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Does enabling client hyper-v reduce the hosts gaming performance?

Question
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All work and no play.. is no good. So my question is this: When I enable the client hyper-v, does that mean that the "host" Windows 8 system really is a virtual guest of the hypervisor? And if so, what does that do for game performance, for instance does that mean no support for Direct X11?
Regards
Ola
Answers
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Yes, it is a VM, the parent partition.
Because of the hardware requirements for Hyper-V in Windows 8 (EPT/RVI) there
isshould be minimal effect on performance. DirectX will work. The parent partition is treated differently than other VMs. In the parent partition you have more direct access to the video card vs. a VM which needs to use RemoteFX for video acceleration.This post by Ben gives an explanation, it's for Windows 2008 R2, but that was where the inital changes in the Hyper-V parent partition were introduced: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2011/01/17/using-hyper-v-for-a-high-end-desktop-computer.aspx
All replies
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Yes, it is a VM, the parent partition.
Because of the hardware requirements for Hyper-V in Windows 8 (EPT/RVI) there
isshould be minimal effect on performance. DirectX will work. The parent partition is treated differently than other VMs. In the parent partition you have more direct access to the video card vs. a VM which needs to use RemoteFX for video acceleration.This post by Ben gives an explanation, it's for Windows 2008 R2, but that was where the inital changes in the Hyper-V parent partition were introduced: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2011/01/17/using-hyper-v-for-a-high-end-desktop-computer.aspx
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Playing dota 2:
hyper-v enabled: 30-40 fps
hyper-v disabled: 70-80 fps
I don't really think this is a minimal effect on performance...
All the VMs were 'saved' which means off the cpu and ram, yet, hyper-v seems to degrade the cpu no matter what, original performances can be restored only by turning off the hyper-v feature completely from windows.
Windows 8 Pro x64
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o.k. and what about the start time start to ability to use internet? How much time costed to start using external and internal switch? Seems to me that host is starting significantly slowlier, after hyper v enabled..
Jiri Cvrk
- Edited by JiriCvrk Friday, November 30, 2012 5:41 PM
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Hello,
Personally I didn't see any difference with the ping time. when I click on a link in internet it is running directly... For the host starting, I have a SSD and I didn't see any difference. The only problem I have is the jumbo frames not working but is is not related to Hyper-v as even without Hyper-v it is not running but in a dual boot with Win7 it is working.
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I can confirm the post of 'thnts', the framerate doubled after disabling Hyper-V. It is probably not visible with every game. But I can say, that with Assassin's Creed III the framerate doubled after deactivating Hyper-V. From unplayable 15-20 frames per second to about 30-50 frames per second.
Every virtual machine was shut down. Only deactivating Hyper-V completely helped. Virtualization feature of CPU is activated in BIOS.
So I can say yes to the question. Having Hyper-V enabled has an impact on playing games.
Kind Regards
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I had to enable Hyper-V to run the Windows Phone 8 emulator, but when I'm not working on my app, im playing games, and it is a very noticeable difference in performance. But I have to live with it because I don't feel like disabling hyper-v every time I feel like firing up my favorite game. It sure is a problem.
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It doesn't matter on my set up. GTX560TI or AMD 7950, if I watch my GPU while gaming and I uninstall Hyper-V it will hit 99% utilization. If Hyper-V is installed it rarely pushes past 60%.
The only solution I know is to uninstall Hyper-V. My problem is I game daily, and user Hyper-V a few times a month.
Is their services I can disable.. or is there a system wide setting I need to toggle to turn it back into a regular machine on the host.
I'm not sure.
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This is what I do now.. when I'm not going to use hyper-v on Windows 8:
#1) Stop all my Virtual Machines and close Hyper-V
#2) Set the "Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management" service to disabled
#3) Open an elevated cmd prompt and type: "bcdedit /set hypervisorlaunchtype off"
#4) Restart
#5) Open up AMD Overdrive, check your GPU utilization.. Launch Crysis 3.. now Im using 88% of my GPU again
If you need to use Hyper-V again just turn the hypervisor launch type back and restart.. better than uninstalling.
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If I wanted to run VMs on my gaming PC, would I be better off using VirtualBox instead of Hyper-V then? This way I don't have to run the host on a Hypervisor. Would the only negative be slower VM performance?
I plan on creating and deleting VMs for testing and educational purposes so VM performance is not priority. Since I paid a lot of money on hardware, I want to be able to use them to their fullest potential (for gaming or otherwise).
- Edited by Guy Techie Wednesday, August 13, 2014 3:35 PM
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VM performance under VirtualBox wont be all that much slower and video will probably be faster. You also gain USB access.
What you lose by not using Hyper-V is not being able to create and run VM's meant for Hyper-V on a server, which in your case it sounds like it's not necessary. Network and disk access may be faster under Hyper-V in some situations, but I doubt if it will be enough to matter.
I run VMWare WS on my PC at home most of the time and it works out well. I do have it set up to dual boot with Hyper-V, but I rarely use it there. (I use Hyper-V at work though...)
Bob Comer
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Thanks for the response.
If I recall, VirtualBox can use VHD (not sure about VMWare). You may be able to boot off a VHD created by Hyper-V. The HAL may be different, but you can either allow the guest OS to reinstall the drivers in the new environment or sysprep /generalize the OS in Hyper-V before using it on VirtualBox, right? (Or vice versa - VHD from VirtualBox to a Hyper-V VM).
- Edited by Guy Techie Wednesday, August 13, 2014 4:41 PM
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Ehhh, yes and no. Doable, but not just a drop in, and not easily reversed with the same problems. It's not just a run in one and then run in the other and then back, it'll take repairs going either way.
I would never really suggest it. Unless I have a very specific reason to move a VM to another platform, I build new VM's on the new platform instead. And I might use a backup/hardware agnostic restore product to do the move.
Bob Comer