Author Topic: Very poor performance of ArcaOS on VirtualBox 7 on Intel Mac  (Read 7560 times)

KO Myung-Hun

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Re: Very poor performance of ArcaOS on VirtualBox 7 on Intel Mac
« Reply #15 on: February 03, 2025, 05:24:20 am »
Hi/2.

Execution Engine:            native API
Nested Paging:               Inactive
Unrestricted Execution:       Inactive
Execution Cap:                100
Paravirtualization Interface:   None

Your VM is not using HW acceleration. Is the green turtle shown on an earlier macOS version with VirtualBox 6 ?

Quote
      
Acceleration:
   Paravirtualization Interface:   Native
   Hardware Virtualization:      YES - Enable Nested Paging

I recommend to use 'default' for 'Paravirtualization Interface'.

JTA

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Re: Very poor performance of ArcaOS on VirtualBox 7 on Intel Mac
« Reply #16 on: February 03, 2025, 11:46:31 pm »
My AOS 5.1 works perfectly fine in Virtualbox 7.0.14, although I run everything on a Windows host OS.

For VMware, there are most likely no better (full) "guest additions" for OS/2 or AN, as what you've got are partial, and VMware dropped their full os/2 guest additions years ago. I'd think that VMware is a dead end for anything except a "pure" os/2 in a vm that doesn't interact with the host or the outside world.

If you can go back to Virtualbox, and as it does have both a full "guest additions" and AOS support, I would suggest:

1. get to the latest 7.x virtualbox out there (for your mac)
2. create a new VM (with whatever tweaks in the vm settings that folks suggest)
3. install a new AOS 5.1 (or whatever your latest AOS version is ... the guest additions are built-in)

Doing all this new stuff cuts out any "upgrade" issues that might be present with the old stuff.

This should also allow AOS to turn on their vbox full "guest additions" stuff once the initial AN OS install is complete. IIRC, nothing else needed to be done ... we don't install any Vbox older Guest Additions, or Valery's (both are "old"). Your AOS build with AN's guest additions should interact with the Host OS and the outside world just fine, per that AN support page Martin pointed out.

Hope this helps ...

DavidR

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Re: Very poor performance of ArcaOS on VirtualBox 7 on Intel Mac
« Reply #17 on: February 04, 2025, 08:09:08 pm »
Thank you everyone for the helpful replies. (Sorry this is long). I'm in the process of re-installing various combinations of things to get a better idea of what is going on.

To answer some of the questions above:

@KO Myung-Hun: No, the older VirtualBox 6 does show the blue V chip instead of the green turtle when running the VM. So the issue might well be the super slow green turtle that happens on VirtualBox 7. As Roderick mentions it looks like VirtualBox has been forced to use Apple's hypervisor framework since macOS Ventura onwards. I don't have control over the Paravirtualization Interface that is chosen - it seems to always to be None.

@Martin: Thanks. I've started from scratch with the 7.1.6 VirtualBox version and Extensions and am following the installation guide on the ArcaOS website exactly.

@Sigurd: Are you able to confirm if the VMWare Tools I'm using are the ones that you use? I'm using the ones from https://github.com/wwiv/os2-guest/releases/ ?

@JTA: Thanks. I'll use the standard VirtualBox Additions that come with ArcaOS and not downgrade or upgrade anything.

What isn't explained in all this Apple hypervisor explanation is how VMWare continues to get very good performance on the latest macOS versions, but VirtualBox doesn't. Presumably they too have had to use Apple's framework. Hmm ... Here are some posts about the poor performance:

   https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=110591
   https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=109695
   https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=111784
   https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/22004
      (the last comment)
   https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=107801
      (but disabling IO-APIC didn't seem to help me)
   https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=109722

I ran a small cpu speed exe that I got from (what was) Hobbes and the frequency given for VMWare matched my real CPU almost exactly, and consistently. Whereas the VirtualBox reading varied wildly and was much slower.

I realise you guys are mostly PC people and we Mac users are a minority here, but it would be great to get your thoughts: If Apple's hypervisor means the green turtle is always used, then how would Windows as a guest on VirtualBox 7 on a Mac host run with acceptable performance? Is there something special about Windows running as a guest in VirtualBox that ArcaOS doesn't benefit from? Maybe it is a 64-bit thing?

Despite my earlier prediction that VMWare was the way to go, there also seems to be a network issue with VMWare on macOS 15 Sequoia (the latest macOS). After about 5 minutes the network in ArcaOS drops then might come back 15 mins or so later, then goes again. It's not an IP or MAC address clash which was my first thought. This does not happen with macOS 14 Sonoma, the previous version - it seems rock solid. Someone else has seen something similar I think:

https://community.broadcom.com/vmware-cloud-foundation/discussion/fusion-network-bridge-issue-sequoia

So I'll continue to experiment and see if I can get closer to acceptable performance. I may possibly ask questions/open tickets at Virtual Box over the green turtle performance and VMWare over the network droppage with macOS 15 Sequoia.

It would be a shame if running ArcaOS on a Mac was no longer viable, even on an Intel Mac. Running on an Arm Mac is another nightmare entirely! I might be forced to buy myself an old ThinkPad to get my OS/2 fix ... but I have enough hardware already!

Thanks all.

JTA

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Re: Very poor performance of ArcaOS on VirtualBox 7 on Intel Mac
« Reply #18 on: February 05, 2025, 08:20:42 pm »
"Despite my earlier prediction that VMWare was the way to go, there also seems to be a network issue with VMWare on macOS 15 Sequoia (the latest macOS). After about 5 minutes the network in ArcaOS drops then might come back 15 mins or so later, then goes again. It's not an IP or MAC address clash which was my first thought. This does not happen with macOS 14 Sonoma, the previous version - it seems rock solid."

Hmmm ... shouldn't have worked at all, as the guest OS is AOS, and there are no "full" guest additions for VMware as the Type-2 hypervisor. AOS will run in a VMware vm, but unless AN is now providing a set of VMware guest additions in their AOS, it can't comm with the outside world. In other words:
1. have a host OS (windows, linux, max)
2. install a Type-2 hypervisor (VMware, Virtualbox)
3. create a VM (and give it a network conn type, utilizing the host's ethernet adapter)
4a. install a guest OS into the vm
  - on VMware, the only supported guests are those which have VMware guest additions, typically these are modern Win or Linux OS's
4b. inside the guest OS, install a "full" set of Guest additions (this is where it gets tricky):
  - Windows OS (both VMware & Vbox have full guest additions to install; this turns on networking)
  - Linux (both VMware & Vbox have full guest additions to install; this turns on networking)
  - AOS:
    - Vbox has some older versions of a full set of guest additions (and Valery has a version)
    - AOS has something in it that turns on, when in a vbox vm

So, even though a VMware vm has a network adapter defined in it's vm settings, this doesn't come to life all the way in the Guest OS until a full set of supported guest additions gets installed into the vm; there aren't any for AOS for VMware, although the find of a Github drivers set, with mouse and clipboard support is interesting ... this find gives us some partial support.

This limits AOS to vbox, if you want full "guest additions" support. Hyper-V is a Type-1 hypervisor, but the same issues apply ... there is no full guest additions support for os/2 (obviously, as MS could care less) in Hyper-V.

If you think you got full network support, or full video support, etc., out of your AOS under VMware, then that warrants some further exploring (as to how you got it to work).

Hope this clears things up ... please advise if yours (or anyone's) experiences are different ...

Dave Yeo

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Re: Very poor performance of ArcaOS on VirtualBox 7 on Intel Mac
« Reply #19 on: February 05, 2025, 08:48:21 pm »
I understand that Hyper-V won't even run OS/2 above version 4.

Leonardo

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Re: Very poor performance of ArcaOS on VirtualBox 7 on Intel Mac
« Reply #20 on: February 08, 2025, 02:15:04 am »
I also have very poor performance on MacOS (intel) with all versions od OS/2 since 2.0 up to arcaos 5.0.8. Now 5.1.0 traps with this screen

Martin Iturbide

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Re: Very poor performance of ArcaOS on VirtualBox 7 on Intel Mac
« Reply #21 on: February 08, 2025, 03:06:05 pm »
Hello

"Once Is Chance, Twice is Coincidence, Third Time's A Pattern"

Leonardo, can you confirm that
- You have VBox 7.1.6 on MacOS with the 7.1.6 extensions installed?
- Was it working with any older VBox version?

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Martin Iturbide
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Martin Iturbide

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Re: Very poor performance of ArcaOS on VirtualBox 7 on Intel Mac
« Reply #22 on: February 09, 2025, 12:08:32 am »
Hello.

I asked for some help on the VirtualBox forum:
- https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=113195

There is already a reply asking for a log, but I will require people with a Mac to help out.

Regards
Martin Iturbide
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DavidR

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Re: Very poor performance of ArcaOS on VirtualBox 7 on Intel Mac
« Reply #23 on: February 10, 2025, 04:51:44 pm »
Martin - thanks for raising a ticket. Sure, I will provide a log when I'm back at my Mac. I'm currently travelling until Wed.

DavidR

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Re: Very poor performance of ArcaOS on VirtualBox 7 on Intel Mac
« Reply #24 on: February 10, 2025, 04:54:28 pm »
JTA - I definitely get a network connection with VMWare. I can surf the web and ping. What I don't get is shared folder functionality between the guest and host OS.

Martin Iturbide

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Re: Very poor performance of ArcaOS on VirtualBox 7 on Intel Mac
« Reply #25 on: February 10, 2025, 05:32:08 pm »
Hi
Martin - thanks for raising a ticket.
DavidR, sorry, but I didn't open up a ticket. Just a forum post at VirtualBox to ask for more feedback with a Mac.

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Martin Iturbide
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DavidR

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Re: Very poor performance of ArcaOS on VirtualBox 7 on Intel Mac
« Reply #26 on: February 11, 2025, 12:59:11 pm »
Martin - sure, no problem. That's what I meant.

Martin Iturbide

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Re: Very poor performance of ArcaOS on VirtualBox 7 on Intel Mac
« Reply #27 on: February 11, 2025, 03:43:56 pm »
Hello

Supposedly in MacOS the VirtualBox logs should be on "$HOME/Library/VirtualBox"
Check out if there is something readable, or share it on the VirtualBox forum to see if someone has a hint.

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Martin Iturbide
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JTA

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Re: Very poor performance of ArcaOS on VirtualBox 7 on Intel Mac
« Reply #28 on: February 11, 2025, 05:57:16 pm »
Perhaps you can dig deep into the vbox manual for the version of vbox you want to run on mac.

Inside the release of the docs for your version, there is specifically Chp 04, and additionally other chapters and pointers to all the release notes, changes & limitations. Perhaps all of this will show something you'll recognize for why things changed under mac & vbox versions you ended up on.

Might even be worthwhile to read the VMware docs on the same subjects, to see why a VM might run better on VMware.

I still don't understand exactly what piece of perf dropped on your vbox setup ... is it specifically cpu, ram, disk, network? Vbox windowing (of the OS/2 guest)? Seamless mouse support between vbox and guest? If reading the docs didn't catch the new limitation for you, then more utility testing of each piece inside AOS might narrow things down to the culprit.

Generically, you say it is unusable or similar, but you might have to dig deeper to see what piece is giving you the most grief. With that identified, perhaps the vbox docs for 7.1.6 will show you why it changed, or will point you at a specific VM setting that helps, until they sort out something better with a future release.

For myself, I must have guest additions (GA tools) for OS/2, for many of my OS/2 efforts & projects, and that pretty much rules out VMware or other virt platforms, leaving only Virtualbox for me. Specifically, I must have the Host/VM shared folders functionality.

However, from all I'm reading and catching up on (what additional features are supported by installing GA tools, what features are native w/o the guest tools, etc.), if you really don't need the GA tools, perhaps you can switch to VMware. As Mac is Linux these days, perhaps other virt platforms can be used?

Hope this helps ...

DavidR

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Re: Very poor performance of ArcaOS on VirtualBox 7 on Intel Mac
« Reply #29 on: February 13, 2025, 04:42:41 pm »
JTA - Thanks for your response.  I've had a look at the VirtualBox documentation and I didn't see any clues as to why it would be suddenly slow. I might research the VMWare side if I get a chance.

It is probably graphics-related, but I'm not sure. The cpuspeed results are slower than expected even with no graphics activity happening. Maybe the graphics drivers are stealing a lot of CPU that would otherwise be used to contribute to the calcs cpuspeed is doing? I don't know enough about this area.

Martin - I've replied on the post you created on the VirtualBox forum and provided an explanation, a log file and some screenshots of cpuspeed numbers I am getting.  I think they'll appear once moderated. Hopefully we will get somewhere.