OS2 World Community Forum
OS/2, eCS & ArcaOS - Technical => Virtualization => Topic started by: DavidR on February 01, 2025, 08:35:57 pm
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Hi All
I've enjoyed reading the posts on this forum for a good while now but never needed to ask anything - until now.
I've been happily using ArcaOS 5.0 in a VM using VirtualBox on macOS (Intel) for many years and have gradually upgraded it to 5.0.8. It has worked fine using either the official VirtualBox additions or the alternative ones from Netlabs version 5.0.51 r218 - I think these are referred to as "Valery's".
After upgrading to macOS 14 Sonoma, I was forced to move to VirtualBox 7 due to the way the new macOS version handles kernel extensions and virtualisation. In doing this the performance of the ArcaOS VM plummeted. It is virtually unusable and no end of tweaking configuration settings seems to fix it. It might be a graphics problem because it is particularly slow when moving windows around or when command prompt boxes scroll. But just in general everything is very, very slow. So I am not sure.
The same VM without any changes running on an earlier macOS version with VirtualBox 6 works just fine.
I have avoided VMWare in the past for this since it was not supposed to have as good integration with OS/2 as VirtualBox, however I have installed the latest version and did a fresh install of ArcaOS 5.0.8. To my surprise it is running much faster than VirtualBox does - and has very, very acceptable performance. (Whereas a similar fresh install on VirtualBox is still very slow.) However the only VMWare Tools that I can find are from https://github.com/wwiv/os2-guest/releases/. These work well, but only provide mouse/pointer integration and clipboard synchronisation. This is a great start, but not as good as what VirtualBox provides, especially custom resolutions and shared folders.
So my questions to the kind people on this forum would be:
1) Is anyone else experiencing the same thing? And if so does anyone know how to get the performance back in VirtualBox 7?
2) Does anyone know where I can get better VMWare Tools? Ones that would also have the shared folder function? While watching the recordings of the last Warpstock presentations, I vaguely recall someone mention that they had access to some VMWare tools? Do you know if/where I coud find those to try out? Or maybe they are the same ones I am using ...
I hope I don't have to give up on running ArcaOS on my Mac, but it is becoming increasingly difficult. Any help greatly appreciated!
Thanks
David
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Configure the VM to run with 1 CPU core, if it does not run with one CPU core already.
Roderick Klein
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Configure the VM to run with 1 CPU core, if it does not run with one CPU core already.
Sorry, but this is bad advice. Modern virtualbox allows ArcaOS to run just fine in SMP mode with multiple cores.
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In my cases, setting CPU count to 1 increased performance. More CPUs than 1 decreased performance to 5x to 10x, especially when using autotools and cmake and so on.
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@DavidR Check if your hardware virtualization is activated. You can check if a turtle((https://www.virtualbox.org/export/80012/vbox/trunk/src/VBox/Frontends/VirtualBox/images/vm_execution_engine_native_api_16px.png)) or a V((https://www.virtualbox.org/export/76284/vbox/trunk/src/VBox/Frontends/VirtualBox/images/vtx_amdv_16px.png)) is on the status line for this. And if moving mouse cursor over it, you can see the detailed status for virtualizaiton.
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In my cases, setting CPU count to 1 increased performance. More CPUs than 1 decreased performance to 5x to 10x, especially when using autotools and cmake and so on.
See reply #804 of https://www.os2world.com/forum/index.php?topic=3182.795 for my experiences.
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I never was able to run eCS with more than one core on Virtualbox.
The test that will always fail is to run a makefile that calls the old MS C compiler cl.exe a few times. That will always lead to a hang with more than one core.
In general, it is not easy to detect this kind of problem. You might be able to run the system with multiple cores enabled for quite some time before the problem manifests itself.
I strongly doubt that that will work any better with AN but I could try. But Paul, you could also try the opposite and do multiple invocations of cl.exe on an AN system under Virtualbox. As an example, build the USB drivers from the DDK.
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I have avoided VMWare in the past for this since it was not supposed to have as good integration with OS/2 as VirtualBox, however I have installed the latest version and did a fresh install of ArcaOS 5.0.8. To my surprise it is running much faster than VirtualBox does - and has very, very acceptable performance. (Whereas a similar fresh install on VirtualBox is still very slow.) However the only VMWare Tools that I can find are from https://github.com/wwiv/os2-guest/releases/. These work well, but only provide mouse/pointer integration and clipboard synchronisation. This is a great start, but not as good as what VirtualBox provides, especially custom resolutions and shared folders.
As I am very pleased with VMWare as well but could not get Sound working, regardless wich OS/2 Version and VMWare Version combination and wich emulated Sound driver or Hardware I would like to know if you have been able to get Sound support for OS/2 inside VMWare? Thanks!
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Here are my test result:
1CPU 2CPUs
configuring of liba52(autotools): 00:13.75 01:08.00
building of liba52(make): 00:06.64 00:12.82
configuring of fluidsynth(cmake): 00:49.88 03:46.80
building of fluidsynth(make): 00:46.57 01:59.65
However, building time of dav1d using meson and ninja with 2 CPUs is as half as 1 CPU.
If there are any ways to improve performance on VirtualBox SMP, please share them.
** ADDED **
1CPU 2CPUs
configuring of dav1d(meson): 00:11.65 00:18.48
building of dav1d(ninja): 01:30.84 00:53.35
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Thanks for all the replies.
I didn't change the configuration of the VM when I moved from VB6 to VB7. It is set up to use only one CPU. I'd be happy to keep it using only one since I don't think I'll be doing anything too CPU intensive. But I might experiment later.
@KO Myung-Hun: There is a green turtle in the status bar and the tooltip over the top says:
Execution Engine: native API
Nested Paging: Inactive
Unrestricted Execution: Inactive
Execution Cap: 100
Paravirtualization Interface: None
In case it is useful, the system tab for the VM is configured as:
Motherboard:
Base Memory: 3072MB
Chipset: PIIX3
TPM: None
Pointing Device: PS/2 Mouse
Extended Features:
YES: Enable I/O APIC
NO: Enable Hardware Clock in UTC Time
NO: Enable EFI
Processor:
Processors: 1 CPU
Execution cap: 100%
Extended Features:
NO: Enable PAE/NX
NO: Enable Nested VT-x/AMD-V
Acceleration:
Paravirtualization Interface: Native
Hardware Virtualization: YES - Enable Nested Paging
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As I am very pleased with VMWare as well but could not get Sound working, regardless wich OS/2 Version and VMWare Version combination and wich emulated Sound driver or Hardware I would like to know if you have been able to get Sound support for OS/2 inside VMWare? Thanks!
Aaah. Yes, there is no sound in VMWare. I hadn't noticed that. There are beeps when I use vim but no multimedia sound. Shame.
VirtualBox did have sound in VB6, but it is choppy now with VB7.
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Hi David,
I am running ArcaOS in a VirtualBox 7.1.6 VM on Win 11 and I notice a few differences in our settings. I set 'Enable Hardware Clock in UTC Time' ON, 'Enable PAE/NX' ON, and 'Enable Nested VT-X/AMD-V' ON. Also, my Paravirtualization Interface is set to 'Default'.
No idea if these will make any difference, but you could try them. Being a Mac host might change the requirements, I'm not familiar with Macs...
Regards,
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Configure the VM to run with 1 CPU core, if it does not run with one CPU core already.
Sorry, but this is bad advice. Modern virtualbox allows ArcaOS to run just fine in SMP mode with multiple cores.
On Linux that is true it seems. But this is a MacOS system. From what I understand Virtualbox has to use virtualsation layer offered by MacOS. And this layer with multiple CPU enabled kills system performance.
Roderick
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Hello DavidR.
This may not be the best advice:
1) Check if you can also update the "VirtualBox Extension Pack 7.1.6 (https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads)" (at the right side of the page), I noticed that when I update VirtualBox and forget about that extensions, sometime I have strange behaviors.
2) If you have some time, why don't you create a new VM and install ArcaOS again just to see if the performance keeps being that bad during the install.
- Check the recommendations that you may follow here: https://www.arcanoae.com/wiki/arcaos/installation-planning/virtual-machine-configuration/oracle-vm-virtualbox/
- Check that you are using the latest VirtualBox 7.1.6 for MacOS.
- After that, install also the "VirtualBox Extension Pack 7.1.6" just in case.
Regards
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As I am very pleased with VMWare as well but could not get Sound working, regardless wich OS/2 Version and VMWare Version combination and wich emulated Sound driver or Hardware I would like to know if you have been able to get Sound support for OS/2 inside VMWare? Thanks!
While I couldn't get VMware's SB16 emulation working, I pass through a USB sound adapter to AOS, which works well.
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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 ?
Acceleration:
Paravirtualization Interface: Native
Hardware Virtualization: YES - Enable Nested Paging
I recommend to use 'default' for 'Paravirtualization Interface'.
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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 ...
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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.
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"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 ...
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I understand that Hyper-V won't even run OS/2 above version 4.
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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
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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?
Regards
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
Regards
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Martin - sure, no problem. That's what I meant.
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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.
Regards
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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 ...
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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.
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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
Leonardo,
Is the a fresh install of 5.1? If so check config.sys for a duplicate BASEDEV or DEVICE statement.
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FWIW,
https://mantis.arcanoae.com/view.php?id=1081 (https://mantis.arcanoae.com/view.php?id=1081)
reports the same issue panic, but possibly for a different driver.
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I posted about this issue a year or two ago.
Try setting your Window Scale Factor to 100% in VirtualBox and see if that makes it faster (yes, it'll be tiny and hard to read). If so, the workaround is telling macOS to that VirtualBox isn't HiDPI aware and to have the OS itself do the window scaling, I found instructions at:
https://digiajay.com/2022/03/05/macos-monterey-virtualbox-slow-performance-issue/
For some reason, VirtualBox's own scaling is horribly slow on macOS, I'm not sure why. I never noticed it with other guest OSs, but for some reason when running a OS/2, eCS, or ArcaOS VM, it's horrible evident.
Sadly to say, the best experience I got was using Parallels, but that's pricey.
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Hi Jailbird
Thank you for the reply. I was aware of the setting in the Info.plist that would make the app launch in non-retina mode. This then allows you to run the VM with 100% scaling. It's way too small normally to use 100% and you have to use 200% to give you the correct size when using a Retina display.
However if you make the suggested change and try to launch the Virtual Box VM under macOS Sonoma it refuses to start and complains about the app signature being broken. This doesn't happen with Monterey, so I thought I was stuck using the 200% setting with Sonoma.
BUT, I've just discovered that you can launch the app and pass an 'AppleMagnifiedMode' argument to open it in non-retina mode. This does work so I can launch a specific VirtualBox VM from the command line using:
open /Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/Resources/VirtualBoxVM.app --args -AppleMagnifiedMode YES -comment ArcaOS-Exp --startvm 2f3f6889-be25-42ba-a78a-83a4c6be3139 --no-startvm-errormsgbox
This does indeed seem to be little bit faster. Not hugely, but everything helps.
So, after playing with lots of settings, the configuration I'm now using is:
1920x1080 resolution, 65536 colours, 100% scaling, non-retina app mode
It is still too slow for comfort so I will continue to investigate and I might raise a ticket with the VirtualBox developers, but it is a bit more useable than it was.
Many thanks
David
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I too had very poor/unusable performance under VirtualBox on an Intel Mac Pro. I switched to Parallels for the VM and it runs fine, including sound (once you set the type of guest to Windows 3.1!). There are no extensions unfortunately but I can live with that.
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Hello Jack, welcome to the forum.
DavidR kept the discussion about this on the VirtualBox Forum, check it out:
- https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=113195
I asked also to test some OS/2 OVAs (https://archive.org/download/os2_ovas) on the MacOS Host, and they told me those works fine. At the end it was told that possible the Apple hypervisor sometimes give this kind of errors, but VMWare was performing better, so it brings a lot of doubts.
DavidR, did you opened a ticket for it?
Regards
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Hi Jailbird
Thank you for the reply. I was aware of the setting in the Info.plist that would make the app launch in non-retina mode. This then allows you to run the VM with 100% scaling. It's way too small normally to use 100% and you have to use 200% to give you the correct size when using a Retina display.
However if you make the suggested change and try to launch the Virtual Box VM under macOS Sonoma it refuses to start and complains about the app signature being broken. This doesn't happen with Monterey, so I thought I was stuck using the 200% setting with Sonoma.
BUT, I've just discovered that you can launch the app and pass an 'AppleMagnifiedMode' argument to open it in non-retina mode. This does work so I can launch a specific VirtualBox VM from the command line using:
open /Applications/VirtualBox.app/Contents/Resources/VirtualBoxVM.app --args -AppleMagnifiedMode YES -comment ArcaOS-Exp --startvm 2f3f6889-be25-42ba-a78a-83a4c6be3139 --no-startvm-errormsgbox
This does indeed seem to be little bit faster. Not hugely, but everything helps.
So, after playing with lots of settings, the configuration I'm now using is:
1920x1080 resolution, 65536 colours, 100% scaling, non-retina app mode
It is still too slow for comfort so I will continue to investigate and I might raise a ticket with the VirtualBox developers, but it is a bit more useable than it was.
Many thanks
David
Also run in single CPU mode, do not configure on Mac more then 1 CPU.
Roderick
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Life got in the way for a bit, but I retried this over the weekend with the latest VirtualBox 7.1.8 but the situation is still the same. So I raised a ticket on the VirtualBox bug tracker.
Martin - Yes, just now, sorry for the delay. Here it is: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/22384
Jack - Thanks for the suggestion of Parallels. I might look into that. Encouraging to see that it performs well.
Roderick - Thanks, yes, I'm only configuring with a single CPU.
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Life got in the way for a bit, but I retried this over the weekend with the latest VirtualBox 7.1.8 but the situation is still the same. So I raised a ticket on the VirtualBox bug tracker.
Martin - Yes, just now, sorry for the delay. Here it is: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/22384
Good luck with it DavidR, the tickets look very good structured with all the required informaiton. I don't have any more ideas, but please post back if there is any progress.
Regards