SP2 slowed my virtual machine 50%

After reinstalling WinXP Home, I decided to undergo an experiment where
I would benchmark my new VM compared my old VM. Since my existing VM
had been faithfully upgraded via Windows Update, I assumed that it's
performance would "stand pat" if not improve. However, my existing VM
was hideously slow compared to my new VM.

I then made a backup of my new VM (which contained SP1) and upgraded
the new VM to SP2. I downloaded the SP2 standalone installer on
another PC (to minimize potential exposure), then continued with
Windows Update to cover all critical updates.

The benchmarking software (BMX http://vultur.netfirms.com/bmx.htm ) is
a little out of date, and is no longer being developed. It is the
first one I found that was free.

BMX's scores reported the following for comparison

Athlon XP 1700+ Fast Frame
CPU = 138
FPU = 117

P2-350
CPU = 45
FPU = 41

I'm running VPC 7.0.2, Additions installed, on a 867Mhz 12" PowerBook
with 640MB RAM. I followed the recommendations for RAM assignments of
VM's, leaving the default 256MB RAM and 4MB VRAM, for all my VM's.

Running the benchmark on my exisitng VM gave me a score of
CPU = 41
FPU = 24

My new VM updated to SP2 reported
CPU = 46
FPU = 24

My new VM with it's default installation of SP1
CPU = 47
FPU = 42

Since the only Windows app I use is AutoCAD, the FPU score is critical,
and VERY noticable.

And, just for kicks, I benchmarked my new SP1 VM while running iTunes
on the Mac side.
CPU = 22
FPU = 19

For older systems, DON'T MULTI-TASK! Leave as many CPU cycles as you
can for VPC!

Has anyone else run into their VM slowing down upon installing SP2?
I've heard some VM's actually speeding up, but that's on dual G5's with
1G or more of RAM.

veritas est
Craig

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: disk or RAM
    ... run a benchmark to prove the mettle of his machine, ... an "old timer" might tell you the buffer in RAM is simply a multiple of the record blocking of the data file which is largely determined by the track/sector mapping of the particular disk. ... If the file was read sequentially it was necessary to provide enough buffering that the disk read could stay a block or two ahead of the sequential read through the buffer in RAM - most times 3-4 blocks worth of buffering was enough for each file being processed sequantially. ...
    (comp.lang.java.help)
  • Re: windows xp pro slow...
    ... Recently I have made a fresh install for a friend of mine (on another ... computer had only 512MB RAM and I have 1.5 GB RAM (for christ sakes, ... working 2 years without XP fresh reinstall? ... I very much doubt that reinstalling SP2 would help, ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: Itanium Madison blasts Sun, IBM in encryption specs!
    ... Public assertions of SPEC unpublished benchmark performance figures ... RAM on the V210 is 1/2 that of the V240: ... Now that does not include a credit for the 2GB of RAM that needs to be ... The cost for ZWS is $1700 for an up to two CPU system. ...
    (comp.os.vms)
  • Re: Updating from SP1 to SP2 the Target Grows UP!!!!
    ... This machine has 128 Mb of RAM and runs Ok with SP2 ... but what disturbs me are the memory requirements. ... > looks like it crashes before it has created the pagefile, ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.embedded)
  • RE: BLUE SCREEN - Prescott CPU Soyo Motherboard SP2
    ... I did check all connections as well as run Microsoft's memory ... I even pulled each ram chip out one by ... >> I have updated to SP2 and everyday I get at least one blue screen. ... >> motherboard but still get the blue screens. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware)