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Performance of Isochronous USB Devices in Workstation 5 Windows Virtual Machines

Details

Are USB Web cameras, microphones, and other isochronous USB devices supported in Workstation virtual machines?

Solution

Support for isochronous USB devices is new in Workstation 5.0. The most common devices of this type are Web cameras and microphones. Due to the real-time nature of isochronous transfer, lower-end systems may not provide the performance needed for such tasks. VMware recommends that you have at least a 2GHz Intel-class machine to use this technology.

USB virtualization carries a performance cost. Expect USB performance in a virtual machine to be slower than it is when you run the same task directly on a physical machine.

Only UHCI (USB 1.1) is supported in the guest, although the transfer between the device and the host can be done using USB 2.0.

Note: Certain older Web cameras like the Logitech Web Express are modified from non-USB Web cameras. Internally, these devices still function internally as printer port Web cameras and use USB control transfer to access the printer port register. This type of access is sensitive to timing issues. Operating these types of Web cameras within a virtual machine environment can result in intermittent communication failures with the device. Please file a support request if you encounter problems trying to use such a device.

Keywords

1622; web; cam; webcam; universal; serial; bus; WS500

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KB Article: 1622
Updated: Aug 14, 2009

Products:
VMware Workstation
Product Versions:
VMware Workstation 5.x (Windows)

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