Achieving native-like performance in VMware workstation

The rant

First of all, I’d like to clarify that my issue is likely specific to my setup. With that said, let me explain.

Virtual machines can be quite peculiar—some require specific configurations, while others don’t. I use Windows alongside the program VMware Workstation (latest version as of December 13, 2024).

For fun, I decided to set up an Ubuntu 24.04 virtual machine to experiment with installing only the tools I actually need, rather than relying on a pre-configured Kali Linux virtual machine. However, the Ubuntu VM didn’t feel as responsive as I prefer, so I started tweaking various settings in VMware to achieve the snappiness I enjoy.

Ubuntu 24.04 uses Xwayland, which still presents challenges for many GUI tools. However, when running natively, it feels incredibly fast—particularly noticeable for users with high refresh-rate displays.

Setting up Ubuntu 24.04 in VMware

Steps I Took

  1. Download the Desktop ISO from Ubuntu’s official website.
  2. Mount the ISO to the virtual machine and boot it up.
  3. Allow VMware to handle the tools installation process.
  4. Set up a user, password, drive, and configure the standard setup options.

At this point, I had a VM configured with “1 CPU, 2 cores” and no GPU acceleration. However, this setup didn’t feel snappy enough—so let’s fix that!

Making the VM run snappy with xwayland

To make the virtual machine more responsive, I found the following configuration to work best:

  1. Set Memory: Allocate 16GB of RAM (you can reduce this if your system has limited memory).
  2. Adjust Processor Settings: Configure 1 processor with 3 cores per processor (this resolved some key stuttering issues for me).
  3. Update Display Settings:
    • Enable “Accelerate 3D Graphics.”
    • Set the graphics memory to 4GB (I didn’t want to allocate more).
  4. Apply Changes: Click “OK” to save the settings.

That’s it! With these adjustments, your VM should run smoothly with minimal lag. (In my case, I can now run the VM in full-screen mode on a 4K monitor without any noticeable lag.)

Issues

Since Ubuntu 24.04 uses Wayland, some applications may encounter issues. For instance, I experienced severe lag with Burp Suite, to the point where it became unusable. Fortunately, I found a fix for this, which I’ll detail in another post.

Another issue is when having keyboard issues, where the keyboard keeps stuttering, for this take a look at https://github.com/vmware/open-vm-tools/issues/696.

Published on and updated on in Configuration