L2 Cache: 3 MB

Memory: 4 GB

Bus Speed: 800 MHz

Boot ROM Version: MBP41.00C1.B00

Video: NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT

Running Windows 7 Pro 32-bit virtual machine.

[x3non]

Hi HPReg,

I'm experiencing poor 3D performances too after upgrading to fusion 3.0.1.

My Mac:

iMac9,1

Chipset Model: NVIDIA GeForce 9400

Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit

Flight Simulator X crashes after loading with unrecoverable error 11.

Hope it helps.

[dosers]

HPReg,

so, I can confirm now that on all 3 systems I have, 3D performance is slower than with 3.0.

There are no 'problems' per se (no crashes or other issues), but on a 2009 Mac Pro (8-core) with 16GB RAM and the nvidia GeForce GTX285 (1GB RAM), as well as on a 2009 Mac Mini, and 2009 MBP - 3D performance is markedly slower (still workable, but slow) than before, and in all 3 cases, running the 'experience' test for Windows 7 and Vista corrects numbers way down for Graphics Performance, while keeping other numbers constant / same.

Interestingly enough, the number for AERO either changes very slightly down, or not at all. The number for '3D' for games and apps however falls from 30-40% on all 3 systems.....

Mac Pro is running 64-bit Kernel, as it MBP, while the Mini is on 32-bit kernel.

Thanks,

Dan

[DougSimpson]

I just downloaded 3.0.1 (no Fusion running yet on my system) and was about to set up Windows 7 and found this thread. Can anyone say if these problems are ONLY with Win7 in their experience? i.e., virtual WinXP does not have these symptoms, but virtual Win7 does?

Many thanks!

[sdw]

I have Fusion 3.0.1 running on a Mac Pro desktop with 2 quadcore processors, 8GB+ RAM.

OS X 2.5, OS release 9.8.0, sysctl -n hw.model: MacPro3,1

Everything ran fine with Fusion 2. Running 2 normal VMs: XP Pro, which runs fine, and WIndows Server 2008, which used to run fine with Fusion 1 and Fusion 2.

Now, after boot, everything is fine for a while, but later just the 2008 VM slows almost to a halt, taking 5 minutes to log out or reboot for instance. Nothing unusual at the Windows level, not using even 25% of memory or CPU. Have tried RAM settings up to 4GB for VM with no difference. Turned on 3D acceleration.

This is stopping all business...

Stephen