Virtualbox Too Slow On Mac

Tutorial: Installing Windows For Workgroups 3.11 (Windows 3.11) on VirtualBox with full driver support.

Check Compatibility Issue. First, you need to check if your system is compatible with macOS new. It's not expected to. The driver from Microsoft only works with specific SVGA chips, none of which VirtualBox emulates. The only generic option is the 800x600 resolution available in Windows NT and at least some Windows 3.x versions; however, that is 16-color planar VGA and therefore slow.

Introduction
For this Tutorial VirtualBox has to be installed (correctly) on your computer.
This tutorial was tested on the hosts Windows 7 SP1 and Linux (Ubuntu 11.04). But should probably work on other hosts as well.
For this tutorial I used my 3.5-inch floppy disks of MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11. My present pc no longer has a floppy disk drive, so I used an old pc to create floppy images (.IMA) from my old floppy's.
To create the images I used the program UltraISO from: http://www.ezbsystems.com/ultraiso/
Now that we have created the floppy images we can start to configure VirtualBox.
Create a virtual machine
Create in VirtualBox a new virtual machine with the name Windows 3.11 or any name you like. By OS Type select the Operating System: Microsoft Window. Under version select: Windows 3.1.
Hit Next.
By memory use the default Base memory size of 32 megabyte.
Hit Next.
Create a new hard disk.
Hit Next.
Use the default file type: VDI (Others may also work).
Hit Next.

Virtualbox Too Slow On Mac Free

By storage details use the option you like (I used Dynamically allocated)
Hit Next.
If you like, you can give the virtual disk another name or location.
Use the default disk size of 1,00 Gigabyte (MS-DOS 6.22 can only recognise hard disks up to 2.1 GB)
Hit Next, then two times Create to create the virtual machine.
Before you start the virtual machine you have to add a floppy controller.
Right click on the new virtual machine, then Settings, under Storage click: Add floppy controller.
Add the newly added controller click on the green plus(+). A new window will popup, select: leave empty.
Now that this is finished you can start the virtual machine.
Installing MS-DOS 6.22.
MS-DOS is needed to run Windows 3.11. You can see Windows 3.11 as a graphical shell that depends on MS-DOS architecture.
Now that your virtual machine is running you will get the following message:
In the menu bar click on devices then --> Floppy Devices --> Choose a virtual floppy disk file... then select your first MS-DOS 6.22 floppy image file.
Hit Right Ctrl + R or use the menu bar --> Machine --> Reset to reboot the virtual machine.
After the reboot VirtualBox loads the floppy Image and it will show the MS-DOS setup screen.
Hit Enter to start the setup.
Next Choose: Configure Unallocated disk space.
Next, hit Enter to reboot your virtual machine.
After the reboot MS-DOS will format the virtual hard disk.
If the formatting hangs on 0%, then you have to reboot the virtual machine (right ctrl + R) and hit F8 until you see the following screen:
Refuse loading of AUTOEXEC.BAT
When the A:> prompt will appears, give the command 'format c:' and enter the command 'setup' once formatting is done.
when the MS-DOS setup is running again you can follow the instructions on screen for installing MS-DOS.
When the MS-DOS setup asks for Setup Disk #2, you have to load the next MS-DOS Floppy image.
Click on devices in the menu bar again, then --> Floppy Devices --> Choose a virtual floppy disk file... then select your next MS-DOS 6.22 floppy image file.
Use the same method for disk #3.
When the setup is done, remove the floppy disk from the virtual drive, and press ENTER.
Setup complete:
After the reboot the MS-DOS 6.22 prompt will be loaded.
Installing Windows 3.11.
Now that MS-DOS is installed we can start to run the Windows 3.11 setup.
Click on devices in the menu bar again then --> Floppy Devices --> Choose a virtual floppy disk file... then select your first Windows 3.11 floppy image file.
At the C:> prompt, give the command 'A:' and enter the command 'setup' once the prompt A:> will appear and hit enter.
The Windows for Workgroups 3.11 setup screen will appear.
Hit enter to setup Windows for Workgroups 3.11.
On the next screen choose the Express Setup with the enter key (the express setup is usually fine).
Windows will now be installed. When the setup asks for disk 2, click on devices in the menu bar again then --> Floppy Devices --> Choose a virtual floppy disk file... then select your next Windows 3.11 floppy image file.
After that the setup will reboot to a more graphical style and ask for your name, company and product number (use your windows 3.11 product number )
Click Continue.
Verify your information and Click Continue.
The setup will now continue. When it ask for the next disk, select your next Windows 3.11 floppy image and hit Enter.
Repeat this action for the following floppy disks.
When it asks for printer installation, just leave the 'No Printer Attached' option selected and press the Install button.
When it asks for Network Setup, just press continue (You have to configure this later).
When it asks for the application name for C:DOSEDIT.COM, leave the default 'MS-DOS Editor' option enabled and press OK.
You can choose to either Run Tutorial or Skip Tutorial.
Setup complete!
Remove your last floppy Image and press Restart Computer.
After the reboot, you can type win into the MS-DOS command line to see your new, working Windows 3.11! It is fully usable at this point, but continue with the rest of this tutorial to enable network support, CD-ROM drivers, video drivers, sound drivers and Internet Explorer.

Installing and configuring drivers
CD-ROM installation:
It works quicker to load all drivers and setup files on a single CD-ROM disk image then on multiple floppy's images, so the first thing we need to do is to configure the ms-dos/Win 3.11 installation to recognise the VirtualBox (virtual) CD-ROM drive.
Search the web for the file AOATAPI.SYS and Copy the AOATAPI.SYS file to a floppy disk image, or use the CD-ROM driver floppy Image that I already made for you.
Start your virtual machine. Load the floppy Image, and then type COPY A:AOATAPI.SYS C: at the command prompt to copy the AOATAPI.SYS file to your C: drive.
After that you must edit your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files.
At the C: command prompt type EDIT AUTOEXEC.BAT. Place the line: c:dosmscdex.exe /d:idecd000 in the autoexec.bat and save, then exit (use the Alt key to activate the menu).
At the C: prompt type EDIT CONFIG.SYS. Place the line device=c:aoatapi.sys /d:idecd000 in the config.sys and then save, then exit.
Restart the virtual machine and go into windows. Open the File Manager and now you will see Drive D for the CD ROM.

I loaded the VirtualBox Guest additions for testing.
Sound Card Installation:
Search the web for the Sound Blaster 16/AWE for DOS/Windows 3.1 drivers and Copy them to a CD-ROM disk image or floppy disk image, or use the CD-ROM disk image that I already made for you.
Start-up MS-DOS to a C: prompt. Load the floppy or CD image, access the SoundBlaster 16 drivers on the A: or D: drive, then type install.
Note: On my driver CDROM type CD sb16 at the command prompt and then install.
Accept all of the defaults in the installation.
When the installation is complete you can run windows with sound.
When you run windows it will create a Audio Program Group automatically.
Network Installation:
Search the web for the 'AMD PCNET Family (NDIS2/NDIS3)' driver and the ' Microsoft TCP-IP-32 3.11b'drivers for Windows 3.11. Copy them to a CD-ROM disk Image or floppy disk Image, or use the CD-ROM disk Image that I already made for you.
Boot into windows 3.11 and open the program group 'Main'. In 'Main' open the program 'Windows Setup', click 'options' and then 'Change Network Settings'.
On the 'Network Setup' screen click on networks. On the next screen select 'Install Microsoft Windows Network' and hit 'OK'.
Click 'OK' again on the 'Network Setup' screen.
On the 'Add Network Adapter' screen select the 'Unlisted or Updated Network Adapter' option and click 'OK'.
On the CDROM drive or Floppy disk Image select the directory where you stored the ' AMD PCNET Family ' drivers --> windowsnetdrv (windowsn) and click 'OK'.
And 'OK' again, then select the 'Advanced Mirco Devices PCNET family' driver and click 'OK' again.
Enter an User Name, Workgroup and Computer Name or keep the defaults and click 'OK' again.
When the setup asks for your Windows 3.11 Disk 7 and 8 floppy, load them and Click 'OK'.
When the installation is complete click 'OK' and then click 'Restart Computer'.
Don't forget to remove your windows 3.11 installation floppy!
When the reboot is complete start Windows Again. You get the messenger: welcome to Windows for Workgroups. Click 'OK' to make a new password or 'Cancel' the start the Program Manager.
Go to the program group 'Network' and click 'Network Setup'. On the Network setup click on 'Drivers', then 'Add protocol' and select 'Unlisted or Updated Protocol', then hit 'ÖK'.

Virtualbox Too Slow On Mac Download

On the CDROM drive or Floppy disk Image select the directory where you stored the 'Microsoft tcpip311b' drivers and click 'OK'.
Select the Microsoft TCP/IP32 3.11b protocol and click 'OK' again.
When the installation is complete click 'Close', after that click 'OK'.
When the 'Microsoft TCP/IP configuration' window pops up select 'Enable Automatic DHCP configuration' or use your own configuration and hit 'OK'.
Click on 'Restart Computer' to finish the installation.
To confirm that networking is working at this stage, try opening a MS-DOS Prompt from the 'Main' group and type 'ping http://www.google.nl'
If you get a reply, then your network installation is working correctly. Type exit to return to windows.
Installing internet explorer 5.01(windows 3.11)
To browse the internet you need to install a browser.
Search the web for the 'Internet Explorer 5 (windows 3.11)' and copy the installer to a CD-ROM disk Image. You can also use the CD-ROM disk image that I made for you.
In windows open the File Manager, open your D: drive and run the msie501w311 installer.
WinZip will extract the installation files and start the setup.
Click 'Next >' and accept the agreement. Click 'Next >' again.
Use the default Full install and click 'Next >'.
Use the default Destination Folder and Click 'Next >'.
The setup will now install IE501 on your computer.
Hit 'Cancel' when it asks to setup a modem.
When the installation is complete Click 'Reboot Now'.
After the Reboot windows will ask to confirm your time zone settings.
You can now start internet explorer. When the internet connection wizard starts to configure a modem you have to click cancel.
If you are lucky Internet Explorer may run now, but it probably doesn't.
To fix this problem go to the Program Manager, then Main --> Control Panel --> Internet --> tab: Connections.
Under Connection select 'Your local area or another dialer' and Click 'Apply'
This will fix the 'hanging' problem!
If you like you can change your Home page to 'www.google.nl' or anything you like, by clicking on the 'General' Tab.
Click 'Apply', then 'OK' and run internet explorer again.
If all goes well then Internet Explorer will load your home page!
Installing display drivers
Using Internet Explorer the standard VGA display driver with a resolution of 640×480 is too small for browsing. Windows 3.11 comes with standard super VGA drivers up to a resolution of 1024x768, but it does not work on VirualBox. It will result in the 'Blue Screen of Death' and Windows 3.11 has to be reinstalled again (Windows 3.11 doesn't have safe mode to recover it).
Because VirtualBox uses a VESA virtual graphic card which is not compatible with Windows 3.11 SVGA-drivers we need to patch them first.

Hint: An already patched SVGA-driver is also stored on the CD-ROM disk Image that I already made for you.
First Step: You need to search and download the Super VGA (svga.exe) driver for Windows 3.11 on the web or follow this link to download it directly: http://www.resourcemate.com/other/svga.exe
Second Step: Search and download the vgapatch tool or follow this link to download it directly: http://sites.google.com/site/chitchatvm ... 060411.zip
Now we need to make a floppy disk image again. Extract the win31svga-060411.zip to the root of the image and copy the svga.exe there also.
Your floppy Image need to look like this:

Boot into MSDOS and load your floppy disk Image. Go to: A: and type svga.exe to extract the svga drivers.
After that we need to patch the svga256.drv that was extracted.
To patch: insert after the A: prompt 'vgapatch p' and hit Enter.
Now boot into Windows 3.11 and open the program group 'Main'. In 'Main' open the program 'Windows Setup', click 'options' and then 'Change System Settings'. In the display dropdownbox scroll down and select 'Other display (Requires disk from OEM)'. Browse to the location where you stored the patched display drivers (A: properly) and click 'OK'. Now select the 'Super VGA 1024x768 256 small' driver and click 'OK' and 'OK' again, then Restart windows.
Windows 3.11 on 1024x768 with a nice background from windows 7
This is the end of my tutorial
Enjoy!
Made By: Glijnos

Virtual machines are wonderful. They run an entire single or multiple operating systems providing you a complete running virtual computer with the operating system and features like your ordinary physical computer. In return, they require a high quantity of your system’s resources such as CPU, memory, graphics, storage, and little things like the internet. With those things, still, you may not get the performance you want or even not near that. You may have tried to speed up a little bit things without knowing the reason for the sluggish and how do I speed up. Here is How to Speed Up macOS Mojave on Virtual Machine.

The virtual machine is demanding and is always hungry when it comes to resources. So that they should work and act fast and smoothly literally like your computer. When it doesn’t and performs slowly, there are a couple of reasons and solutions to it. For example, you may use and run more than one virtual machine simultaneously at the same time which you shouldn’t. As a result, they can get frustrating. Here’s what you can do about to deliver you the highest performance they are capable of—whether you are using VMware, VirtualBox or Parallels. The solutions may require some necessary things and steps to do it.

Related:Install macOS Mojave on VirtualBox on Windows

Speed Up macOS Mojave on Virtual Machine

So you’ve installed Apple’s stunning macOS Mojave on your Windows computer (leaving behind challenges), and you are super excited to get your hands dirty with those superb features. Then you switch on the macOS VM and let it pull up, and sign in to your account until here, everything goes well as it it is supposed to. After you do that, the desktop opens up and you start doing your thing, and it begins lagging or slow performing like the ’70s computer if you have used. Here’s the moment when you say, wait, what? Are you kidding me? This is the moment when you may keep things somehow cool like stopping multiple tasks and doing else, but things won’t change. Else, if you were worried enough and blaming your computer, you might have tweaked settings or configurations specifically resources like increasing memory or some sort of adding stuff. But that wouldn’t work well as expected.

With those said, it’s worth mentioning that a virtual machine is always not to forget is a virtual machine so, don’t expect it to be high performance and excellent doing with graphics as a real computer. This is not supposed to do pretty well with games or apps that require heavy CPU or GPU, so don’t expect that. Here is How to Speed Up macOS Mojave on Virtual Machine.

Related: Install macOS Mojave on VMware on Windows

Create Fixed-Size Disks Over Dynamic Ones

A virtual machine can slowly function if you are using the ordinary disk when using it. Just like your computer, there are two different types of disks for the virtual machine. The fixed-size disks and the dynamically allocated one. For instance, when creating your virtual machine, by default, the virtual machine will basically use dynamically allocated disks that grow as you use them. Particularly, the disk won’t take the particular space immediately when you create the virtual disk, instead, it grows as you add and store more files, or expands to say.

This is useful if you are concerned about your physical storage. But if you are not, you are good to create a fixed size disk that has better speed than dynamically one. While, the fixed disks allocate whole storage as you assign, and works until it’s not full. When it’s full, go ahead and create another fixed disk if you need it. This works quite faster than others. Also, you won’t see as much file fragmentation. This will store files in a single file instead of multiple smaller files. Here is How to Speed Up macOS Mojave on Virtual Machine.

Is this for speeding up Mojave? The answer is; No since the Mojave disk is downloaded so you don’t have the option to create or change it. Without macOS, you can create fixed disks instead of other ones. Well, realizing that, now pick wisely when you are going to create a disk.

Adjust & Assign More Resources to the Virtual Machine

The virtual machines are always thirsty, specifically thirsty of resources. The more you allocate, the more they are thirsty, even thirstier. When you assign resources to the VM, they will be used by the virtual machine until you are using the VM. Those resources will be used by your virtual machine instead of your computer. In result, you are splitting your computer’s resources (which includes RAM, CPU, GPU etcetera) with the virtual machines. In this order, if too much resources are spent on virtual machine, there won’t be enough resources left of for working your physical computer. Instead, if a little is given to the virtual machine, it may not work properly as it would do with resources. Here is How to Speed Up macOS Mojave on Virtual Machine

In this case, you will need to adjust the resources shared between your computer and the virtual machines. Like, if you have 8 GIGs of memory and would like to install Microsoft Windows, you will need to at least allocate 2 GB of RAM as Microsoft recommends. But it would be better if you give 2 or 3 GB more which would be 50/50 or 60/50 of your computers RAM so it will obviously do your job faster and smoother.

The same goes with CPU when you run a virtual machine. If you have a powerful CPU which is multi or quad-core CPU, Core i5 or higher, you may assign more cores that would do quickly all things you have left to do. As you assign more cores, you will see more working speedier. In this scenario, you may go with 50/50 or 60/50 rule for CPU.

And one of the most important parts is graphics (GPU) that displays the whole appearance of your virtual machine. The appearance of your virtual machine depends on the graphics or video settings of your computer. If you would like to try improved graphics, however, you can enable 3D acceleration from the video settings option. With this, it will also speed up 3D graphics. By doing this, applications that use 3D graphics will load and work quicker than before, note this.

Install Virtual Machine’s Acceleration Tools

Every virtual machine has software tools. This tool provides a package of effective tools and drivers which enhance the entire performance of the virtual machine including increasing display resoution and more. These packages are provided with the app when you download. After you install a virtual machine, you should directly install your virtual machine software tools which are Guest Additions for VirtualBox, VMware Tools for VMware and Parallels Tools for Parallels. Grab the tool which is of your virtual machine app and give it a shot.

The installing process is quite straightforward. On VMware, go to VM and select Install VMware Tools. In VirtualBox, click Devices> Insert Guest Additions CD Image. And in Parallels, click Actions>Install Parallels Tools. This will pop up the installation wizard which you can follow and install it. When the installation is finished, restart the VM. After that, you are free to begin primary things and do what you have in mind. At the end, you should always update the virtual machine program and also the virtual machine’s software tools when an update is available.

Related: Install VMware Tools on macOS Mojave on VMware

Enable Intel VT-x or AMD-V

Another thing you can do to speed up your VM is to enable Intel VT-x. The virtualization technology (VT-x) and AMD-V are a great feature that helps accelerate virtual machine wherever they are installed. This feature, mostly available in modern CPUs are present in your computers BIOS or UEFI. While the feature is available on Intel CPUs, but they are not enabled by default.

In this case, you might encounter the problem within your VM app when you power on. Like the errors below.

The CPU has been disabled by the guest operating system. Power off or reset the virtual machine.
Mac OS X is not supported with binary translation. To run Mac OS X, you need a host on which VMware Player supports Intel VT-x or AMD-V.
The processor on this computer is not compatible with Hyper-V

These errors appear for different reasons. The first and foremost reason is the acceleration feature disabled. This happens to systems with Intel CPU which the feature (Intel VT-x) is often disabled by default. However, you can enable it by BIOS or UEFI firmware settings. On AMD CPUs, you won’t need to do much as the feature will be always enabled.

Another reason that these errors may appear can maybe due to another Virtual Machine app installed like VMware with Hyper-v or VirtualBox with Hyper-v. Here are the details and how to fix it.

Related:Fix macOS Mojave Problems on Virtual Machine

Avoid Scanning Your Virtual Machine From Antivirus

While using your virtual machine, your computers Windows Defender or antivirus may be scanning the whole computer including your virtual machine which is not effective. This is not going to help as the antivirus can’t scan inside your virtual machine instead it only scans from outside. In this case, you may want to exclude your virtual machine from the Antivirus, whether it’s Windows Defender or any other antivirus program.

The way you can do it is very simple. All you have to do is go to Settings> Update & Security> Windows Security> Virus & Threat Protection> Virus & Threat Protection> Virus & Threat Protection Settings> Exclusions> Add or Remove Exculsions> Add an exclusion> Folder

Use Single VM Instead of Multiple VMs Simultaneously

When you install and run a VM, you actually allocate a specific amount of resources that the VM will use it to work well. However, if you run multiple VMs, each VM preserve and use the amount of resources such as memory, CPU other you have assigned. As a result, the resources will be very much split and all of the VMs will give a poor performance which will affect all.

The limit to how many VM’s you can run at one time is limited to the amount of the resources available on your computer. As you run every single VM, each VM eats up some CPU time, RAM, and other resources. When you do run many VMs, this will definitely effect the performance of all those VMs.

Now that you have known this, if you have multiple VMs installed, run, use and work with one of those at a time. When you are done with the one, work with the next one. Other than this, if you have other applications opened that require high performance, graphics, close them and let the VM work when it’s running. This is certainly going to give you better performance than using many VMs at the same time. Next time when you are going to run multiple VMs, think again.

Upgrade Hardware or Get a High-end PC

If you are serious about speeding and would like to give your virtual machine the best performance, then you can but with bearable cost. The first thing you should do is upgrade your hard disk drive to solid state drive that would take your computer and the virtual machine speed to the next level. If you installed your Windows and also storing your files on HDD drive then your computer including virtual machine is actually performing much slower. In this case, you are highly recommended to upgrade to the solid state drive. When you upgrade, carry out the virtual machine files into it and it will probably give you better performance.

Another thing you can do is upgrade your memory. While virtual machines are hungry and want more resources for better performing. This also includes memory, so how much ever memory you give, you will get the more extremely fast experience.

More than this, getting a powerful PC might help you out. This is a great way for processing your virtual machine much faster that would do quickly what you perform.

Aside from this, if you are thinking about your virtual machine app, there are quite lots of discussion going on of comparing and finding out which virtual machine program is faster than other but this is not confirmed yet. The one that works faster for you is the one you should use. If you think your one is slow, try another program and see how it goes.

If you want using macOS, you will get pleasant performance on VMware by following the steps. Here’s how to do it.