XP x64 in VirtualBox on Win7 x64 optimum setup

What would be the best configuration for the Virtual Computer?

I have 8 Cores in the system, would putting 8 in the XP VM be good or bad [for multi-tasking]

How much memory? Depending on how you look at it, I have 16, 15, 12, or 11 Gigs. [Four 4 Gig sticks, 1 Gig shared Video, 4 gigs for RamDrive]

As for use of the systems: Right now, it is the only desktop in the house [not counting the server] and it's used by everyone. MOSTLY surfing the web, and some smaller games.

The XP system is mostly used by me for now, mainly getting it to function properly. SOME flash games, havn't tried a real game on it yet...

Indianatone said:

Hi.
I would give XP 4 cores and no more. You most likely need the other 4 to run the host OS and everything else that is running. Xp64 will take as much RAM as you can throw at it but to be reasonable I would give it 8GB. That is how I run my XP64 VM in VMWare player, 4 cores and 8GB.

Out of curiousity, I did launch [a long time ago] XP once with 8 cores. All CPU Meter told me 100% load on all cores for several minutes, then it went down to some with no load, the rest with very little. I ran a few apps on Win7, focused on CPU load, nothing weird. Don't remember what [IF] I ran on XP or loads... [Edit note: I do think I MIGHT have had XP limited to 50%]

I never REALLY TESTED to see what would happen if I tried to use either of them that would have put a load on them. I did notice that it takes longer to load XP than with less cores.

I KNOW it will run, and appears to be OK, but didn't do any real tests. Has anybody tested with multi-cores, and using all in the VM?

Indianatone said:

Well look at it this way. If you give your virtual machine all the cores WTF does the real machine run on? Think about it????

VirtualBox Multi-Threads. Like I said, once fully loaded, the cores dropped down to almost no load or completely idle.

OK. Looks like somebody needs to do a load test. [Probably in 2 days, I doubt I can do it before then, but...]
What should I do to give informative test results? [I don't want to just run a load program]
I think I'm going to do the same test with a 50% limit, and no limit.

UsernameIssues said:

The best configuration depends on what you are running on the XP system. I only assign 1 CPU (core?) and very little RAM (92MB). Because I run multiple XP VMs at the same time. The app running in these VMs is running as fast as it can and I can easily time the length of time that the app takes to complete its task. Adding more cores and more RAM did not help me for this app.

I also limit each VirtualBox VM to the same one core (CPU ?) on the host via task manager. I've been told this is not a good idea, but my testing shows no real improvement for my XP app if more cores are assigned to VirtualBox - but I did notice a difference in the responsiveness in the host while the VMs were running if I do not limit VirtualBox. If you will be not be using the host while you are using the XP VM, then your "best configuration" would far different than mine.

As far as what is the best benchmarking app(s) for your XP VM - again, that depends on what you will normally be doing in the VM. You can tweak your VirtualBox setup to achieve the best multi-threaded benchmark results using a tool like wPrime (About wPrime | wPrime), but if that benchmark loading does not model the gaming loading, then that might not be the best VirtualBox setup.

As far as what I will be doing, that is a good question...

I almost NEVER do anything on my 8 core that works a single core, let alone uses multiples. I went overboard partially because my wife said I had to spend $500 to get the year free financing, AND she found some dual-core machines around the $600. I went over her price by about $70 with the blue ray burner. I got the best bang for the buck!

I play BTD5, and the upper rounds tend to load a core pretty well, if my daughter wants to play RollerCoaster Tycoon, she can just minimize my game and play, if my wife needs to do something on it, hit the WinKey, and she could go. The loads never seem to change the behavior of the machine. We word process, SOME spreadsheets, and things like that. The idea of XP is to allow somebody else to do some of the same things on the computer at the same time.

I just wish the built in video could share more than a gig of RAM. I've thought about my son playing W.O.W. on XP while I'm using 7. [XP has the larger screen]

UsernameIssues said:

Ok, I'll show my ignorance here:
I'm not sure how W.O.W. could be played via a VB XP VM while also using the host. How would you share the mouse/keyboard?

This might be of interest to you...
When HyperThreading Hurts
...especially the bottom part about AMD CPUs.

My computer has two wireless keyboards & mice [mouses?] "connected" to it The secondaries sit on top of my DVD player under the TV with the batteries taken out. When XP is running, it get exclusiveness to the secondary set. If you run it fullscreen on my TV and move mouse 1 over it, NP. If you move mouse 1 to the monitor, mouse 2 will only control the mouse in XP and cannot go over to the monitor. If you click off of XP with mouse 1, mouse 2 continues to work in XP. Same with the keyboard. If you click on XP with mouse 1, either keyboard can type in XP, if not, only keyboard 2.
Because of the kb/mouse[mice?] setup, I think W.O.W. will work in XP just fine.

Now, if my Bulldozer would learn to HyperThread... [I also need a motherboard that takes two of my CPUs]