Mouse and Keyboard Lag

R

RickS1

Bit poster
I'm running on a newly installed MacBook pro and I'm having terrible keyboard and mouse lag problems in the the Parallels VM. I had initially installed Windows 10 and immediately saw that same behavior. After trying to work around the issue finally ended up uninstalling Windows 10 and installing Windows 8.1 instead and the lag had disappeared with good keyboard and mouse performance.
However after running for about 3 days, the key and mouse lag is now back. This is on a MBP top of the line (i7, 16gig, 1tb SSD - Windows VM: 8 gig, 4 cpu, 512mg video) brand new.
What I see is:
Keys
Typing in the VM stutters slightly. Display lags behind key entry making for very annoying typing experience while watching the screen.
Any key based scrolling by holding up/down down arrow or pgup/pgdn arrow is very slow. Scrolling is both slow and about every 10th or so character briefly slows even more ('sticks').
Key repeat by holding down a key is very slow - about 2 or 3 characters a second. Both Windows and Mac have key repeat delay low and maxed out for max repeat rate.
Mouse
Dragging windows around the screen 'catches'. Windows seem to stick and stutter during drag operations. I've turned off the option to show window contents in Windows so only the frame drags but that makes no difference. It doesn't appear to be a video issue.
The mouse pointer appears to be inaccurate. When resizing windows I see the grab handles but often the window fails to actual grab.
The mouse pointer often doesn't release immediately. After dragging or resizing the and letting go of the mouse button the window continues to resize or drag or whatever as if the mouse was still down for short period (it's maybe a second at most). At the same time the screen seems to reflect the proper state of a released mouse pointer.

For both mouse and keyboard it seems like what's happening on the screen and what's actually happening with the mouse is out of sync. I've played around with the different video settings (Retina, non-retina mode, various keyboard options etc.) but none of this seems to have any effect at this point. What really bugs me is that it was working smoothly after the initial installation, but now has reverted to the same sad state I was seeing with my Windows 10 install (which I thought was a problem with that build).
This is pretty annoying to the point that Windows is nearly unusable. Since I write code in various editors in Windows the keyboard in particular is a crucial issue for me - the slightest lag becomes a problem.

Any help appreciated.

+++ Rick ---
 
Done that. When I look at the driver list the HID keyboard is missing.
To be sure I disconnected all external devices (I've been using an external Logitech mouse and Microsoft Keyboard), then reinstalled the Parallel tools. No change.
The lag seems to be getting worse. Now it's to the point of near unusability - mouse button lags now are nearly a second after releasing the button the mouse continues to drag.
Do you have support that's a little more interactive than this one message every few hours? Cause this seems to be going nowhere. I've already researched a bunch of the KB articles and tried everything that I can think of.
I'm hopeful this is not the way it's supposed to be since after initial install the mouse/key performance seemed fine. But there's nothing that's drastically changed since then.

Is there some way to boot into safe mode with Windows through Parallels? That might rule out any startup app or rogue driver interference, but looking at the device list and startup app list there's nothing that should be interfering with the keyboard. And of course key and mouse is fine on the Mac side.
+++ Rick ---
 
Ok. So I have some more information and what appears to be a fixed setup.
After a ton of experimentation with various settings - reloading the stock profile settings, reloading, restarting and reinstalling the tools, I finally ended up rebooting the Mac. Restarted the mac and reset settings on the VM to one of the default setups started up. And lo and behold, the keyboard and mouse behaves as it should and the system runs smoothly.
That's great for now.
Still weary though because the VM was initially running well like this when I first installed and then degraded to the terrible performance. Hopefully this behavior won't return again.

+++ Rick ---
 
Hi RickS1,
We are glad that everything is working fine now. Just in case if you happen to face the same issue again. Then please contact us directly by sending an Email to us, you can also give us a call at the following numbers: Toll-free: +1 888-811-2489 ; International: +1 703-579-0156. We are available 24/7.
 
Rick; Are you running Visual Studio with Resharper in VM? I found that drastically drags keyboard response. Removing Resharper worked for me.
 
I found that switching to "Optimize for Games" reduce keyboard lag slightly.

Also, if you don't mind more stuttery scrolling, go to Graphics -> 3D Graphics -> Vertical Synchronization -> OFF. This reduces keyboard lag when playing games.

Also, use full screen desktop mode, turn off Coherence if you are sensitive to lag. This reduces compositing lag slightly.

Some small bit of unfixable lag is caused by double compositing (MacOS compositing + Windows compositing) but you can eliminate the majority of it.

Also, a higher refresh rate external monitor (e.g. 120 Hz or 144 Hz monitor) also reduces keyboard lag. Another bonus is 120Hz halves the motionblur of scrolling in code editors, making it quicker to find my code. There are now great 2560x1440 IPS gaming monitors with good PhotoShop color quality and up to 165 Hz refresh rate. I wholeheartedly recommend them even if you don't play much video games -- scrolling and window dragging is so much faster & clearer for rapid computer use, and compositing lag is reduced by half for everything. Macs and MacBooks works fine at higher refresh rates with third party external displays. Sometimes a little help from SwitchResX is needed to help the MacBook be coaxed to 144Hz on the high-Hz external monitor, but it works!
 
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