How to properly configure VMware Workstation 17.5.2?
On a Windows 10 Professional host:
- Ryzen 9 3900x
- 32GB DDR4 RAM (2x8GB Ballistix 3200, 2x8GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200)
- RTX 3060ti 8GB
- NVMe 2TB Samsung Evo 970
For each virtual machine, I allocate:
- Memory: 3072MB
- Processors:
- Number of processors: 1
- Number of cores per processor: 2
- Virtualization Engine: All checkboxes are unchecked
- Hard disk: 30GB
- Display: Accelerate 3D graphics, Graphics memory: 8GB (recommended)
I am installing Windows 10 LTSC.
When running three VMs, the system almost doesn't feel the load. When I start a fourth VM, the system crashes, initially showing a black screen, and then errors for each VM:
VMware Workstation unrecoverable error: (svga)
MKS-RenderMain: Failed to start the renderer.
A log file is available in "D:\vm004\vmware.log"
You can request support.
If I set the Graphics memory to 2GB in Display settings, I can run four VMs. But when trying to start a fifth one, everything crashes.
If I disable "Accelerate 3D graphics" in Display settings and reduce Memory to 2048MB for each VM, I can run up to 11 VMs, but they are very sluggish. When running YouTube or browser-based Flash games in Google Chrome on these VMs, the device manager in the VM shows 100% CPU load (with "Accelerate 3D graphics" enabled, CPU load is 20-30%).
What could be the problem? Does it seem like an issue with the graphics card? I was expecting to run 10-18 VMs (after upgrading to 64GB RAM).
A friend with an i7-7th gen, 48GB RAM, and a 1080Ti can run 6 VMs without problems, with "Accelerate 3D graphics" and Graphics memory set to 8GB on each.