Revisitting UTM in 2024

By Justin Harris, 25 July, 2024

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Hi everyone,
I am pumped! After selling my m1 MB air several years ago due to financial hardship, I've been kicking myself for it for years. Mac OS on an intel mac was okay, but a bit slow, and I got the chance to trade the 2018 Air with a friend for an ElBraille, which I mostly wanted for the focus. With the 2018 Macbook Air, Bootcamp was nice, but it was also enough of a pain that I often just found myself sticking to Windows. However, for all its flaws, I still absolutely love Mac OS. I much prefer email management on anything Apple compared to Thunderbird or Windows Mail. Audio editting is so nice on the mac. I can still do it on Windows, but on the mac I feel like my work is just a bit better. I say all of this, because today I came across one heck of a deal, an m1 MB Air, for $400. Same exact specs as what I had before, 8 gb ram, 256 gb storage. While I do have concerns about only 8 gb of ram, and splitting that between Mac OS and Windows, I remember UTM working pretty well, and I would hope that the bugs I did have back then have been worked out. Last time I used it was back in 2021. Can anyone specifically using UTM give me any info on how the newer versions are doing? One thing that was incredibly frustrating before was that the computer would glitch, audio would just get stuck, and the only way to fix was to restart the VM.
How do you have your virtual machines configured?
I am not, nor have I ever been, a crazy multi-tasker. In Windows, even on my Dell, with an i7 and 16 gb of ram, I may have three programs open tops, not including NVDA. I'll usually run Radioboss, the software I use for broadcasting, Notepad for show notes, and maybe one or two tabs in Edge.
When I am in Windows on the Macbook, I do not plan on doing absolutely anything else on the mac side itself. While broadcasting, I won't be in Safari or anything like that.
So, what is the max ram and processor config you would recommend to give me the best performance in Windows while I have that loaded up?

I know about sharpkeys for key remapping, and will have to do that for things like the regular insert, but did anyone ever get caps lock as NVDA key in UTM? I remember that was one of the few things that used to drive me nuts!
Lastly, are you able to pair a bluetooth device, like a Braille display, only with the VM, or do you absolutely have to pair it with the host in order to get it to work?
I expect to get the Macbook next week, and am just trying to prepare myself and refresh my memory ahead of time.

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Comments

By TheBllindGuy07 on Friday, July 26, 2024 - 01:20

I had this exact audio problem you described last time I tried utm 2-3 months ago. Vmware fusion is so much better, I pretty much abandoned utm after exploring vmware on mac for the first 5 minutes. It just works, the windows vm are more stable and almost more responsive...

By Justin Harris on Friday, July 26, 2024 - 01:20

Thank you for this! Back when I last used it, UTM was the only accessible app for running a vm. I had no desire to mess with Paralels and VOCR. I have had experience with VMware in the past though, and yeah back in the intel days it was pretty good.
So, what is your vm config for ram and processor?

By Justin Harris on Wednesday, September 11, 2024 - 01:20

Just wanted to say thanks again for recommending VMWare instead of UTM. While I found that with only 8 gb of ram, and splitting that down the middle did not leave Windows enough to work with for live broadcasting of both audio and video, and I ended up being better served by taking my online radio station out of the cloud and putting all the automation for it back on a desktop computer in studio, the VM is great for using NVDA remote to manage that desktop, as well as for remote voice tracking, meaning I can go in remotely and switch up the tracks in the playlist for a given hour and then record my spoken parts for a program, and the software then mixes things in such a way that it sounds like a live program even though it was prerecorded. So, while I can't really do much in the way of live broadcasting on the mac, other tasks on the VM work incredibly well, and I have found the VM to be very stable. Had I been able to get a machine with 16 gb ram, I have no doubt that I could have done live broadcasting in a Windows VM no problem. But 4 gb just isn't enough. I tried it once or twice, and it just couldn't handle it. But my experience on a Windows laptop wouldn't have been any better really.