VMware Workstation 17 vs 16 Benchmark

VMware Workstation 17 vs 16.2.4 Benchmark

<VMware Workstation v16.2.4, and v17>

VMware Workstation 17 is released

Not long ago, VMware Workstation 17 was officially released(VMware Workstation 17.0 Pro Release Notes). In commemoration of the release of a new official version with enhanced 3D accelerated graphics, such as Windows 11 support as well as DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.3 support, I compared the performance with version 16.2.4 with several programs.

For reference, whether it's because of upgrading the main NVMe (Samsung PM991 256GB → Transcend MTE220S 1TB, 「Transcend NVMe MTE220S 1TB Review」), or because of the test on Windows 11, which is in a clean state, overall performance has improved compared to 「VMware Workstation 22H2 Tech Preview Review」.

The VMware used for testing is a 'Lite Edition' with a reduced installation capacity.

For performance comparison between VMware and VirtualBox, refer to the following article. 「Virtual Machine Benchmarks #3 | VirtualBox 7.0 vs VMware v16.2.4」

VMware Workstation Lite Edition Download

source: 「VMware精简版VMware Workstation v17.0」

Test Setup

The Windows used for the Guest OS was Windows 10 X-Lite (19045.2194) 'ReBirth' By FBConan version.

The FBConan version can install MS Store, Windows Update, and multilingual language packs, and after installation (Defender OFF mode), the capacity of the C drive is approximately 4.3GB.

The host OS used the Windows 11 Ghost Specter that was used during the 「Low Spec Windows 11 22H2 Benchmark | Official Version vs Ghost Specter vs Phoenix」 test.

Guest OS Hardware was set as above (2CPU, 4GB Memory, 30GB Hard Disk, 512MB Graphics memory).

[Test Specifications]

Host Spec: ASUS D515UA-BQ236AMD | AMD Ryzen 3 5300U, 4G+16G, Transcend NVMe MTE220S 1TB, Windows 11 Pro Lite v22H2 Build 22621.674 (x64) by Ghost Spectre

The test process is roughly as follows

① Create a new virtual machine with VMware Workstation v16.2.4 to install Guest OS and perform benchmarks.
② Upgrade VMware Workstation v16.2.4 to v17 and load the Guest OS.
③ Upgrade the Virtual Machine Hardware Compatibility version of Guest OS to Workstation 17.x. VMware Tools is also upgraded and then benchmarked.
④ The result is as follows.

VMware Workstation 17 vs 16: PCMark 10

As the Virtual Machine Hardware Compatibility version was upgraded from Workstation 16.x to Workstation 17.x, overall performance was improved.

VMware Workstation 17 vs 16: 3DMark 2001 SE

3DMark 2001 SE is a DirectX 8.1-based benchmark program that (probably) young people have never heard of.

Anyway, the results were surprising, as there was a whopping 3x or more performance improvement.

In the benchmark option, only the resolution was changed to 1920x1080 in the default settings (otherwise the test could not be performed).

VMware Workstation 17 vs 16: Gun Metal

<Benchmark 1>

<Benchmark 2>

The result of Gun Metal, a DirectX 9.0-based game benchmark, is also a win for VMware Workstation 17.

In graphics options, only the resolution was changed to 1280x720, and the rest of the settings were default values.

VMware Workstation 17 vs 16: Resident Evil 6 Benchmark

This time, it is the result of Resident Evil 6 Benchmark, a game benchmark based on DirectX 9.0c.

The test was conducted with all graphic settings lowered to the lowest, and unlike the previous results, version 17 won with a small score difference (it is safe to say that it is a margin of error).

VMware Workstation 17 vs 16: Performance Test 9.0

VMware 17 was said to support DirectX 11, but it did not pass the DirectX 11 test of Performance Test. In addition, the performance test results were different from the previous tests. Only GPU Compute had a noticeable performance improvement, and v16.2.4 had a slightly higher PASSMARK score (overall score) than v17.

VMware Workstation 17 vs 16: Adobe Premiere CC 2017 startup speed

At the end of the test...

Overall, the performance improvements in VMware 17 are noticeable, so VMware 16 users don't seem to have any reason to hesitate to upgrade. However, I found one problem while using it so far. It happens when you select [Alter this virtual machine] instead of [Create a new done of this virtual machine] when upgrading the [Virtual Machine Hardware Compatibility] version from [Workstation 16.x] to [Workstation 17.x]. did. If you click the [Edit virtual machine settings] menu for a virtual machine using [Alter this virtual machine], VMware shuts down with the following error.

VMware Workstation unrecoverable error (vmui)
Exception <0xcXXXX)94 has occurred.

Therefore, it is recommended to select [Create a new done of this virtual machine] when upgrading the Hardware Compatibility version of the existing virtual machine.

Note that the [Create a new done of this virtual machine]
operation does not restore the snapshot. i.e. all snapshots are lost!