[QUESTION] What is the optimal way to run a Windows VM on my system?

General system Gaming, sound and video
1

I need to run linux for my mental sanity (windows has driven me insane multiple times), but at the same time I have one singular software i need for my day to day use (Ableton Live) to run properly. With wine it does run, it is pretty good performance however it does crash every 2 seconds, I remember a while back when i didnt know about winetricks and wine optimizations, it would run MUCH worse but the crashes weren’t so common, That was probably better. Either way I don’t want to settle for either, So I am thinking the VM route might be my best shot.
Note I am on a pretty old laptop but from looking in my bios i should have the important virtualization technologies supported, and enabled. However I’ve never got a good VM to work (I don’t know how).

[kz-n@haku ~]$ neofetch
                     ./o.                  kz-n@haku 
                   ./sssso-                --------- 
                 `:osssssss+-              OS: EndeavourOS Linux x86_64 
               `:+sssssssssso/.            Host: GL753VD 1.0 
             `-/ossssssssssssso/.          Kernel: 6.6.39-1-lts 
           `-/+sssssssssssssssso+:`        Uptime: 1 hour, 35 mins 
         `-:/+sssssssssssssssssso+/.       Packages: 1488 (pacman), 20 (flatpak) 
       `.://osssssssssssssssssssso++-      Shell: bash 5.2.26 
      .://+ssssssssssssssssssssssso++:     Resolution: 1920x1080, 1366x768 
    .:///ossssssssssssssssssssssssso++:    DE: Plasma 6.1.2 
  `:////ssssssssssssssssssssssssssso+++.   WM: KWin 
`-////+ssssssssssssssssssssssssssso++++-   Theme: Breeze-Dark [GTK2], Breeze [GTK3] 
 `..-+oosssssssssssssssssssssssso+++++/`   Icons: McMojave-circle-light [GTK2/3] 
   ./++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++/:.     Terminal: konsole 
  `:::::::::::::::::::::::::------``       CPU: Intel i7-7700HQ (8) @ 3.800GHz 
                                           GPU: Intel HD Graphics 630 
                                           GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Mobile 
                                           Memory: 5211MiB / 15881MiB 

                                                                   
                                                                   


[kz-n@haku ~]$

My specs ^

How do I make a VM that will feel responsive to use? (with boxes its like 20fps)
I don’t know if I need GPU passthrough, maybe some acceleration? I geniunely just need to run one singular application on it.
Also you may be wondering why I don’t just dual boot, and the reason is i already have a cramped SSD, i wouldn’t want to have to completely change OS either way, and installing windows on an HDD is torture to use.

Thanks

2

Better to not run Windows at all :wink: But about your question how graphical intense is that Application (Ableton Live) and how did you measure the fps on your vm? Lastly what graphical video settings are you using on your Gnome boxes vm, I only have experience with Qemu/libvirt and Virt-manager so I don’t know what settings there are with Gnome boxes.

3

There are alternative apps for Linux (according to https://alternativeto.net/software/ableton-live/?license=opensource):

  • ardour
  • bespokesynth
  • lmms
  • qtractor
  • rosegarden
  • zrythm

In the AUR there are:

  • famistudio

… and more.

I don’t use them, so you’d have to do the testing. :wink:
Hopefully users here have more experience with some of them.

For a VM, virtualbox or gnome-boxes are easy VM managers. But there are alternatives for them too.

4

VST plugins use directx to render things to the screen, but aside from that its all qt, so it shouldn’t be very demanding. I measured the fps on my vm by feel, it was not usable

5

I’ve tried most of what you linked here, but they don’t compare to a daw like Ableton.
Good reccomendations for linux users are Renoise, even though its not the usual daw format or Bitwig, which is more popular. Both support Linux natively, I am using the latter right now but I can’t just switch from one daw to another (I’ve tried), I’ll still need Ableton for the time being

6

Also, my only experience in general is with windows software for VMs, like VirtualBox and VMware, On linux i’ve only tried GNOME Boxes (and virtual box though they yielded the same result)

7

QEMU/libvirt and virtmanager has the best performance of those I’ve tried. I run Windows in a VM and am pretty happy with the performance. I don’t need any fancy stuff like GPU passthrough though so I’ve not messed too much.

8

VMware Pro is what i would use.

9

Can you share the video settings your used for your Windows boxes vm and what other video settings you could choose from, in a screenshot?

10

I know Boxes has gpu acceleration but it doesnt show as a toggle for me, besides that its all default, theres nothing to configure besides simple things like cpu cores, ram and disk, which didn’t really make a difference

Currently trying out virt-manager

11

Get a decent size thumb drive or removeable SSD and install Ventoy on it then install Windows in Ventoy.

12

You can run Windows ISO/installer off of a Ventoy usb. But how could you install Windows, the system, on a Ventoy usb drive?

13

Lot’s of How to’s/ videos out there on how Ventoy takes isos, imgs, etc and makes them bootable.
Here’s my current Ventoy drive, I can boot into whatever OS I choose…

Ventoy
Ventoy1198×851 166 KB

14

I know you can boot ISOs off of a Ventoy usb.

I use it myself.

But launching a live ISO from Ventoy is different from installing an operating system on Ventoy

Windows ISO only launches an installer. You could launch it from Ventoy to install it on another device but not on the Ventoy usb as you seem to mean. Or perhaps I am misunderstanding something :thinking:

15

I don’t want to dual boot, i just want to get the most optimized vm i can for my system

16

Vmware pro is easy and is free for personal use.

17

Yes Windows can be used in Ventoy same as the other OS’s.
When I boot WIN11 it boots in Ventoy, not from another drive.

Ventoy is an open source tool to create bootable USB drive for ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files.
With ventoy, you don’t need to format the disk over and over, you just need to copy the ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files to the USB drive and boot them directly.
You can copy many files at a time and ventoy will give you a boot menu to select them (screenshot).
You can also browse ISO/WIM/IMG/VHD(x)/EFI files in local disks and boot them.
x86 Legacy BIOS, IA32 UEFI, x86_64 UEFI, ARM64 UEFI and MIPS64EL UEFI are supported in the same way.
Most types of OS supported (Windows/WinPE/Linux/ChromeOS/Unix/VMware/Xen…)
1200+ image files are tested (list), 90%+ distros in distrowatch.com supported (details),

1 Like
18

This is what I mean when I set what video settings does your vm have.

Screenshot from 2024-07-13 15-10-31
Screenshot from 2024-07-13 15-10-312181×1405 80.9 KB

19

And that would be using Ventoy IMO :slight_smile:

20

I didn’t know that you could boot up a VHD file from Ventoy. That’s interesting! I may give it a try!

Thanks for sharing the info!