Windows 8, PD8, Retina and Graphics Performance

[koppah]

Hi,

I'm using PD8 on a Retina Display MBP, and am finding very poor graphics behaviour with Windows 8. I get some artifacting in certain apps (mainly Office 2013, which may not be PD8's fault), as well as some general sluggishness. This is especially apparent in the Metro apps, where the animations are not smooth, and look very jerky. I've tried to downgrade the graphics adapter to DX9, but still having issues.

Cheers,

Jonathan

[juzci]

Hi,
thank you for feedback, we do appreciate it!
To investigate the issue we need some technical information, so could you please reproduce it, send us Problem Report as described in http://kb.parallels.com/en/9058 and give me an ID?

Thanks in advance,
Hanna

[danieltharris]

You haven't got the power saving mode enabled have you? If so and if it works like in PD7, it may be forcing it to use the HD4000 graphics card instead of the Nvidia card.

I find even in PD7 without the ability to use Retina resolution I get better performance when it's running off the dedicated graphics.


Also, check how much graphic memory you have assigned to the VM. Is it 256MB+?

[koppah]

You haven't got the power saving mode enabled have you? If so and if it works like in PD7, it may be forcing it to use the HD4000 graphics card instead of the Nvidia card.

I find even in PD7 without the ability to use Retina resolution I get better performance when it's running off the dedicated graphics.


Also, check how much graphic memory you have assigned to the VM. Is it 256MB+?

I did try switching it off power saving, but the Metro animations still somewhat lag. Yup, I've got 368MB assigned!

I also already sent off a Problem Report, but I don't know how to fetch the ID retroactively?

Cheers,

[serv]

The easiest is to send a new report.
BTW, are you running with multiple displays in full screen? If so try pausing and resuming the VM without leaving full screen mode. Just move the mouse to upper edge of primary display - the menu will appear.

[TreeMan]

I am experiencing exactly the same problem using a Retina MacBook Pro with PD8. I see problems in Office 2013 but also in other applications, despite not being as frequent.

I have tried multiple VM settings, I am running with 1GB VRAM, 4GB RAM, 8VCPU, DX10. I have tried DX9 but this didn't make any difference.

I am not using an external display.

Was this problem resolved? To be honest filling in an official support ticket on this site is such a painful experience I didn't complete the process.

Hope you can help, thanks in advance.

Mark

[koppah]

I run a single monitor (the rMPB's Retina display).

I'm also not too comfortable sending a support ticket, given the amount of content the app wants to send which contains personal information.

[TreeMan]

Hey Koppah,

Just for the record with regards to the "sluggishness" by upping the VM to 8 cores this fixed most of it.

It is still sluggish sometimes, 3D performance is poor but then I am not sure what to expect. It is virtualised after all.

I have seen other people complaining about Office 2013 artifacting which was resolved after driver updates but they are not using parallels. Visual Studio 2012 for example doesn't appear to exhibit any issues.

Still it has to be a driver problem I imagine.

Cheers,
Mark

[TreeMan]

For the record I just tried VMware Fusion and I have to say I experienced even more problems and performance was significantly worse. PD8 is a clear winner, if the artefact problems could be fixed it would be perfect.

I eagerly await an update, I have no problems running Office 2013 Preview on a standalone Win8 machine.

[koppah]

Yeah, I suspect the driver isn't mature enough. I don't really want to assign 3 cores to it, but it would be nice if the Office problem was fixed. I have submitted a bug report to the Office team anyway, so hopefully it's fixed for RTM.

Cheers,

[koppah]

OK, more info. Disabling Hardware Acceleration in Office fixed the performance problems and graphical corruption, so it seems like this might be a problem with PD8's Display Driver.

[YanaYana]

I'm sorry guys, can we have the Problem report ID?

[koppah]

I'm sorry guys, can we have the Problem report ID?

My Problem ID is 18373838

[MikeBainbridge]

I thought I would add to the discussion. I'm having real problems with multiple displays on a Macbook pro 15" retina since the 'upgrade' to P8. I have two external displays at the office (23 inch Samsung). Both are running off the Thunderbolt ports, one with a VGA adapter and one with a DVI adapter (Real expensive Apple adaptors). They are arranged left and right of the MBPro. I am running Windows in Full Screen with 'use all displays in full screen' checked.

At home I have a 23 inch Dell which has HDMI and VGA inputs.

In the office I find that first thing in the morning when I plug in the adaptors, the external Windows OS screens appear on MacOs Desktop 1 but the MBPro displays MacOS. If I flip to the Parallels Desktop I variously have blank external screens or the 'i am being driven by MacOs but not displaying anything' grey screen - there doesn't seem to be any pattern. Shutting down the Parallels desktop and re-starting usually brings up the DVI screen but not the VGA one which requires two removals of the adaptor and re-insertion before it is recognised. Both external screens are reported normally in MacOS The both screens are 1680X1050 The VGA is set at 'best for display' but the DVI one refuses to stay set there and is set to scaled 1660x1050. Windows 7 (64 Bit) Reports both external screens as 3360x2100 and the 'arrangement' of the screens in Windows varies almost every time I start the VM. MBPRo is reported as the same resolution in Windows. I am using the 'top - best retina' setting for the Mac (the one before 'more space'). I am have both the 'Enable full resolution and Optimise for full resolutions' settings on in the VM. Most applications seem to scale tolerably - there is something wrong with most of the Office main frame where the 'furniture' is too big (Huge 'close' cross). . Google Chrome is the other way round with a tiny omnibox and furniture - I have had to set the magnify option to a permanent 200% so that I can read things. I've attached a fine showing the difference between a windows control panel app, Chrome and Office

At home HDMI pushes the mac resolution right down on both screens (internal and external) and occasionally the external screen just loses sync and shows me 'TV tuned to dead channel'. VGA behaves as above.

Even setting 1Gb of RAM to be available also throws an Aero - problem and the Windows scheme 'downgrades' to basic and shuts off Aero too..

So after a lot of fiddling I can work around the issues but it takes about 10 minutes to achieve. I didn't have these problems in P7 (I had more esoteric ones in with Coherence) - It's changed me from a recent evangelist into someone who is wondering what went wrong ?!

Any hope of a fix soon ?

Mike

MBPro 15" Retina 2.6GHz i7 8Mb 1600 DDR4
MacOs 10.8.2

Parallels Build 8.0.18101 (Revision 797180; September 5, 2012)

Windows 7 64 Bit SP1 Fully updated

[YanaYana]

Thanks for the problem Report - it is very helpful. I have forwarded it to out Product Maintenance team

[danieltharris]

The graphics issues is something I have seen. It could be a combination of Parallels, and the high DPI setting in Office 2013. I've not noticed the issue when running on an external display.

[koppah]

Is there any update from Parallels about this?