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GSX Server on a Linux Host
Note: The items in this section describe performance of GSX Server on a Linux host. For tips on configuring GSX Server on a Windows host, see
GSX Server on a Windows Host.
Using Full Screen Mode
Full screen mode is faster than window mode. If you do not need to have your virtual machine and your host sharing the screen, try switching to full screen mode.
Note: You see the most noticeable improvement using full screen mode when the guest is in VGA mode. VGA mode is any mode in which the screen is in text mode (DOS, for example, or Linux virtual terminals), or 16-color 640 x 480 graphics mode (for example, the Windows 95 or Windows 98 clouds boot screen, or any guest operating system that is running without the SVGA driver provided by VMware Tools).
On a Linux host, full screen VGA mode uses the underlying video card directly, so graphics performance is quite close to that of the host. By contrast, window mode VGA requires more computer resources to emulate than window mode SVGA. As a result, if you need to run for an extended period of time in VGA mode (for example, when you are installing an operating system using a graphical installer) you should see a significant performance boost if you run in full screen mode.
Swap Space and /tmp
The amount of swap space on your host and the size of your /tmp directory affect performance. Your /tmp directory should be equivalent to 1.5 times the amount of memory on the host. For example, if your GSX Server host has 1GB of memory, make sure the host's /tmp directory is at least 1.5GB in size.