[Info-vax] clock problems with OpenVMS x86 on VirtualBox

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2023-05-08 00:44, David Turner wrote:
> Like I have always suspected.
> I think there is more of an emulator in the OpenVMS x86 code than has 
> been admitted.
> The faster the CPU on the virtualbox the faster your "native X86" code 
> is gonna run
> Anyone care to elaborate or prove this?

Wait...

Did you expect the emulated CPU to run at the same speed independent of 
the actual CPU speed?

   Johnny

> 
> 
> DT
> 
> 
> On 5/6/2023 12:49 PM, Craig A. Berry wrote:
>>
>> I am running OpenVMS x86_64 E9.2-1 under VirtualBox 7.0.8 on macOS
>> Ventura 13.3.1 (a).  The host is a 2019 MacBook Pro with 2.3 GHz 8-Core
>> Intel Core i9.  The clock isn't working right, most easily seen by the
>> fact that the following two commands were typed exactly one minute apart:
>>
>> $ sh time
>>    5-MAY-2023 19:07:35
>> $ sh time
>>    5-MAY-2023 19:07:45
>>
>> So the system advances its clock about 10 seconds for every 60 seconds
>> of actual time.
>>
>> Another way of illustrating the problem is by running the vups.com from
>> <https://emuvm.com/download/vups-com-benchmark/>, which says:
>>
>>  Approximate System VUPs Rating : 10430.2 ( min: 950.4 max: 55125.0 )
>>
>> Divide that number by 6 and it might almost be credible based on numbers
>> other people have been posting, though a factor of 10-15 would be more
>> believable.  The system is *not* in fact fast at all -- it takes about
>> 15 seconds for MONITOR SYSTEM to initiate its display when nothing at
>> all is running.
>>
>> I have not seen this anywhere in the VSI documentation, but this blog 
>> post:
>>
>> <https://raymii.org/s/blog/OpenVMS_9.2_for_x86_Getting_Started.html>
>>
>> says it's necessary to set the clock characteristics of the virtual
>> machine like so:
>>
>> $ vboxmanage modifyvm <vmname> --hpet on
>>
>> I have done so but observe no difference (everything posted above was
>> after running this command and restarting VirtualBox).  Supposedly this
>> setting "Enables . . . a High Precision Event Timer (HPET) which can
>> replace the legacy system timers," whatever that means. I guess one
>> possibility is that the command, while it returned no errors, also
>> didn't take effect for some reason.  I cannot tell from the following
>> output whether the non-default setting is in effect:
>>
>> $ vboxmanage debugvm <vmname> info hpet
>> HPET status:
>>  config=0000000000000003     isr=0000000000000000
>>  offset=fffffff020435102 counter=0000000000000000 frequency=69841279 fs
>>  legacy-mode=on   timer-count=4
>> Timers:
>>  0: comparator=0000001022973a28 accumulator=0000000000022f4d (9999944 ns)
>>         config=ffffffff0000003c irq=0 en per cap_per cap_64
>>  1: comparator=00000000ffffffff accumulator=0000000000000000 (0 ns)
>>         config=ffffffff00000000 irq=8
>>  2: comparator=00000000ffffffff accumulator=0000000000000000 (0 ns)
>>         config=ffffffff00000000 irq=0
>>  3: comparator=00000000ffffffff accumulator=0000000000000000 (0 ns)
>>         config=ffffffff00000000 irq=0
>>
>>
>> Has anyone sen anything like this or has any ideas on how to debug/fix
>> it?  The only next step I can think of is to try VMWare Player and see
>> if it works better than VirtualBox.
>>
>