Novice Question About Pinning CPUs

[Naldinho]

I have various VMs all working mostly fine (sound on one has issues) but as I read the topics here I see people discussing pinning CPUs to get better performance -- is pinning CPUs by manually editing the XML file different than just selecting those CPUs from the unRAID GUI when having unRAID auto-generate the VM's XML?

 

If yes how much of a performance improvement does one get so I can evaluate if I should bother learning about something new?

[dlandon]

The pinning of cpus is done with the VM manager.  What I think you are referring to is the concept of isolating and assigning isolated cpus to a VM.

 

This concept is best applied when a VM is particularly sensitive to latency.  i.e. media streaming and gaming.  More information is here  http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=49051.msg470454#msg470454.

 

There is no way to quantify any "performance improvement" because there is possibly only a slight performance gain and it is based on many factors unique to your situation.

 

You may find the procedure will help with the sound on your VM.

[Naldinho]

Thank you. Now that I have confirmed they are different things I'll devote the time to reading the topic you linked to.

 

The VM is not used for gaming or media streaming but if there is a possibility it will solve the sound problem then that alone is worth it. Currently both YouTube and local media has varying degrees of sound distortion that makes it unusable -- you have sound but it sound either like cheap speakers or on a lot of media 90% bass and really low everything else.

[dlandon]

Others have found success with stuttering sound with implementing the ideas on that post.