VMware workstation 17 Windows Performance Optimization

[Chris_cad]

Hi:

I am evaluating VMware workstation 17 in Windows 11 for some Ubuntu 22.04 workloads and I am trying to ensure the machine has optimal performance settings. One of the issues I am seeing is that assigned 8 processors to the virtual machines, only 4 CPUs in Windows are being used to 100% even when all 8 CPUs are at 100% in the guest OS. (Ubuntu 22.04)
Note: I did experiment with the following VM settings but I only see 4 CPUs being used in Windows:
Processors: Cores:
8                  1
8                  2
16                 1

It seems like the Virtual Machine never uses more than 4 processors in Windows.
Note: I am using an Intel i7-12700 CPU
I have installed 128 GB of DDR4 3200 RAM

 

[Technogeezer]

You have an Intel Alder Lake CPU with performance and efficiency cores. There are known issues with Windows scheduling virtual CPUs on efficiency (less powerful) cores. It's very possible that Windows is deciding to run your 8 virtual cores on the efficiency (less powerful) cores. I don't think it's a coincidence given that your CPU ha 8 performance and 4 efficiency cores. 

Verify whether you are running under Hyper-V or the native VMware Hypervisor by examining the vmware.log file found in the virtual machine's directory and look for "Monitor mode". If it's set to "ULM", you are running under Hyper-V (which is the default if you haven't done anything).

The first thing to try if you're running under Hyper-V is to change the power throttling status of the vmx executable To do this,  open a command prompt as administrator, and execute: 

powercfg /powerthrottling disable /path "C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\x64\vmware-vmx.exe"

[Chris_cad]

Thanks.  That seems to have been the issue.
I now see many processors being used now, not just the same four.

Much appreciated!

 

[VMware Community Member]

Thank you very much. My VMware workstation 17 performance extended up to 80%.