8.1

Table Of Contents
Setting Virtual Processors and Memory
You can configure processor settings for a virtual machine, including the number of processors, the amount
of virtual memory available, and whether to enable hypervisor applications and code profiling applications.
Set the Number of Virtual Processors
You can increase performance of a virtual machine by making more processors available because more tasks
can be performed simultaneously. When you assign a virtual processor to the virtual machine, it reduces the
processor resources that are available to your Mac.
For Windows virtual machines running mostly office and Internet productivity applications, using multiple
virtual processors is not beneficial, so the default single virtual processor is ideal. For server workloads and
compute-intensive applications, adding extra virtual processors may provide an increase in application
performance.
Application Recommended number of processors
Desktop applications 1 processor
Server operating systems 2 processors
Video encoding, modeling, and scientific 4 processors
In some circumstances, adding additional processors can decrease the overall perfomance of the virtual
machine and your Mac. This can occur if the operating system or application is not using the processors
efficiently. In this case, reducing the number of processors is recommended.
Assigning all processors on the Mac to the virtual machine results in extremely poor performance. Mac OS X
must continue to perform background tasks even if no Mac applications are running. If you assign all
processors to a virtual machine, this prevents important Mac tasks from being completed.
Prerequisites
Shut down or power off the virtual machine. You cannot change the setting while the virtual machine is
powered on or suspended.
Procedure
1 Select Window > Virtual Machine Library.
2 Select a virtual machine in the Virtual Machine Library window and click Settings.
3 Under System Settings in the Settings window, click Processors & Memory.
4 Select the number of processor cores for the virtual machine.
Information about your selected number of processors is displayed at the bottom of the Processors &
Memory window.
5 Restart the virtual machine.
Set the Amount of Virtual Memory
Certain applications in the virtual machines might perform better with more memory available. Having
more memory available to the guest operating system can facilitate caching, which can improve
performance of the virtual machine. You can change the amount of virtual memory available to a virtual
machine.
For the best balance of performance between Windows and Mac applications, do not give Windows too
much memory, because it might cause your Mac to become slower. For Windows XP, 512MB of memory is
ideal for Internet and office productivity applications.
Chapter 9 Configuring Your Virtual Machines
VMware, Inc. 99