Running windows 7 on a macbook pro through VirtualBox too slow

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I have a Macbook Pro, mid 2015, Intel I7 2.2GHz 16GB RAM, Solid State Hard Drive. I have installed Virtual Box running Windows 7 and Visual Studio 2019.

It runs fine, but too slow.

the settings on Virtual box for the VM are:

  • 12 GB RAM
  • 4 CPU Cores
  • Execution Cap 100%
  • Enable PAE/NX enabled
  • Video Memory 256MB (max)
  • Graphics Controller: VBoxSVGA
  • 3D and 2D acceleration enabled
  • Paravirtualization Interface: Default
  • Hardware Virtualization: Enable Nested Paging

I was wondering if i can tweak the settings a bit more, in order to be able for it to run faster... maybe on the Paravirtualization Interface, i have no idea what i can select.

André Alçada Padez

Posted 2019-08-24T18:04:29.287

Reputation: 171

2Have you installed the guest additions? Do you need 12GB of RAM and 4 cores? Try reducing to 8GB and 2 cores, over allocating host resources can reduce performance. – essjae – 2019-08-26T20:22:53.853

i do have the guest additions, installed on safe mode to allow some 3d feature also. I'll try reducing the resources as you suggest. thanks – André Alçada Padez – 2019-08-27T14:06:17.650

Reduce RAM to 3 GB, CPU times threads to 2, enlarge Video Memory, Graphics Controller VBoxSVGA, turn on 2D and 3D acceleration, reinstall guest additions, and don't enlarge too much the Windows screen. – harrymc – 2019-08-27T19:43:47.667

Answers

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It is important to understand here that despite running a Virtual box, your Mac still requires memory to run its processes. This means, if your windows consumes most of the memory, you will potentially end up with lesser memory for Mac. This will result in overall slowdown of your system making you feel that your Windows Virtual box is slow which mostly isn't the case.

As suggested in the comments, 8GB RAM with 2 cores is the perfect balance of memory and CPU. I am infact able to run it smoothly with just 4GB of memory on my Macbook Air. Let me know how it goes with the above setting.

If that doesn't work, try allocating fixed space instead of dynamic memory allocation. Occasionally, if your memory is fragmented, dynamic memory allocation also could result in slowdown of the virtual environment.

Abhishek Kothari

Posted 2019-08-24T18:04:29.287

Reputation: 111

Asked: 2019-08-24T18:04:29.287

Viewed: 244 times

Active: 2019-09-02T17:01:36.430