VMWare, Applications And Gaming

[shawy14]

Hello,

To start off the title isn't that helpful but it was the only thing that I could think of to discribe this post.

I was wondering if anybody else has the same issue as me. I only have one PC, a very powerful one though. On this PC I use Photoshop and Premiere Pro, have a web server set up on it, run a VMWare virtual machine and also play games.

My problem is that the VMWare is slowing down my gaming and is also affecting my benchmark results.

So how do you get around of this, is it a problem to you?

Is there any solutions? I don't have any spare cash so other PC is not the option.

Thankyou

Richard

 

[Drew@PSU]

What do you use the VM for? It might be a better idea to run the program or whatever from the VM natively, since you'll cut out the hypervisor layer. If that's not an option, you can cut down the amount of RAM each VM uses through the VMware Workstation. If you are doing all of that ( Photoshop, webserver, VM, and games ) at the same time, I'd say that's the reason you are having slow gaming/benchmarking. FYI, most people use a freshly formatted OS disk with just the bare minimum drivers on it for benching runs, nothing else but 3dMark or what-have-you.
What are the specs for your machine?

 

[Automata]

Unless the virtual machine is doing something, it isn't really going to slow down the whole computer. I'm running a Debian test server (for implementation later) and there is absolutely no performance hit from running it.

This is assuming, of course, you haven't maxed out your RAM.

 

[shawy14]

Here is my machine specs:

CPU: Core I7 920 D0
RAM: 6GB Corsair
Graphics Card: XFX 4890
HDD: 2 x 250GB Seagate in RAID 1. 1 x 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F1.

I think I may be better configuring a new partition and installing another OS on there for benchmarks and games etc. I was just wondering what other people did in this situation.

 

[I.M.O.G.]

When benchmarking, to get the best results, you should be booting into a stripped down OS best for that specific benchmark. That means nothing else running.

If your just casually benching, I would shutdown the VM during the benchmark, as well as any other apps.

With virtualbox, I just save the machine state rather than shut it down - so closing out and reopening it takes well under 30 seconds.

 

[Automata]

With virtualbox, I just save the machine state rather than shut it down - so closing out and reopening it takes well under 30 seconds.

I know you can also do that with VMWare Server, just hit the yellow "Pause" button. I actually use the save state feature when restarting. The VM's never really "restart" if the host needs to.

 

[SuperMiguel]

when you created the vm did you set it up to use all cores of your cpu?

 

[shawy14]

I think I am going to install a blank OS on another partition then for the benchmarking.

Yep I set it to run using then all, at the kind the virtual machine was kind of important. It isnt as much now but I still need it.

 

[SuperMiguel]

what you do on that VM?? if you dont need alot of HP just try to set it using only 1-2 cores..