Keyboard stuttering-delays between Parallels ver 17 and 18 on Windows 11-M1 chip

J

JeffreyW1

Junior Member
Hi guys,
I have a MacBook Pro 16" M1 max from fall 2021. Parallels with Windows 11 ARM is installed.
I am a musician and use an application called Karaoke Builder Studio to 'tap' synchronized lyrics for CDG karaoke for my company. After much tweaking of the Parallels settings over the year (and comparing the settings on an additional Parallels setup and Windows 10 on an 2013 iMac on Mojave) a problem has arose when updating to Parallels 18 from Parallels 17. Synchronizing lyrics involves tapping the spacebar (Apple magic keyboard 2) in time with the lead vocal on the audio track so when the software plays it back, the lyrics scroll in time with the vocal. 3 times I have attempted to update to Parallels 18 and from 17 and each time the spacebar tapping compared to what appears on the screen stutters and catches up randomly with the keyboard presses I make. In Parallels 17, the timing of those presses compared to what I see on the screen is near perfect. As soon as I try each update of Parallels 18, the stuttering continues to happen. I have tried legacy mode and retina mode as well with the same problems in 18. Again, immediately after I update to 18, the problems start after it was perfect in 17 (on the M1 in Windows 11 arm and the iMac on Windows 10). When I downgrade back to 17 from TimeMachine, the stuttering goes away. I also connected a WIRED Apple keyboard as a test and it also exhibited the same behavior. Audio has stuttered in the past as well, but I've tried to minimize it by using 6 cores manually in Parallels instead of automatic. (I shouldn't have to do that) Any ideas what I can adjust to smooth out these problems?
 
I just downgraded again to Parallels 17 from TimeMachine and there is no stuttering !?!? Nothing else was changed.
 
HELP GUYS! There has been no improvement with the keyboard stuttering/delays since my last post above. I tried to get VM Fusion 13 installed tonight only to find out it doesn't share Mac folders yet (wasted 2 hours with a YouTube video helping me install it...OMG, confusing). I can't even test it now as I cannot get my Mac files into the VM. UGH. Just got a Mac Studio 2 days ago and all the same problems exist like the MacBook Pro above with M1 chip. I went back to Parallels 17 to at least be able to tap lyrics in to the lead vocal audio file without the keyboard stuttering. But the audio stuttering is worse than ever with the Mac Studio. My settings in Windows audio are 16 bit 44.1K. In Parallels, the config right now is CPU & Memory - 4 Processors, 16 GB with Hypervisor on. Lots of clicks and pops and what's amazing is after a minute or so, the audio will start to echo-loop around itself as it plays. I have to stop, roll back and after a few moments, it clears out only to happen again later. That never happened on the MacBook Pro over the course of the past year. I'm been an audio professional for over 40 years and these problems are way beyond anything I've experienced in digital audio before. Itis simple stuff kids...tap the keyboard in time to the voice and have the audio play clean. Not very hard to do, but when using Windows 11 arm, Parallels 17 (or 18) and the M1 chip, it's impossible. The only thing that works properly with the audio is my 2013 iMac with Mojave, Parallels (any version) and Windows 10). If I'm doing something wrong, does anyone have any advice? I could work directly with Parallels people if they could contact me. thank you
 
Latest update as of 11/29/22. I worked for countless hours this weekend trying to get audio not to stutter on an M1 with Windows 11 using either Parallels 17 or 18. (18 still has the keyboard delays, so I'm using Parallels 17 with Monterey on a Mac Studio and also my 1 year old MacBook Pro). Ironically, I was able to have almost perfectly clean audio this past Sunday afternoon using the config settings below, but the clicking and strange looping (after 2 minutes of playing the audio) came back on syncing karaoke lyrics on the first song Monday. I thought I had finally found the right config, but they still may not fix it permanently. I left Parallels and Windows open all last night so see if there was a glitch when I starting working immediately after launching Windows and not giving it time to 'settle in'. Below are the config settings.

Best setup to get less to no Audio stuttering in the Parallels Config in Parallels 17 on M1 with Windows 11. As of 11/27/22)
(I still have keyboard delay/stuttering with Parallels 18)
'Windows 11" Configuration in Parallels

General Tab:
Use - Productivity (modified)

Options Tab:
Startup and Shutdown:
Startup and shut down manually
Uncheck Pause Windows after 'X'

Optimization:
No limit
Sharing:
Share Mac:
Share folders: Home folder only
Custom folders: select the 2 mounted drives from server

UNCHECK the following:
Share Mac User folders with Windows
Share cloud folders with Windows
Map Mac volumes to Windows

Advanced:
Uncheck Assign a drive letter to shared folders

(Assign letters to drives within Windows 11 (not Parallels)
** The rest of the settings in Options are ok the way they install


Hardware Tab:

CPU & Memory
Manual
2 processors - Memory 4 GB
Advanced - check Adaptive Hypervisor

Sound & Camera
Sound Output: Default
Microphone: Disable
UNCHECK Sync volume with Mac
UNCHECK Share Mac camera with Windows
** The rest of the settings in Hardware are ok the way they install
 
I guess I'm the only person with apple magic keyboard (or wired USB) typing delays :-(
Or I'm the only one that needs the keyboard press timing to be very accurate in Parallels. It works in ver 17 (Monterey), so here I will stay :-(
Normal text timing delays is probably not noticeable. I wonder about gamers. I've never gamed LOL - (no time for fun I guess)

As far as the audio stuttering, the settings in my previous post seems to eliminate nearly all of the pops, clicks, stuttering...BUT I quit windows 11 and relaunch before starting my next karaoke lyric scripting. If I leave windows 11 running for a long time or overnight, then the problems occur. I'll reboot windows and it runs quite clean. At least I can work with it now. (ver 17).
 
+1 - having the same issue. Same input lag issues on built-in keyboard and external keyboard attached via USB. Issue is non-existent in Parallels 17.
 
Thank you for confirming that I have not lost my mind. Lol. I have remained on ver 17 to avoid the stuttering. But I still continue to have audio problems that come and go. Sometimes better if I quit every audio app on my Mac first. Parallels and arm have been so disappointing. I only wish I could get parallels to confirm there's problems.
 
Agree with all of the above. 17 is working fine for now. Thankfully its easy enough to revert versions without losing your VMs.
 
JeffreyW1 said:
Thank you for confirming that I have not lost my mind. Lol. I have remained on ver 17 to avoid the stuttering. But I still continue to have audio problems that come and go. Sometimes better if I quit every audio app on my Mac first. Parallels and arm have been so disappointing. I only wish I could get parallels to confirm there's problems.
Click to expand...
Hello,
Please note that we have opened a case with reference #4*****9 and sent you an email for further troubleshooting.
Kindly verify your email and provide us with the requested information.
Thank you.
 
BlakeT3 said:
Agree with all of the above. 17 is working fine for now. Thankfully its easy enough to revert versions without losing your VMs.
Click to expand...
Hello,
Please note that we have opened a case with reference #4*****8 and sent you an email for further troubleshooting.
Kindly verify your email and provide us with the requested information.
Thank you
 
Hello.
I have the same problem. MacBook Air M1, macOS Ventura 13.3.1, I think the controllers don't have a delay (but not sure), but the integrated keyboard has a delay and it makes gaming impossible.
The only software which could have an influence is BetterTouchTool (I uninstalled Karabiner Elements to no avail).
Parallels 17 works fine. I needed the version 18 for Bluetooth controller support.
It's pretty weird that no one notices it; any serious gamer would notice right away.
 
I have same problem on Macbook Pro 16 M1 Pro 32GB RAM on Ventura 13.3.1.

It was almost driving me crazy as I thought something was wrong with my hardware. I initially thought it's something to do with Linux and I tried multiple Linux distros, versions and Linux kernels. My searches were initially scoped to Linux and I found no meaningful results.

Not until I tried Windows 11 and had same experience that I realised that it is an issue from Parallels desktop regardless of the guest OS [1]. And thankfully I found this thread.

I was on VMWare Fusion and I had no such experience. I mainly paid for parallels for better hardware support (camera, sound and mic) as those are erratic on Fusion. Only to be hit with an hardware issue on Parallels as well.

I am about to try out Parallels 17 as suggested by others. And if it works I'll stay on 17 till further notice.

[1] The exception is macOS ventura guest. I suspect that is probably due to the Apple's high-level framework in use.
 
Yeah. Does anyone know what we could do for them to actually see this?

I just can't believe that no one sees this, given that Parallels is marketed toward gaming on Mac, and it's the only product doing that (properly) on the powerful Apple chips. They shot themselves in the foot for what they say is a target audience. Is it really?
 
FlorianB5 said:
I just can't believe that no one sees this, given that Parallels is marketed toward gaming on Mac,
Click to expand...
I am primarily using the VM for software development and even that is an annoying experience. I cannot imagine gaming with it tbh.

I notice that the issue seems to be specific to only the keyboard. Pretty much all other inputs including the mouse, mic, camera all works fine and maybe the gamepads do as well.

I do know that the next macOS version (announcement at WWDC) is around the corner which usually means the next Parallels version is not far off. While I do understand they may have fixes planned for the next version, it is simply unfair for something this notable to be swept under the rug.

17 works fine for me but unfortunately I mainly use Linux and the graphics driver is lacking a bit compared to 18. And what would be the point of paying for pro subscription if I'd be stuck on an older version.
 
I am experiencing this as well on an M2 host and a Linux guest. Specifically, when I hold down a key and release, sometimes the VM will continue repeating the key for a few hundred ms. This makes it very difficult to edit text in the VM (my primary use case), since the cursor randomly overshoots. This only seems to happen when chars are repeated from holding down a key.

Perhaps relevant is that I've set the following on the host:

$ defaults read -g InitialKeyRepeat
15
$ defaults read -g KeyRepeat
1
 
Thanks for adding your report. Ah. Me too I've set the default key repeat repeat rate (to the maximum possible) but within the standard macOS preferences.
 
I did notice that connecting a USB keyboard and attaching it as USB device to VM works fine. Obviously, the implication of that is that the keyboard can no longer be used on the host simulateously.
 
I've just started getting this issue after installing the latest update to Parallels. There's no latency in typing but Windows just seems to hard freeze when I begin typing sometimes then all of a sudden it races to catch up and fills the text area.
This is on latest build of Win11, Parallels 18 on an M1 MBP. I've been using this VM for well over year now without problems and it's been perfect until this issue presented itself recently.
 
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