Overwatch Severe FPS Stuttering under Catalina/Parallels 15 with eGPU

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ParallelsU312

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I upgraded to Parallels 15, and am trying to run Overwatch in a Windows 10 VM. While some portions of the game run at a smooth (capped) 70fps, it will suddenly stall for seconds at a time, making it unplayable.

Video:

I'm running a 13" 2018 MacBook Pro with a Razer Core X and RX 590. (Running under Boot Camp is perfectly smooth with zero hiccups.)

Using Catalina Beta 9 (19A573a)

Things I've done:
  • "Prefer External GPU" for the Parallels app (which I know is working, performance would be much worse if using the iGPU)
  • Tweaking graphics settings, it seems unrelated to quality or buffering/vsync
  • "Gaming" mode in the VM settings, ensuring that 4vCPU and 8GB RAM. I've also played with the graphics memory settings, no difference whether I'm using Auto, 512MB, 2GB, etc.
  • Upgrading Windows, fiddling with power settings, etc.
This is a brand new VM (under Parallels 15) with a fresh copy of Windows. Nothing else is installed on this VM and no other programs are running to hog the GPU/CPU, I've monitored task managers on both guest and host.

Is there anything else I can try? I know the GPU and setup is capable of doing better, this feels like a Parallels-specific issue, which is surprising seeing as Overwatch was touted as one of the featured games/reasons to upgrade. (With Metal-based DX11 support.)
 
Note that this same behavior is encountered when unplugging the eGPU and using the integrated graphics. FPS is perfect (~40fps) in some spots, and it will spontaneously freeze or hiccup for 2-4 seconds before jumping right back up again.
 
I also have this problem.
My setup is a 2018 13" MBP and a razer core V2 sporting a vega64.
I really love how greatly parallels outperforms vmware fusion which is at this point basically unusable :D
But I also do not understand why there are sudden frame drops to the point where basically everything stalls for about a second.
I don't know that overwatch thing, but it happens to me on my older games I loved to play years ago Like Gothic 2, Farcry 2 and Even GTA2.
This is also not limited to gaming. I know fusion 360 also exists as a native mac app, but I just wanted to do a comparison, and it runs just as smooth as on my mac, except for these sudden performance drops where it completely stutters and hangs.
I'm certain that my hardware is powerful enough and I'm also certain that Thunderbolt 3 cannot possibly be the bottleneck, since Everything runs flawlessly in bootcamp on that same external gpu.
Maybe you guys at parallels have an issue regarding DMA restrictions from apple in terms of what you're allowed to do with your hypervisor?
Would be really interesting to get some feedback on the current development status, and whats planned for the next version.
I didn't buy Parallels 15 because of that issue. But I'd be happy to give you money if this is solved in the next version and leave VMWare behind once and for good.
 
Bump from me too. I am experiencing the exact same issue with my 2019 MBP. I initially thought it was because the VM didn't emulate turbo boost properly, but the task manager just doesn't report the correct clock speed (probably).

I'd love to see a fix for this if it's possible. 2D games run fine for me. It's just 3D games in general.
 
Sorry for the bump, but I feel like it's somewhat necessary. Overwatch was touted as being playable in the advertisement and as such it would fall under false advertisement if this weren't true. I have heard of people getting it to work, but they seem to be using the same settings that I am. As such it would be nice if we could get some help with this issue.
 
Same issue here, also seen in Prey, which was also mentioned in the advertising for Parallels 15, as well as The Outer Worlds. It really feels like something that could be fixed in a software update, so I am hoping they are aware of the issues and are working on it.
 
Yea, still no solution found on my end. I think I'm doing everything right. Is anyone using Overwatch through Parallels w/ eGPU successfully?

Note that the same stuttering occurs using internal graphics, but w/ the performance degradation you'd expect. (Still substantially worse than in Boot Camp.)

Boot Camp w/ eGPU > Boot Camp w/ iGPU > Parallels w/ eGPU > Parallels w/ iGPU​

@parallels, is this a known issue?
 
Well, my trial is over. I was planning to buy a license, but won't do that until the problem is fixed or, heck, when there's something of a response.
 
Guys, sorry for the delay is response. my bad.
Could you update ti the latest build 15.1.2. (if you haven't yet), check the issue and once it reproduced collect the tech report and post the report's if here.
Then we will check it and investigate the issue further.
Looking forward to your reply.
 
Bump. Same problem. Bootcamp and it's flawless. Parallels and it's stuttery and unplayable. This is across many games.
Setup is iMac 2017 27" 5k, i5 3.4ghz, 40gb ram, onboard 570 4Gb video, razer core x with radeon RX5700.

Very unhappy as I bought parallels only for gaming to save me switching to bootcamp partition and rebooting. I bought totally based on eGPU support, which seems to be sub-par at best :(
 
As most of you are using eGPUs, are you certain that the eGPUs are selected when running Parallels and the games? There's an app called gfxCardStatus that allows you to see what card you are using as well as selecting which graphics card to use.

I'm curious if this will help?
 
You should at least be installing basic things like DX9 End-User runtime (yeah, you'd be surprised how important these libraries are still) and all Visual C++ updates: https://www.techpowerup.com/download/visual-c-redistributable-runtime-package-all-in-one/ (remember to run the batch file in admin mode). If you don't trust it just open it up with notepad and see that it's not malicious, just runs all of the EXE's in order.

Have you click on 'get info' for Parallels and made sure you've ticked the box 'prefer eGPU'? As this is important too. Other than that, Overwatch from my understanding is a pretty poorly optimised game with a lot of issues even in Windows with certain cards. Try some other games to see how their performance is so you can isolate the issue.
 
Hi there--just wondering if there's been any traction on this issue from any of the previous user reports? Just purchased an extra seat on my Parallels license to use for a gaming setup (2018 Mac mini with Sonnet eGFX Breakaway Puck), and if this problem can't be resolved, I'd like to refund it and move back to Boot Camp for that machine!
 
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