Sluggish movement on retina display

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pufferdude

Member
This one is weird and I'm wondering if anyone else is seeing similar: Was running Win *8* on Mtn Lion via PD9 on a 2012 15" retina Macbook Pro, and all was well. Very snappy performance. Last weekend I decided to upgrade to Mavericks, so I first installed the "mavericks patch" for PD9, then upgraded to Mavericks, then installed a NEW Win 8.1 guest. Inside this guest things are wonky... for example, dragging a window or icon rapidly around the desktop induces noticeable (and highly annoying) lag where the object simply cannot keep up with the mouse pointer (it lags inches behind). If I then drag the same objects to an external monitor (running at 1280x1024... it's ancient) there is NO LAG at all and the objects-being-dragged can keep up with the mouse without issue.

So then I fired up my older Win8 VM and unfortunately it immediately installed the new PD9 Tools (so I can't compare to its old, good, behavior), and it too has this NEW sluggish behavior... which makes me think something is wrong in the new graphics driver, since it wasn't acting up BEFORE the new PD9 tools were install... but the underlying PD9 engine and Mavericks were also new since I last ran that VM, so it's impossible to tell.

Bottom line: something is really amiss with 2D graphics performance since upgrading to PD9 patch (and yes, I'm now running 9.0.23140 with same results) on Mavericks. The overall performance of the VM seems normal, it's just graphical lag that has been introduced... and it seems to be only on the retina display.

Anyone else?
 
I'm running in full screen mode, where the VM ends up in its own space, and has dual screens. The OSX "Displays have separate spaces" option is UNchecked, but checking it doesn't change the sluggish behavior, anyway. The VM's video option of "Enable Retina Resolution" is UNchecked, and the VMs resolution is 1920x1200, same as OSX which has "More space (looks like 1920x1200) selected in Dis
 
Could you please generate Problem Report and post it's ID here? It looks like the problem with video driver inside Windows.
 
Report # 30453517. I have also since verified identical behavior on a completely new just-released 15" retina MBP running PD9 and Windows 8.1. Like the first machine, on the new machine, in a Windows 8.1 guest moving windows around or scrolling them (even the animation when minimizing a window) is extremely laggy and sluggish, yet the same tasks are snappy and normal when performed on an external monitor connected to the same machine. So at least I know it's not something specific to my particular machine, since we now see it on two different retina MBPs (one brand new, one mid-2012)
 
I also just discovered that this issue only happens in FULL SCREEN mode on the retina display. If I exit full screen and have the guest Windowed, the performance is normal. If I go full screen, everything (on the retina screen only) is sluggish. Using the Guest in windowed mode is not a workaround for me as I need two monitors in my guest VM.
 
After further investigation we can see that this issue only seems to occur with a specific combination of Mac and VM display settings. If you have OSX Display set to "scaled" and then select "More space" (furthest box to the right) AND have "enable retina resolution" in the VM settings UNchecked, you will have the Windows performance problems described above. If you move the OSX display setting down to "Best (Retina)" and then set the Guest's resolution to something usable like 1680x1050, you will NOT have the Windows performance issue describe above. This behavior did not occur prior to Mavericks and/or the PD9 patches to support Mavericks. Unfortunately, these are the exact settings we desire to use to get Windows in a guest VM to look its best.
 
pufferdude,
I've reproduced problem and passed it to responsible team. I'll let you know if we have workaround or resolution.
Thanks!
 
sergk said:
pufferdude,
I've reproduced problem and passed it to responsible team. I'll let you know if we have workaround or resolution.
Thanks!
Click to expand...

I can confirm this issue is present on the latest Haswell 15" MBPr, and was also present on our previous Late 2010 13" Macbook Airs when running multimonitor in fullscreen. I had hoped it was just a video memory issue with the MBA's not able to handle it. Hope this can be resolved asap as it makes the laptop display considerably less usable.
 
Just reporting back that this has not been improved as of Parallels 9.0.24172. I do hope they are working on a fix, as it's pretty debilitating.
 
Somehow this is still a problem on Parallels 12. I'm using it on a 15" MBP with Windows 10 and Ubuntu Xenial VMs. Fullscreen on an external display works beautifully. Fullscreen on the built-in Retina is completely unusable. Like the OP I have my Retina scaled to "More space".
 
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