Ubuntu – Improve performance of Ubuntu guest in VirtualBox on Windows 10 host

displayhardware accelerationsettingsvirtualboxwindows 10

I am trying to run an Ubuntu guest on Windows 10 using VirtualBox. I found the Ubuntu guest was running with slow response after the installation. I found some previous solutions for this problem by changing the settings under machine (like activating 3D acceleration, etc.), but I find my settings are locked. What is the solution for this? How to make the options active?

Best Answer

Shutdown the Ubuntu 16.04 guest OS, then you can safely make changes in the VirtualBox Settings for that guest OS (click the Ubuntu 16.04 guest OS first to select it) and restart the guest OS to test your changes. Enable 3D Acceleration won't help. The changes that will improve performance are:

  1. Add another CPU thread in Settings -> System -> Processor. You can safely have 2 Processors instead of 1 Processor if you 4-8 CPUs.

  2. Add more Base Memory in Settings -> System -> Motherboard. You can safely allocate up to half of the RAM in your physical machine for the guest OS Base Memory.

  3. Optionally you can increase the Video Memory up to a maximum of 256MB from the terminal by running this command:

    VBoxManage modifyvm "name-of-Ubuntu-16.04-guest-OS" --vram 256
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