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I have Ubuntu Server 10.10 64-bit installed on a relatively good motherboard with AMD Phenom(tm) 9650 Quad-Core Processor and integrated Nvidia graphics card. VirtualBox 4.0.6 has been installed over it from the official Oracle repository.

Windows XP SP3 guest has been prepared on my other Ubuntu Desktop 10.10 64-bit host with all hardware acceleration, virtualization features as well as guest additions being enabled. The completely configured guest has been transferred to the server, is simply up and running headless, being operated via RDP.

And I am almost completely happy about this setup, if only there were no troubles with video acceleration.

The fact is that 2D and 3D video acceleration is activated on VM, but practically is not functioning, which leads to significant rendering delays and high CPU usage on guest. I am almost completely sure this is because some corresponding packages need to be installed on the server. Those should be some X.org components and/or OpenGL libraries and/or proprietary Nvidia drivers etc. Installing full X.org packages stack on server seams not an appropriate solution for me. To find recommndations in the official VirtualBox documentation also failed.

Could you please give me some hints? Hope the solution to be helpful not only for me. Thank you.

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Does the fact that it's going out over RDP not counter any possible benefit of hardware accelerated rendering? It's getting resterised into something that can be sent... In my mind, that process would slow everything down. Did you test performance over RDP on the standard desktop machine before moving it to the headless server? – Oli♦ May 16 '11 at 12:37
@Oli I understand that working over RPD may have impact on rendering performance, but I cann't believe it could be so substantial. And I am not speaking about watching video clips over virtualized Windows XP. The application being run on guest VM is an accounting program, and the substantial rendering slow-down appears during large spreadsheet reports scrolling. I am even afraid this to be because of guest VM utilizing only a single core of the host CPU. Anyway I'll try to test the configuration on my desktop host. Thank you. – Dmitry Lebedev May 16 '11 at 13:12
Virtual 3D acceleration in Virtual Box is acchieved through a tunnel where 3D acceleration features are tranferred to and run on the host. Therefore it is a prerequisite to have a 3D capable setup on the host. This of course you won't have without an additional X11 hardware abstraction layer such as X.org installed on the host. This is also why you need to install Virtual Box on a headless server with --nox11 (source here). I doubt very much that you can install single OpenGL libraries without X.org. – Takkat May 16 '11 at 18:52
I think I'll try to compare performance of the guest on my desktop host and to vary number of CPU cores assigned to VM. Yet looks like RDP is the main issue. I'll write back later about results. Thank you. – Dmitry Lebedev May 17 '11 at 14:37
Hello, this question has no information and activity for a very long time. I am closing it for now. If by any reason you think this question is still viable or useful in anyway or that there is still a good chance it will be answered please flag it to a moderator or add a comment with the reason(s) why you want it open. Regards – fossfreedom♦ Feb 21 '12 at 21:53

closed as too localized by fossfreedom♦ Feb 21 '12 at 21:53

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