When running a macOS virtual machine on a macOS Mojave host running VMware Fusion Pro 11 you will more than likely run into issues with the virtual machine running very, very slowly. When attempting various adjustments to the VMware settings, it is best to always make sure, first and foremost, that VMware Tools are upgraded to the latest version. In addition to making sure that VMware Tools are running the latest version, it is also suggested that the Metal renderer be disabled and to use OpenGL instead in the virtual machine.
In order to disable the Metal renderer and enable the OpenGL renderer you have to modify the .vmx file for the virtual machine:
- Shut down the virtual machine
- Open the .vmx file for the virtual machine
- Add the following lines to the .vmx file:
mks.enableMTLRenderer = "FALSE"
mks.enableGLRenderer = "TRUE"
For some reason, this performance issue seems to only occur when the VMware host is running macOS Mojave. Earlier macOS versions do not seem to have this issue (even if the guest VM has Metal renderer enabled).