Poor graphics performance with Windows Vista guest

Poor graphics performance with Windows Vista guest

[Dirk Heinrichs]

Hello,

I've tried using a 32bit Windows Vista guest on both VirtualBox and
KVM, hosted on 64bit Ubuntu 12.04 (DualCore AMD Athlon X2, 8G RAM,
Radeon graphics).

After installing VBox guest additions on the Windows guest,
performance, especially graphics (desktop) performance, is quite good.
While there is some flicker when moving windows around on the desktop,
the moved windows actually keeps moving fluently.

OTOH, with KVM, the whole desktop experience is rather poor. Windows
more or less jump while being moved and the whole system feels really
slow. I've tried with all the different graphics adapter settings (and
also installed VMWare graphics drivers), but nothing comes close to
VirtualBox' performance.

In both cases, screen resolution was set to 1280x960, with highest
possible color depth. Connection to VirtualBox was done via RDP, while
VNC was used for KVM (using krdc from KDE on both cases).

I'd really like to use KVM instead of VirtualBox, so is there anything
I can do to get better graphics performance?

Thanks a lot.

Bye...

	Dirk

Re: Poor graphics performance with Windows Vista guest

[Alon Levy]

On Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 10:29:03AM +0200, Dirk Heinrichs wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I've tried using a 32bit Windows Vista guest on both VirtualBox and
> KVM, hosted on 64bit Ubuntu 12.04 (DualCore AMD Athlon X2, 8G RAM,
> Radeon graphics).
> 
> After installing VBox guest additions on the Windows guest,
> performance, especially graphics (desktop) performance, is quite good.
> While there is some flicker when moving windows around on the desktop,
> the moved windows actually keeps moving fluently.
> 
> OTOH, with KVM, the whole desktop experience is rather poor. Windows
> more or less jump while being moved and the whole system feels really
> slow. I've tried with all the different graphics adapter settings (and
> also installed VMWare graphics drivers), but nothing comes close to
> VirtualBox' performance.
> 
> In both cases, screen resolution was set to 1280x960, with highest
> possible color depth. Connection to VirtualBox was done via RDP, while
> VNC was used for KVM (using krdc from KDE on both cases).
> 
> I'd really like to use KVM instead of VirtualBox, so is there anything
> I can do to get better graphics performance?

You can use the qxl device and spice protocol. You could try
virt-manager or gnome-boxes for setting it up. It should give you better
performance.

> 
> Thanks a lot.
> 
> Bye...
> 
> 	Dirk
> --
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kvm" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

Re: Poor graphics performance with Windows Vista guest

[Dirk Heinrichs]

Am 30.04.2012 10:56, schrieb Alon Levy:

> You can use the qxl device and spice protocol. You could try 
> virt-manager or gnome-boxes for setting it up. It should give you
> better performance.


Thanks a lot. Installed all the needed packages on the host as well as
on the guest. I then shutdown the guest, reconfigured its VM and
restarted the guest. But now I only get a black background in both
spicec and virt-manager.

Bye...

	Dirk

Re: Poor graphics performance with Windows Vista guest

[Alon Levy]

On Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 03:31:09PM +0200, Dirk Heinrichs wrote:
> Am 30.04.2012 10:56, schrieb Alon Levy:
> 
> > You can use the qxl device and spice protocol. You could try 
> > virt-manager or gnome-boxes for setting it up. It should give you
> > better performance.
> 
> 
> Thanks a lot. Installed all the needed packages on the host as well as
> on the guest. I then shutdown the guest, reconfigured its VM and
> restarted the guest. But now I only get a black background in both
> spicec and virt-manager.

Sounds like a problem fixed by a recent version of the virtio-serial
driver. Please try the driver from
http://download.devel.redhat.com/brewroot/packages/virtio-win-prewhql/0.1/27/win/virtio-win-prewhql-0.1.zip

> 
> Bye...
> 
> 	Dirk
> --
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kvm" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

Re: Poor graphics performance with Windows Vista guest

[Dirk Heinrichs]

Am 30.04.2012 16:27, schrieb Alon Levy:

> Sounds like a problem fixed by a recent version of the
> virtio-serial driver. Please try the driver from 
> http://download.devel.redhat.com/brewroot/packages/virtio-win-prewhql/0.1/27/win/virtio-win-prewhql-0.1.zip

Unfortunately,
> 
I only get a DNS error when trying to access this link :(

Bye...

	Dirk

Re: Poor graphics performance with Windows Vista guest

[Alon Levy]

On Mon, Apr 30, 2012 at 04:36:28PM +0200, Dirk Heinrichs wrote:
> Am 30.04.2012 16:27, schrieb Alon Levy:
> 
> > Sounds like a problem fixed by a recent version of the
> > virtio-serial driver. Please try the driver from 
> > http://download.devel.redhat.com/brewroot/packages/virtio-win-prewhql/0.1/27/win/virtio-win-prewhql-0.1.zip
> 
> Unfortunately,
> > 
> I only get a DNS error when trying to access this link :(

My bad, gave you an internal redhat link. Here is the closest build I
could find:

  http://people.redhat.com/vrozenfe/build-26/virtio-win-prewhql-0.1.zip

I can't find 27, maybe this (26) will help.

> 
> Bye...
> 
> 	Dirk
> --
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kvm" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

Re: Poor graphics performance with Windows Vista guest

[Dirk Heinrichs]

Am 01.05.2012 07:18, schrieb Alon Levy:

> My bad, gave you an internal redhat link. Here is the closest
> build I could find:
> 
> http://people.redhat.com/vrozenfe/build-26/virtio-win-prewhql-0.1.zip
>
>
> 
I can't find 27, maybe this (26) will help.

Yes, I could download this one. However, there's no setup.exe or *.msi
in this archive, nor any installation documentation. I don't really
know what to do with it now :(

Bye...

	Dirk

Re: Poor graphics performance with Windows Vista guest

[Alon Levy]

On Tue, May 01, 2012 at 08:26:32AM +0200, Dirk Heinrichs wrote:
> Am 01.05.2012 07:18, schrieb Alon Levy:
> 
> > My bad, gave you an internal redhat link. Here is the closest
> > build I could find:
> > 
> > http://people.redhat.com/vrozenfe/build-26/virtio-win-prewhql-0.1.zip
> >
> >
> > 
> I can't find 27, maybe this (26) will help.
> 
> Yes, I could download this one. However, there's no setup.exe or *.msi
> in this archive, nor any installation documentation. I don't really
> know what to do with it now :(

After unpacking, open device manager and right click the VirtIO-Serial
device (under System devices), select properties, select update driver,
select Browse my computer fordriver software, Let me pick.., Have disk,
then browse to the directory where you unpacked the zip file, to the
subdirectory for your version of windows and architecture, click Next.

> 
> Bye...
> 
> 	Dirk
> --
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kvm" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
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