Slow Virtual Machine Performance - Windows 10 AU + Parallels 12

Discussion in 'Windows Virtual Machine' started by Alan4, Sep 8, 2016.

  1. NicholasC1

    NicholasC1 Junior Member

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  2. cderooij

    cderooij Bit poster

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    I'm having the same problem, PD12, windows 10 on a MacBook Pro 2016 but when an external monitor is connected the performance is terrible. It will be "nice" to get some reaction from Parallels if they working on this problem.
    It seems to be strange to need to switch back to a lower version, but when this is really solving this issue I'm afraid I have to.

    Can anyone point me to the easiest way of going back to PD11?
     
  3. NicholasC1

    NicholasC1 Junior Member

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    I'm back on 12, doing my best to deal with the multiple monitor/full screen switching issue (i.e. one screen at a time). Since switching to dual 4K monitors, the performance is equally bad in either version. I figured I'd stay on top of the latest in hopes that they'll release fixes soon that will improve performance, since fixes for 11 will probably not happen.

    ETA: I've switched to "scaled" mode for graphics ... not as sharp and a bit hard on the eyes, but workable and much smoother performance. I'll have to live with this until a fix is released.

    ETA2: Nevermind. Scaled mode made my brain hurt pretty quickly.
     
    Last edited: Jan 20, 2017
  4. Bobellini

    Bobellini Bit poster

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    Have PD 12 and Win 10 both latest levels.
    iMac 27" Retina 32Gb i7 with AMD Radeon M386X with 4096 video ram running latest Sierra
    Have allocated 8Gb ram and 512Mb video ram to Win 10.
    Starting Win is a nightmare ... takes forever, with long delays on black screens, Blue screens with "waiting" etc.
    When it finally gets there ... up to 15 minutes later, Windows performance is abysmal. Hangs, delays et al.
    Monitor does not show any excessive ram or CPU usage whilst all this is happening.
    However, I find that once it finally boots, switching to coherence makes all the difference ... win apps now leap into life
    and all is well ....
    We have some serious issues with this Parallels 12!!!!!
     
  5. DaveR1

    DaveR1 Bit poster

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    Have PD Pro on a 27" iMac i7 Quad Core and at the moment 16Gb Ram running Sierra. On Christmas Eve the Fusion Drive unmounted itself and caused a catastrophic, cascade failure. I was forced to start from scratch again as attempts to restore from the TimeMachine corrupted that too. I am now up and running again but my investigations into why the FD unmounted itself have pointed me towards the RAM allocation. The 16Gb is split 8 + 8 to the Mac and Windows 10 but it occurred to me that perhaps 8Gb is not enough for both Windows 10 and any other programs I may wish to run on the VM. Both Parallels and Windows can get very hungry sometimes. I have allocated all 4 cores to be used if required but three should suffice but I am considering upping the Ram to 32Gb and splitting that 16 + 16. As a first step I raised the allocation to a 10 + 6 mix in favour of the Windows VM and it seem to be working much better. The Parallels Help files and other discussions on this forum have pointed out the need to allow for the memory requirements of other software being run under Parallels and Under Windows 10. Has anyone else looked at this?
     
  6. Bobellini

    Bobellini Bit poster

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    It should be noted that I have a 21.5" non Retina iMac in addition to the 27" Retina .... the 21.5 inch runs PD 12 with Win 10 without any issues.
    I mirrored the 21.5" to the 27" when upgrading to the Retina 27, so it would be reasonable to assume that it is very similar as regards applications etc. 21.5" has 4mb allocated to PD, 4mb to Mac.
    Bearing in mind that the non Retina runs well, and the Retina is OK in coherence mode (but not in non coherence mode), one would have to suspect the Retina display is involved in the issue?
     
  7. KorkyPlunger

    KorkyPlunger Hunter

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    I have experienced the same problem, and run some tests that confirm that the slowdown is related to external monitor resolution. Parallels' responsiveness when using multiple external displays with separate spaces seems to be related to the total resolution of the combined displays.

    My configuration is a maxed-out 2016 MBP with Touch ID, running Win10 on latest Parallels (12.1.3 #41532). I devote 12GB RAM and 8 CPUs to my VM. I run with the MBP closed and two external monitors (one running at 3440x1440 and the second running at 2560x1440). My Parallels optimization settings are set to "Faster Virtual Machine", "Better Performance", and "No resource limit". Display are using "Use all displays in fullscreen" and on the MacOS side I'm using "Displays have separate spaces".

    When I swapped out the second (2560x1440) monitor for a new 5k Display, I noticed that when I clicked and dragged a window on the secondary display, there was a long pause (~1.5 seconds) before the window would move. After this initial pause, subsequent drag attempts on the same display were immediate (no delay). However, when I then tried to click-and-drag a window on the primary display, the same initial 1.5-second delay occurred. This was repeatable: it seems that whenever the active window changes from one display to another there is a long initial delay. In addition, Parallels had a higher host CPU usage with the larger display connected.

    I then switched back down to the original display, and the delay was much shorter (less than one second). I then reconnected the 5k display and the delay again increased. I then connected an even lower-resolution secondary display than the original 2560x1440 and the delay was much less than 1 second.

    Unfortunately this delay was unbearable for my day-to-day software development work, so I had to ditch the new 5k display and go back to the old one.

    It's worth noting that this delay does *not* occur under the host Mac OS operating system, only when running under the VM in Win10. Also, I've tried the "devices.usb.mouse=0" startup setting mentioned in a KB article and earlier in this thread, but that did not change the behavior at all.

    Can anyone from Parallels comment on this? Is it a known issue? Is it being worked on? What should our expectations be in regards to this issue?
     
    Last edited: Jan 30, 2017
  8. KorkyPlunger

    KorkyPlunger Hunter

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    130
    Followup: I have been in touch with dmitry@parallels and have reported this issue with ID 149498538, and included videos showing the issue.
     
  9. Bobellini

    Bobellini Bit poster

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    I bid you all and PD12 a fond farewell ... cannot wait any longer for vendor to sort this mess ... have reverted to PD11.
    All is now well ... loads Win 10 in a reasonable time, responsive apps, no keyboard entry failures with modern apps ... quite a relief really.
    Will be VERY wary of any future updates .....
    Ciao
     
  10. Dmitry@Parallels

    Dmitry@Parallels Parallels Team

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    702
    Guys,

    Thanks to KorkyPlunger@, with his help we've localized the issue: mouse input is not grabbed at the initial click when moving the cursor from one display to another. If you perform a click before dragging a window - no delay will happen. The team is now researching an optimal path to fix this behavior.
     
  11. DavidE7

    DavidE7 Member

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    30
    Team Parallels,

    Any updates here? What's the drawback of downgrading to version 11?
    (except I lost my money upgrading)
     
  12. Adamston

    Adamston Bit poster

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    1
    I'm having the same HORRENDOUS performance issues with Windows 10 AU on PD 12. Just clicking Windows Start is a disaster. The nightmare is isolated to Windows as my Ubuntu VM runs just fine on PD 12. I should note that's I've run Parallels on this machine since day 1, with various versions of Windows and Parallels. It's the combination of Windows 10 (AU and before) and PD 12 that fails.

    Unlike others, I'm not using an external display. So I'm hesitant to downgrade to PD 11. Has anyone not using an external display solved the problem by downgrading to PD 11?

    I'm running a MacBook Pro Retina, Mid 2012; 16 GBs RAM; macOS Sierra 10.12.4.
     
  13. DavidE7

    DavidE7 Member

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    @Adamston same setup and issues as you. I was about to downgrade but didn't really have the time. Been hammering parallels support to do this for us..

    I mean interoperability testing of running the most common use case, win10 and pd12 should be tested by the Parallels r&d team, not by the users.
    Can we please have a comment from the official team!?


    Ps. Is there anyone here on the forums that successfully is running this combination!?


    /d
     

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