Fusion display choppy if larger than 1024x768 - Macbook

[retro83]

After installing OSX 10.5.2 and the graphics update, the display on Fusion has been very choppy for instance when scrolling documents or moving windows around (in fullscreen or windowed mode). By choppy I mean that it feels almost like running a VNC session rather than interacting with a local machine.

I've noticed now that if I run the display in 1024x768 or less, then the graphics go back to how they were pre-10.5.2 - perfectly smooth.

Has anybody else noticed this or is it just me? The rest of OSX is now much smoother than before, it is just Fusion which is now choppy.

Also should I report this as a bug somewhere?

Thanks.

R.

PS. This is a Macbook SR 2.2GHz C2D with 2GB RAM and X3100 graphics.

[Tentative]

Without Graphics Update everything runs quite well.

The problem occurs only with Graphics Update installed, on my MB.

[retro83]

Thanks for your help, etung.

What extra information can we give to get this sorted?

The odd thing is that every single other app is faster with LGU 1.0.

I ran the Passmark 2D performance test in Fusion a few times, pre LGU gets 39.1 points consistently, and post-LGU get 48.2 so clearly something is working faster (~ 23% faster if my maths is correct!). Perceptually however, post LGU is much slower.

Scrolling a webpage, or the code editing window in visual studio is very annoying - because of the tearing you see things flash up on the screen after the window thinks it has scrolled past that point. Editing large documents becomes very annoying!

[tagq2]

Another thing to try out: on my educational iMac (17" white, with a GMA950) the Leopard graphics update seems to have harmed MSN video conferencing - where video and sound were previously smooth, video frequently pauses for a split second while a snippet of audio is repeated. Fully updated XP with Live Messenger 8.5, using either iSight or Quickcam Pro 4000, microphone connected via AK5370 USB device. Tried removing all USB peripherals bar either Bluetooth or wired keyboard/mouse.

[noetus]

I am encountering this problem as well... running Windows 2000 guest on Macbook Pro 2.33 GHz and display is badly choppy after upgrading to the new Graphics Update (drivers) on Mac OS. Wish I could run in Parallels until this is fixed, but disks are too large to convert.

[danfairs]

Anyone got any info if this issue still exists on the newly-released 1.1.2 with the LGU?

[retro83]

I will be testing it this afternoon. I have found a few apps which demo the problem really nicely, so I can post some videos on youtube for the devs to see if I get the chance.

[retro83]

Problem still occurs on Version 1.1.2 (87978).

I have taken some vids of my test case which show 60FPS on my Genesis emulator before the update, 35-40FPS after LGU 1.0 is applied.

The drop in frame rate doesn't show up too well on the vid because of my camera but I enabled the FPS counter in the game, and you can clearly see it is around 40% lower than before the LGU update.

The emulator I used was Fusion, the game was Sonic 2. I have a SR Macbook 2.2Ghz, 2GB RAM.

I can upload the vids if proof is needed, but they are unfortunately around 25MB each.

[danfairs]

I can confirm that the problem persists for me with 1.1.2 as well.

[retro83]

Problem still occurs on the new VMWare Fusion 2.0 BETA 1. I installed the new vmware tools + drivers and it makes no difference at all.

[retro83]

Problem still present in 10.5.3 and worse - LGU appears to built into 10.5.3 so it is no longer an option to avoid just the new graphics drivers.

[noetus]

Has this been filed internally as a bug yet? The last post from a VMWare person suggested that they weren't able to reproduce this issue.

Anyone know if this is on file?

Thanks

[retro83]

I reported it on this page: http://vmware.com/support/support_feedback.html

I never heard anything back though so I don't know what happened.

[admin]

It's being tracked as PR 239210, but unless we can get reproduction instructions or see an affected system, there's not much we can do.

[noetus]

In the case of those affected, having a larger display (in my case, 1920x1200) and installing the graphics update (which now apparently comes with 10.5.3) was sufficient to cause the issue. It doesn't appear to be specific to certain Windows OSes.

Earlier etung mentioned that on a test system (a MacBook Pro) there WAS video glitching but that it "wasn't terrible". Part of the problem seems to be that the judgement as to whether there is a problem or not is subjective. Are there any objective tests that we can run to determine whether there is a problem? And would a video of the choppiness posted to these forums help to establish what is terrible and what is merely bad but acceptable?

Also, if VMware's testers are seeing a problem, even if it is not really bad, surely that can be a start to investigating what the problem is?

Also I wonder if someone from VMware (etung or someone else) could specify a list of options to change to see whether the problem gets better or worse. (For example, graphics display size, memory size, what have you, I don't really know what these might be.) This might help narrow down what FURTHER conditions beyond "large screen, graphics update" is enough to trigger the issue. It seems to me that people at VMware might have a better idea as to what options to change to try and figure this out.

[danfairs]

I'd certainly be happy to help if VMWare could post some diagnostic steps to take.

[bgertzfield]

I wasn't able to reproduce this on my MacBook (Intel GMA X3100 chipset), but if it's related to the NVIDIA issue I just uncovered, the steps in this post may help diagnose the issue:

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/149178?tstart=0

I'll repost them in this thread as well:

===

Hey all,

I just found a pretty nasty 2D graphics performance issue with the Mac OS X 10.5.3 update and Macs with NVIDIA chipsets. (This is very apparent on the Mac Pro with NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT).

If you run your VM at any "non-standard" resolution (anything that isn't a multiple of 32 bytes wide), then 2D performance will suffer: dragging windows around will seem awfully slow.

We plan to have a fix in the next Fusion 2.0 release. For now, if you want to get the best 2D graphics performance with Mac OS X 10.5.3, please go into your VM's settings and ensure your VM's display is set to one of the standard resolutions (1024 x 768, 1280 x 1024, 1440 x 900, etc. -- anything that's a multiple of 8 pixels wide with 32 bit color should do.)

Alternatively, you can edit or create the file:

~/Library/Preferences/VMware Fusion/config

and add the lines:

mks.gl.textureRange = "FALSE"

mks.gl.storageHintShared = "FALSE"

With these settings disabled, your 2D performance won't be quite as good as before the 10.5.3 update, but it'll be quite usable. Please remember to turn these settings back on when you try out the next Fusion 2.0 release!

Sorry for the inconvenience.

===

[retro83]

If you run your VM at any "non-standard" resolution (anything that isn't a multiple of 32 bytes wide), then 2D performance will suffer: dragging windows around will seem awfully slow.

We plan to have a fix in the next Fusion 2.0 release. For now, if you want to get the best 2D graphics performance with Mac OS X 10.5.3, please go into your VM's settings and ensure your VM's display is set to one of the standard resolutions (1024 x 768, 1280 x 1024, 1440 x 900, etc. -- anything that's a multiple of 8 pixels wide with 32 bit color should do.)

Wow, running the window at a 'standard' resolution makes moving windows around smooth again!

and add the lines:

mks.gl.textureRange = "FALSE"

mks.gl.storageHintShared = "FALSE"

This doesn't seem to help me at all.

PS. on my system without the above workaround it looks something like this when dragging a window around:

Thanks for the help!!

PS. I'm seeing this problem on a Macbook with a X3100 GPU.

[danfairs]

retro83 - did you see the improvement while still on 10.5.2, or after your upgrade?

I'm on a Macbook with the same hardware, have yet to update to 10.5.3, but still see the tearing windows even at 32-bit colour at one of the previously mentioned resolutions.

[retro83]

Dan - it was after installing 10.5.3. Let me be clear though - it is still not as good as before 10.5.2. I was just really happy because it made the environment tolerable for work again. Also, I discovered I need to have the dock at the side rather than at the bottom in order to see the benefit.

[jegbook]

I have a 2.2GHz MacBook (SR) w/ 4GB of RAM and have not had any video issues with Fusion at all. A number of times I've even used an external monitor and put Fusion in full screen (1280x1024) on the external. Most of the time I run it at full screen on my MacBook (1280x800).

FWIW, I've never given the VM less the 1GB of RAM, currently 1.25. Don't know if that would make a difference.

I started using Fusion on day 1 with my MacBook in November, so that would have been 10.5.1. I haven't had any problems along the way and nothing but a great experience.

Could it make any difference if it's a full VM or a Boot Camp partition? I use my Boot Camp partition.

Oh, I've always kept my Dock on the left side. Even if on the bottom, though, I've used TinkerTool to turn of the Leopard Dock craziness.

Any questions feel free to ask.