VMware GSX Server 3 Administration, Administration Manual

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C H A P T E R 6 Performance Tuning and the VMware GSX Server Host
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Using Full Screen Mode
Full screen mode is faster than window mode. If you do not need to have your virtual
machine and your host sharing the screen, try switching to full screen mode.
Note: You see the most noticeable improvement using full screen mode when the
guest is in VGA mode. VGA mode is any mode in which the screen is in text mode
(DOS, for example, or Linux virtual terminals), or 16-color 640 x 480 graphics mode (for
example, the Windows 95 or Windows 98 clouds boot screen, or any guest operating
system that is running without the SVGA driver provided by VMware Tools).
GSX Server on a Linux Host
Note: The items in this section describe performance of GSX Server on a Linux host.
For tips on configuring GSX Server on a Windows host, see GSX Server on a Windows
Host on page 191 .
Using Full Screen Mode
Full screen mode is faster than window mode. If you do not need to have your virtual
machine and your host sharing the screen, try switching to full screen mode.
Note: You see the most noticeable improvement using full screen mode when the
guest is in VGA mode. VGA mode is any mode in which the screen is in text mode
(DOS, for example, or Linux virtual terminals), or 16-color 640 x 480 graphics mode (for
example, the Windows 95 or Windows 98 clouds boot screen, or any guest operating
system that is running without the SVGA driver provided by VMware Tools).
On a Linux host, full screen VGA mode uses the underlying video card directly, so
graphics performance is quite close to that of the host. By contrast, window mode
VGA requires more computer resources to emulate than window mode SVGA. As a
result, if you need to run for an extended period of time in VGA mode (for example,
when you are installing an operating system using a graphical installer) you should
see a significant performance boost if you run in full screen mode.
Swap Space and /tmp
The amount of swap space on your host and the size of your
/tmp
directory affect
performance. Your
/tmp
directory should be equivalent to 1.5 times the amount of
memory on the host. For example, if your GSX Server host has 1GB of memory, make
sure the host’s
/tmp
directory is at least 1.5GB in size.
For more information on configuring swap space and the
/tmp
directory, read
VMware knowledge base article 844 at
www.vmware.com/support/kb/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=844 .