VMWare Workstation question

[steelo]

I apologize if this is a stupid question

 

I am trying to learn a little about VM's and am using VMWare. I have a Ryzen 1600af, which is a 6 core/12 thread CPU. If I assign - say, 6 cores to a VM is it giving 6 physical cores to the OS or could it be a combination of cores/threads? 

 

I've also noticed that unless I do GPU passthrough, it uses a generic video driver and Windows in the VM sandbox doesn't even see my GPU. Is it true that the CPU is actually acting as a virtual GPU in this case?

[Electronics Wizardy]

That is up to the schedule to decide, but normally there is one thread from the vm per core.

 

Also it doesn't give the vm the full core, its shares the cores with other programs running on the host.

[steelo]

6 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

That is up to the schedule to decide, but normally there is one thread from the vm per core.

 

Also it doesn't give the vm the full core, its shares the cores with other programs running on the host.

Thanks, so even if I were to give the VM 12 threads (which I wouldn't) it doesn't mean that those 12 threads are entirely dedicated to the VM. edit: I've also noticed that even though I allocate 4 gb of RAM to my VM, if I look at task mgr on the host machine it doesn't show vmware using 4 gb. I'm guessing it won't unless it actually requires it?

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, steelo said:

Thanks, so even if I were to give the VM 12 threads (which I wouldn't) it doesn't mean that those 12 threads are entirely dedicated to the VM.

Yea there not dedicated, so the rest of the system can still use cores if needed. Its up the scheduler to decide when the vm gets time on the cpu, and when other tasks do. You can change this by changing the priority in task manager if you want.

[Lurick]

1 minute ago, steelo said:

Thanks, so even if I were to give the VM 12 threads (which I wouldn't) it doesn't mean that those 12 threads are entirely dedicated to the VM.

Correct. I've got several VMs on one host with 128 cores assigned each but there are only 128 total cores on the blade

If I ramp up the workload on the VMs then they'll balance to other blades but if no resources are available they just get shares of what's on that one blade.

[steelo]

5 minutes ago, Lurick said:

Correct. I've got several VMs on one host with 128 cores assigned each but there are only 128 total cores on the blade

If I ramp up the workload on the VMs then they'll balance to other blades but if no resources are available they just get shares of what's on that one blade.

This kind of confuses me...what is the point of assigning the number of cores within VMWare if the scheduler is going to decide when the CPU is going to dedicate resources for the VM?

[Lurick]

2 minutes ago, steelo said:

This kind of confuses me...what is the point of assigning the number of cores within VMWare if the scheduler is going to decide when the CPU is going to dedicate resources for the VM?

Well in a different scenario it would (If I remember right) assign weight based on cores so a higher core count VM would have more weight in the scheduler, also it's about what's present to the VM too so if you give it one core it might cause issues.

[steelo]

19 minutes ago, Lurick said:

Well in a different scenario it would (If I remember right) assign weight based on cores so a higher core count VM would have more weight in the scheduler, also it's about what's present to the VM too so if you give it one core it might cause issues.

I've been attempting to create a quasi multi-user 'gaming' PC using VM's. I have friends over sometimes and we used to love LAN parties back in the day. Unfortunately, I no longer have spare computers I can loan out so we can all be in the same room. I've installed Warcraft 3, War thunder and World of Warships within the VM. I'm getting around 60 fps on medium settings for Warships and War Thunder, but frequent frame drops and stuttering while concurrently playing the same game on the host PC. I'm also using a RX 5700 (non-XT), so I know it's asking a lot out of what is probably considered today to be a lower mid-grade build. I'm actually very surprised they run at all on the generic SVGA drivers!

 

Mainly though, I'm off work this week and need a project to try out

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 hour ago, steelo said:

I've been attempting to create a quasi multi-user 'gaming' PC using VM's. I have friends over sometimes and we used to love LAN parties back in the day. Unfortunately, I no longer have spare computers I can loan out so we can all be in the same room. I've installed Warcraft 3, War thunder and World of Warships within the VM. I'm getting around 60 fps on medium settings for Warships and War Thunder, but frequent frame drops and stuttering while concurrently playing the same game on the host PC. I'm also using a RX 5700 (non-XT), so I know it's asking a lot out of what is probably considered today to be a lower mid-grade build. I'm actually very surprised they run at all on the generic SVGA drivers!

 

Mainly though, I'm off work this week and need a project to try out

 

Try using something like aster to setup multiple users on one computer at one time. Then you don't have to deal with vms at all.

 

1 hour ago, steelo said:

This kind of confuses me...what is the point of assigning the number of cores within VMWare if the scheduler is going to decide when the CPU is going to dedicate resources for the VM?

Thats the max amount of resources they can use. 

 

Normally you over allocation the amount of cores as most vms aren't using them all at the same time. So when they need a burst of speed, they can use it.

[steelo]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Try using something like aster to setup multiple users on one computer at one time. Then you don't have to deal with vms at all.

 

Thats the max amount of resources they can use. 

 

Normally you over allocation the amount of cores as most vms aren't using them all at the same time. So when they need a burst of speed, they can use it.

That's what I figured, you're kind of setting the boundaries or the resources it has access to.

 

I've heard about Aster and may give the free trial a try.