Slowdown issues with VMware Player 3?

[Zagen30]

About a week ago I switched from using VMware Server 2 to VMware Player 3 to run my virtual Linux box. The CPU is a Pentium E6300 (2MB cache) @ 3.6 GHz. The VM runs 64-bit Ubuntu 9.10 with kernel 2.6.31.14. I'm running the Linux SMP client.

Before making the switch I was using the MPICH_NO_LOCAL = 1 command to reduce the performance hit on dual-cores, and I was averaging around 11-13 minutes/frame depending on whether or not I was using the computer for other things. After making the switch, however (everything else remained the same except the VM software), I noticed that the frame times were becoming really long, like 20-25 minutes. The odd thing was that even when I wasn't using the computer at all, it would still run slow

Today I uninstalled Player 3 and reinstalled Server 2, and the frame times are back to where they were initially, again with the VMware software being the only difference (didn't install updates or anything, same WU). Throughout all of this I've been booting the same exact VM. I admit my testing is not very thorough, but on the surface it looks like Player was causing the slowdown, and unless I see any further slowdown issues I'm content with this arrangement. Has anyone else had an issue like this?

[7im]

Player 3 is really jittery for me. Haven't seen the slowdown, but it shutdown by itself yesterday. And the mouse jumps all over the place. When I try to click on a menu, it jumps to the top right corner of the screen. Weird. Anyway, my frames on my dual core are still in the 12 minute range when switching from 6.x workstation. I'd be upset if I had to interact with Player more than I do.

[weedacres]

I've used Player 3 and VM Workstation 6 and 7 and see no noticable difference in performance. All of my clients are notfreds, but doubt that makes any difference.
I've also run with MPICH_NO_LOCAL = 1 both on and off and see considerable difference in 2-core performance.
Could 7im's mouse problem have to do with the host running gpu clients? Mine get somewhat erratic from time to time but I'm running all my gpus at Realtime.

edit:
Did you happen to look at Task Manager and see what % the cores were running and also look at vmware-vmx.exe and see what it was running at? Both should have been at least in the 90+% range.

[Zagen30]

Yes, Ubuntu's System Monitor said both cores were fully loaded, and Windows' Task Manager said that vmware.vmx was running at over 90% of total CPU usage.

[7im]

Task mangler pegged at 100% for both cores, and vmware-vmx.exe is getting 99%. Using 1.2 GB out of 4. VM gets 2 GB, only using 900 mb. Grabbed is set to normal, ungrabbed is set to idle. Mouse is goofy when grabbed or ungrabbed.

[k1wi]

did you install the linux tools?

[7im]

VMWare tools? Yes. Is that a known issue?

[k1wi]

No, it should actually improve mouse movement etc. I assume it's installed properly?