Jeremy Visser <[email protected]> writes:
> Jon Jermey said:
>
>> I'm currently running Windows XP for work in VirtualBox under Mint, and
>> it is usable but sluggish. I'm in the market for a new PC and one of the
>> options is to get one with hardware-assisted virtualization. Can anyone
>> comment from personal experience on whether this will make a) a
>> spectacular difference; b) a moderate difference; c) no difference at
>> all to the speed of virtualized XP?
>
> From personal experience, I can say that cannot notice any (perceptible)
> performance difference whatsoever in VirtualBox whether hardware
> virtualisation is turned on or off. None at all.
Almost no one will - the performance difference is real, but mostly shows up
in memory bandwidth, page-mapping performance, and context switching
performance.
That means you need to be doing something that pushes one of those to the
limit *without* hitting other limitations of the VM to actually see any
change.
[...]
>> Are there different types or levels of hardware virtualization available
>> off the shelf, or it is one-size-fits-all?
>
> Well there’s Intel VT-x and there’s AMD-V, which are the duopoly’s
> equivalents. Both are supported by VirtualBox, VMware, KVM, etc.
>
> Personally, I think that if you buy a new PC with hardware virtualisation,
> the performance benefit you will see will be coming from the faster hardware
> more than the VT-x/AMD-V support.
*nod* Also, keep in mind that one of the biggest factors in VM performance is
going to be I/O for most users.
That means that the performance of your paravirtualized devices is the key for
getting better performance - and that usually just means picking a VM solution
with appropriate "guest" drivers and all.
(Unless you plan on mapping physical hardware into the VM, in which case VT-d
or the AMD equivalent makes a difference.)
Daniel
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