Any benefits of VT-x for 32bit guest?

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I am going to be deploying a network of 32bit guest systems. I will be running one core per VM (but multiple VMs per host), memory usage is low (<512MB per guest).

Is there any benefit (or even difference) in enabling vs disabling VT-x in BIOS, as it is not required for 32bit guest systems? The systems I have all default to VT-x off, so I'd rather not change settings on 50+ systems if there are no benefits.

Rytis

Posted 2015-01-29T12:09:43.057

Reputation: 166

1I personally cannot think of a reason you should disable it. – Ramhound – 2015-01-29T12:13:27.723

1It is disabled by default, so I'd rather not go and enable it on 50+ computers, if there are no benefits. – Rytis – 2015-01-29T12:15:15.197

I cannot think of a technical reason you shouldn't have it enabled on machines that support it. I don't consider this feature being disable by default a technical reason not to enable it if the hardware supports it. You made no mention of the feature being disabled by default. It would have been helpful to know about that piece of information. – Ramhound – 2015-01-29T12:23:13.017

Answers

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VT-x should offer much better performance.

VT-x provides actual hardware support for virtualization, and thus lets you run VMs with minimal overhead.

Without hardware virtualization support the hypervisor software will have to perform binary translation, which is still a lot faster than emulation, but may significantly impact system's performance.

gronostaj

Posted 2015-01-29T12:09:43.057

Reputation: 33 047

Asked: 2015-01-29T12:09:43.057

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Active: 2015-01-29T12:38:52.177