Added some RAM, now my 8.1 VM is a lot faster

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I have been running Linux Mint 8.1 64-bit with 4 GB of RAM. That’s not too bad; but it’s just barely enough if you’re trying to run a Windows 7 or 8.1 VM.

Actually, Windows 7-32 wasn’t too bad. But Windows 8.1-32 was dreadfully slow when trying to access my shared drive via Windows File Manager.

I installed 8 GB of RAM, bringing my total to 12 GB. I then allocated 4 GB total to each of the VMs. (Prior, I had allocated 2 GB to each VM.) Now that I have done that, Windows 8.1 running in a VM runs very well.

I am fortunate to have a computer that allows me to mix and match different sizes of memory. In other words, I could add an 8 GB stick without having to toss my 4 GB stick.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

1 user thanked author for this post.

Elly

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Update: I have Thunderbird and Firefox open in my Linux host, and my Windows 8.1 VM is open; and in the VM I am remotely connected to a customer’s computer via Splashtop.

In short, everything is FAST! Before I installed the additional memory, I had to close EVERYTHING in Linux prior to opening a Windows 8.1 VM session; otherwise, it was intolerably slow. And even with closing everything in Linux, accessing the host drive from the VM was dreadfully slow. But now, everything is FAST, without my closing anything!

If you are thinking of switching to Linux, but you want to keep your foot in the Windows world, install Linux as your host, and then install Windows as a virtual machine within Linux. As long as you have enough memory installed to give at least 4GB to the VM, you should be good to go.

Disclaimer: I am running 32-bit Windows in the VM; I don’t know how 64-bit Windows would run. I plan on checking that out – I’ll report back here with the results.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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Elly, SueW, Ascaris

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Update 2: I allocated 6.1 GB of RAM to my Windows 7 Pro 64-bit VM. It runs very well.

It’s hard to believe well everything runs, now that I have a decent amount of RAM installed and allocated. I can be surfing the web and doing Thunderbird email in Linux, and doing Splashtop remote control of a computer in the Windows VM. I can switch back and forth freely, without having to close anything. Nothing slow at all!

The one thing that absolutely won’t work is if I try to run two VMs at the same time. I ran my Windows 8.1 32-bit VM. So far, so good. Then, without closing anything, I ran my Windows 7 64-bit VM. Although the Windows 8.1 VM continued to work well, the Windows 7 VM was horrendously slow. I couldn’t even shut it down, because I couldn’t get the start button to work – that’s how slow it was. I had to suspend the session. Later, I opened only the suspended W7 session. It ran very well when it was the only VM running. I was then able to close it normally.

A problem that I have discovered with the W7 64-bit session: I used VMWare tools to convert an actual Windows 7 install to a VM. I then ran that as my W7 64-bit VM. (This is the OEM version of Windows 7 that came installed on my computer.) It has become unactivated because the “hardware” changed – it is now a VM rather than the host OS on the computer. So if you are thinking of installing Windows 7 in a VM and then using your OEM license to activate it, it won’t work, because your OEM license is designed for that one computer; the VM is, in fact, another computer, albeit a “virtual” computer; it therefore doesn’t qualify as the same computer under the terms of the OEM license.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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Elly

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See here for a possible solution to your win7 vm activation problem.  It involves adding a few lines to the .vmx file for the vm in question.  That link is the first hit (for me) when googling ‘vmware+player+slic+passthrough’.

I seem to recall seeing that being unable to run multiple vms simultaneously is a limitation of the free vmware player, but my google-fu wasn’t good enough to turn up a definitive answer.  Opinions seem to vary, based on a superficial scan of the results.

I’m not in a position to test any of the above, being a virtualbox user myself.  Slic passthrough works in virtualbox, but is much more difficult to set up, involving much more than adding a few lines to a config file.

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MrJimPhelps

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That looks like exactly what I need.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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… btw, which VM system are you using?

Because, there’s supposed to be a working “balloon memory” driver for Windows guests on qemu/kvm, which might in some situations help with running two VMs simultaneously.

Would have to scrounge up some more Windows non-OEM licenses to test that myself…

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VMWare Workstation Player.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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Ram and an SSD make a world of difference when running VM’s. It also helps when you dedicate your VM to a certain size, vs the type of VM that expands it’s size when you need more virtual disk space (at least in Virtual Box).

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The ultimate for running a VM would be (1) lots of memory and (2) storing your VM profile on an NvME SSD (the fast one). In this way, not only would the VM run very fast (because of the abundance of memory), but disk reads and writes would be extremely fast (because of the NvME SSD).

I’m thinking that a fast video card, with lots of video memory onboard, would help as well, if you could get your VM to use the video card, rather than the VM software itself, to process video. The problem is, it is a virtual machine, which means that the video would likely be managed by the simulated machine, i.e, the virtual machine, i.e. the VM software.

The reason that lots of memory would help is because you can allocate as much memory as you want to the VM; the reason that a fast SSD would help is because there are lots of disk reads and writes with a VM. But I’m not sure if it is possible to configure the VM profile to incorporate a video card’s functionality and capabilities into the VM.

Update: upon researching the question, I am finding that there is something called “GPU Passthrough”, which allows the virtual machine to use the GPU rather than the CPU for video processing. Not sure if it’s available in the free VMWare Workstation Player, or if you would have to upgrade to the paid version. I haven’t checked what is available for Oracle Virtual Box.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

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The main issue here is not the OS nor the VM software you’re using, but the old school theme of Windows being the memory and disk hog it has always been.

Of course, Windows running in a VM, apart from it’s needs, one always has to add the overhead of having the host computer’s needs + some of the VM’s capabilities being emulated by CPU and not by bare metal hardware (i.e. GPU stuff).

Either way, your tests and real life experience is very needed and welcomed. Thank you.

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Well, I’m running Windows 8.1 32-bit in the VM. When my computer had only 4 GB of RAM, I allocated 2 GB to the VM. That’s just barely enough, by anyone’s estimation. (I would have done better if I had gone with Windows 8.0 32-bit.)

My VM now has 4 GB allocated to it. That’s a decent amount. And most modern computers will have enough memory to allow you to allocate 4 GB to the VM. Point is, most people will be able to successfully pull this off. And what I’m trying to pull off is running Windows in a VM, so that I can keep running Windows for a long time to come, no matter what kind of computer I have. The W8.1 VM now runs well enough to use as my primary OS, if that’s what I choose to do.

Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 10 running in a remote session on my file server

1 user thanked author for this post.

Elly

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