Slight keyboard lag in Windows 11 ARM?

K

Khoji

Member
I don't think this is really a bug, it just seems to be an unavoidable characteristic of running Windows 11 for ARM under Parallels on an Apple Silicon Mac. I'm running the latest version of Parallels 19 on a Mac Studio M1 Max with 64GB of memory. Everything works fine, the only slight annoyance is that there is a very slight keyboard lag when I am touch typing. You will probably not even notice it if you are not a fast touch typist, but if you are you will have a feeling of a very slight sluggishness. It isn't really enough to hinder work.

The effect is mostly psychological: The only way I can describe it is that there is a subjective feeling of more "effort" while you are typing. When typing on a normal Windows machine, or directly under MacOS, typing is instantaneous. In Windows 11 for ARM under Parallels 19 I always have the feeling that there's a very slight delay after each key press

Again, it's not really enough to slow down work in any way, but it is subjectively distracting enough to be annoying. Does anyone else experience this?
 
Khoji said:
I don't think this is really a bug, it just seems to be an unavoidable characteristic of running Windows 11 for ARM under Parallels on an Apple Silicon Mac. I'm running the latest version of Parallels 19 on a Mac Studio M1 Max with 64GB of memory. Everything works fine, the only slight annoyance is that there is a very slight keyboard lag when I am touch typing. You will probably not even notice it if you are not a fast touch typist, but if you are you will have a feeling of a very slight sluggishness. It isn't really enough to hinder work.

The effect is mostly psychological: The only way I can describe it is that there is a subjective feeling of more "effort" while you are typing. When typing on a normal Windows machine, or directly under MacOS, typing is instantaneous. In Windows 11 for ARM under Parallels 19 I always have the feeling that there's a very slight delay after each key press

Again, it's not really enough to slow down work in any way, but it is subjectively distracting enough to be annoying. Does anyone else experience this?
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Khoji said:
Again, it's not really enough to slow down work in any way,
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Maybe not slow enough for for you but it really hinders my productivity and the productivity of many others.

There is an existing thread for the issue https://forum.parallels.com/threads...s-ver-17-and-18-on-windows-11-m1-chip.358862/.

Parallels should do something about this, as someone that primarily use parallels for software development, it has been rendered useless for me. And I am wishing I never paid for Pro subscription.
 
I have been using Windows 11 on an older MBP with Intel chip and a M3 Max. I can report that it seems to affect only the Apple Silicon.
I slowed down my typing and some times, you just get duplicates letters or commas. I thought it was just me - but it doesn't happen when I type in Mac software.

Any hope of a fix?
 
I have just asked Support and their agent has suggested:

Regarding the permissions, please follow the below steps:
1. Click on the Apple icon to the top left of your screen.
2. Click on System Settings.
3. Click on "Privacy & Security".
4. Click on "Full Disk Access" in the list.
5. Toggle/check if Parallel Desktop is on.
6. Click on "Privacy & Security".
7. Click on "Accessibility" in the list.
8. Toggle/check if Parallel Desktop is on.
9. Click on "Privacy & Security".
10. Click on "Screen Recording" in the list.
11. Toggle/check if Parallel Desktop is on.

Another step I would suggest is to enable optimise for games for the keyboard. To do this, follow the below steps:
1. Shut down the virtual machine.
2. Right click on the Parallels Desktop icon in the Dock.
3. Click on Control Center.
4. Click on the cog-wheel/gear icon next to the MacOS virtual machine.
5. Click on Hardware.
6. Click on "Mouse & Keyboard" (you may need to click on the padlock to allow changes).
7. Click on the dropdown next to Keyboard and select "Optimise for games".

It has seemed to improve my text responses. Try it out.
 
After another week, the problem persists. Referring to Khoji, I am not a particularly fast typist, but it is not just the lag that is annoying, but the fact that every few key strokes, it will repeat the last key. Might be end of the word or a comma, or a stop. I end up having to go back to delete them - which of course takes time and naturally slows down your productivity, even if you can touch type.

I think it is a bug. I have already updated to the latest version of Parallels
Version 19.4.0 (54962)

I have the same version running on an older i9 Macbook Pro and that doesn't have the same problem.

If anyone has any ideas, that would be great.
 
DennisT11 said:
After another week, the problem persists. Referring to Khoji, I am not a particularly fast typist, but it is not just the lag that is annoying, but the fact that every few key strokes, it will repeat the last key. Might be end of the word or a comma, or a stop. I end up having to go back to delete them - which of course takes time and naturally slows down your productivity, even if you can touch type.

I think it is a bug. I have already updated to the latest version of Parallels
Version 19.4.0 (54962)

I have the same version running on an older i9 Macbook Pro and that doesn't have the same problem.

If anyone has any ideas, that would be great.
Click to expand...

The solution right now is to switch from Parallels 19 to Parallels 17. There's no workaround other than having a bluetooth keyboard to try and confuse the Parallels 18 & 19 built in Bluetooth Keyboard compatibility function.
 
Thank you Slimes for your suggestion.
I have tried using a bluetooth keyboard like Apple Magic keyboard, but that doesn't resolve the problem and I am not sure I have Parallels 17 available to downgrade to. I'll just have to put up with the stuttering for now.
 
I have the same input lag issue on M3 MBA. Since it does not impact Intel based Macs, the issue could be due to Parallels input handling thread(s) getting scheduled on efficiency cores rather than performance cores (M3 = 4P + 4E).
 
... using Parallels Version 20.1.2 (55742) on MacOS Sequoia (15.1.1), with the keyboard input lag happening inside a Windows 11 VM. Note that the mouse input is fine; only the keyboard lags.
 
I find this issue pretty frustrating - it also exists when using linux. I can't downgrade to Parallels 17, as I didn't have Parallels back then.
I can't comprehend how such an issue is not more widely known, if people are just able to ignore it or never find out - but at least the people at Parallels have to be in the know of this, the people who develop the desktop/console/display part.
Or am I wrong and there are installations that do not have this issue?
 
I have tried everything I could think of. Turning off key repeat on host, optimized keyboard for games turned on, reinstalled windows and parallels toolkit. The only solution that works to make the keyboard stop stuttering/lagging is to plug in a physical keyboard and have it connect to the vm directly. Extremely disappointing as I keep thinking a fix is around the corner.
 
I can confirm this issue. It's quite surprising when disk/video seems to be working better than other virtualization solutions. But the keyboard support is ... let's just say poor. First the input lag throws off my typing feeling. When I press single key - it seems to be mostly fine. But when I start typing it feels 'sticky'. When I'm holding down a key for autorepeat and releasing it - sometimes it still generates more key presses after releasing. It's like the input lag is not consistent. Mostly it's small (or close to none), but sometimes it kicks it for a few tenths of a second.
It's not so bad to instantly look for other virtualization solutions, but seeing how it has been for years I don't have much hope it will be fixed within a year.
 
For me setting key repeat off in macos keyboard settings helped. Despite being disabled on host the key repeat worked in vm. Since I'm spending 99% of my time in vm - I just set up a script to emulate repeat for some of keys in host system (it mostly works, glitches sometimes, then I need to reload it).
 
No. This has been fixed.
The latest problem after a recent update on the Apple Silicon range I found was that when you open new Windows app windows - say a new email window on Outlook or new Word doc, the window doesn't automatically come to the front. Part of the window or the whole window is partially or completely hidden behind the main window apps.
 
You are definitely not alone in experiencing this slight keyboard lag, or what is often described as a "sticky" or "sluggish" feeling when touch typing in Windows 11 ARM under Parallels on Apple Silicon Macs (M1, M2, M3). This issue has been widely discussed in Parallels and general Mac forums, with users noting the problem persists even across recent versions of Parallels (including 18, 19, and 20).
 
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