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[airsoftsnake]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dosraider @ Aug 13 2007, 09:34 AM) [snapback]304460[/snapback]</div>

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airsoftsnake @ Aug 13 2007, 02:40 PM) [snapback]304443[/snapback]

The only problem I think with virtual pc and/or vmware is that you really need a multi-processor PC to actually enjoy it.
If you are running it in a single CPU pc, it's slow like molasses... Actually, on hyperthreaded PCs it's a little less slow, but really with a multi, it's the best!
[/b]

Now, let talk seriously, shall we?
My PC:
AMD athlon64-3500+/1Gig -(As far as I know that's a single core, yes?)-

Runs Quake in 800x600 in VPC-dos6.22 smoothly.(Was pre DB 0.70 - now I use dosbox 0.71 for that).
Runs A-10 Cuba in VPC-W95 smoothly.(Was needed to take screenies for another site, the screenies in XP were complete crap.)
Runs Quake II in 800x600 in VPC-W98 smoothly.( Did some server Q2 tests in VPC, safier than on my XP.)
Runs Vista reasonable in VPC. (But that one runs better in VirtualBox).

So: No, you don't need a dual/quad core to run things in VPC.
Basicly it's the same thing as for Dosbox:
If your Windows crawls your emus / VMs will crawl.
How more crap and eye candy you have running on the background in Windows, the more all those emus / VMs will lag.
[/b][/quote]

Well, my experience on many machines has shown a very distinct difference.

I was running VPC, and VMWARE on my laptop wich is a Intel 2Ghz machine, SMP.

When starting Vmware, for at least one minute, the machine basically froze. The reason is the CPU on the VM was using up all the resources creating itself, and using the disk at 100%.

I had the same experience on my work machine with is a SMP running at 3Ghz.

On my other work machine, a MP dual intel running at 2Ghz, there is no slowdown at start, and the same on my dual athlon at home.

from MY experience, dual CPU machines provide a much better experience.

I'm not saying that anybody else had the experience I've had, but when I've tried this, it was crappy.

On top of what I'm saying, VMWARE, (and the latest VPC), have the ability to use hardware extensions for virtualization. This means that if your CPU & motherboard support it, the machine will run even better.

IMHO, dual CPU is better for running VMs.

[dosraider]

Let's play I show you mine and you show me yours shall we?
That's mine:


*Edit:
BTW: that's my normal XP, also have a 'stripped' one.
And my Vista stats are looking the same.
Plenty ressources free, and that's the usual culprit: the amount of ressources used by backgrounds progs and all sorts of eye candy crap.

[airsoftsnake]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dosraider @ Aug 13 2007, 10:44 AM) [snapback]304471[/snapback]</div>

Let's play I show you mine and you show me yours shall we?

*Edit:
BTW: that's my normal XP, also have a 'stripped' one.
And my Vista stats are looking the same.
Plenty ressources free, and that's the usual culprit: the amount of ressources used by backgrounds progs and all sorts of eye candy crap.
[/b]

I don't know what you mean by this exactly...

The only thing I was trying to say, (and I still beleive to be true), is that running a virtual machine on a machine that has more than one cpu is better.

Obviously, if you are running nothing other than that one virtual machine on that machine, then your experience will probably still be good. However, if you are doing anything that requires CPU power on your main machine, the VM will suffer.

I've been running IO stress applications in vms for a while, and I've always worked in the main machine at the same time. When I was running a VM at near full capacity on SP (single processor) machine, the machine performance would suffer. The VM would also change results depending on what I was doing.

When I stated having MP (multi-processor) machines, the performance of the VMs would not be affected as much.

Try compiling your source code on your main machine while you are running a stress test on your VM on a SM machine, and on a MP machine, and you will *instantly* see the difference.

I've had a testing machine for a while that had 4 dual CPU's on board, with 4GB of memory, and on that machine I was able to run 5 VMs at near capacity without causing my machine to slow down.

As stated, on my laptop, and on my work machine, I currently don't run the VMs at high capacity because it changes the behaviour of my main machine too much.

NOTE: If you are doing nothing on your main machine, and all you want is to have isolation with a VM, and are really using the VM as your machine, than you should be fine.

S

[Japo]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airsoftsnake @ Aug 13 2007, 04:10 PM) [snapback]304467[/snapback]</div>

When starting Vmware, for at least one minute, the machine basically froze. The reason is the CPU on the VM was using up all the resources creating itself, and using the disk at 100%.[/b]

I don't know but if you observed heavy disk usage that points to lack of RAM. Might be that you don't have enough free RAM, or that even if you have you haven't alocated enough for that virtual machine.

Normal computer usage doesn't strain modern processors much. (The exceptions being modern games and other 3D programs and engineering simulation ones and such.) Most of the time even a single core processor is not operating, just waiting to be asked to perform the next operation, so there's plenty of room to multitask. On the other hand modern programs (incluing OSes) use loads of RAM, and if you don't have enough hard disc space will be used instead, and it's much slower and that's the REAL performance loss.

That's valid also if you're not running any virtual machine, many people think that they'll get better performance if they upgrade to the lattest processor chips, but that won't help a tiny bit if they lack RAM. If you're running virtual machines you'll need the memory needed by the host machine plus the amounts needed by all guest ones. The CPU can be shared, memory can't.

[airsoftsnake]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Japofran @ Aug 13 2007, 02:16 PM) [snapback]304494[/snapback]</div>

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(airsoftsnake @ Aug 13 2007, 04:10 PM) [snapback]304467[/snapback]

When starting Vmware, for at least one minute, the machine basically froze. The reason is the CPU on the VM was using up all the resources creating itself, and using the disk at 100%.[/b]

I don't know but if you observed heavy disk usage that points to lack of RAM. Might be that you don't have enough free RAM, or that even if you have you haven't alocated enough for that virtual machine.

Normal computer usage doesn't strain modern processors much. (The exceptions being modern games and other 3D programs and engineering simulation ones and such.) Most of the time even a single core processor is not operating, just waiting to be asked to perform the next operation, so there's plenty of room to multitask. On the other hand modern programs (incluing OSes) use loads of RAM, and if you don't have enough hard disc space will be used instead, and it's much slower and that's the REAL performance loss.

That's valid also if you're not running any virtual machine, many people think that they'll get better performance if they upgrade to the lattest processor chips, but that won't help a tiny bit if they lack RAM. If you're running virtual machines you'll need the memory needed by the host machine plus the amounts needed by all guest ones. The CPU can be shared, memory can't.
[/b][/quote]


Actually, even my laptop had 2GB of ram, so does my machine here. On both machines the VMs are set to use only 512MB of ram, and when starting them, there is plenty of ram available.

I agree with your asertion that normal computer usage doesn't strain modern processors much, it's not like browsing the web or listening to a music file is going to kill your computer.

However, if you are talking about running games, or doing application development (or driver development), then you are in a different ballpark.

By the way, memory can be shared, as long as the "live" memory isn't online.

In fact in vmware, you can select some values: (this is in vmware, I've just type it in here)

----------------------
Additional memory:

How should the system allocate memory for virtual machines?

o Fit all virtual machine memory into reserved host RAM
o Allow some virtual machine memory to be swapped
o Allow most virtual machine memory to be swapped

Swapping vitrual machine memory allows more virtual machines to run but can degrade system performance if the virtual machines use their memory intensively.
-----------------------

I don't have virtual pc installed on this machine, so I can't tell you if they have it too...

By the way, most of the people I know around me use VMs to do tasks that are protected from their main OS. I.e. testing in that environemnt. This helps a lot because you can snapshot the VM before your test, and if you corrupt the VM you just go back to the snapshot.

Also it is very good for benchmarking (as long as the main CPU is not being used), because you can retest the same machine state over and over again.

Anyhow, my personal usage of VM's makes it so that I wouldn't use it in anything else than a multiple CPU host, with lots of memory (I always select option 1 in vmware)

S

[dosraider]

That's all very interesting, airsoftsnake, but don't you think that it makes a difference using VMs in a work environment or @home for hobby-pleasure?

You can't compare those two.
You really can't.

On my single core PC the most I have asked was a Q2 server W98 VM in one VM, simultane playing in another Q2 W98 VM and via LAN connect my friends on the Q2 VMserver.
That makes two VMs on one PC, and that worked very swell.
And for a home situation it's enough.

I don't see me compiling stuff @home whilst playing.(On the same PC that is).
The -(rare games nowadays)- that doesn't run in dosbox can run usually pretty good in VPC, and again, I don't think I will play games @work.

To conclude:
Don't mix home and work situations.

Can we at least agree on that?

[airsoftsnake]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dosraider @ Aug 13 2007, 04:20 PM) [snapback]304507[/snapback]</div>

That's all very interesting, airsoftsnake, but don't you think that it makes a difference using VMs in a work environment or @home for hobby-pleasure?

You can't compare those two.
You really can't.

On my single core PC the most I have asked was a Q2 server W98 VM in one VM, simultane playing in another Q2 W98 VM and via LAN connect my friends on the Q2 VMserver.
That makes two VMs on one PC, and that worked very swell.
And for a home situation it's enough.

I don't see me compiling stuff @home whilst playing.(On the same PC that is).
The -(rare games nowadays)- that doesn't run in dosbox can run usually pretty good in VPC, and again, I don't think I will play games @work.

To conclude:
Don't mix home and work situations.

Can we at least agree on that?
[/b]

I agree that the scenario you list above would work very easily on your configuration.

I never said that it wouldn't work. I just stated that In My Honest Opinion, a dual processor or better was best to run Virtual Machines. I'm not forcing my opinion on anybody

S