

You can use Workstation 5.5 or later, running on a multiprocessor host machine, to open a virtual machine, created in VMware ESX Server, that has one or more virtual processors. You can disregard this message and assign two virtual processors to the virtual machine, but, once you have finished creating the virtual machine, you might not be able to power it on unless you move it to a host machine with at least two logical processors. If the host does not have at least two logical processors, assigning two virtual processors is neither supported nor recommended: a warning message appears. Note: On hyper threaded uniprocessor hosts, performance of virtual machines with virtual SMP might be sub par. For this experimental feature, Workstation 5.5 allows you to power on and resume two-way Virtual SMP guests only on host machines with at least:Ī single-processor or multiprocessor host with a dual-core CPUĪ multiprocessor host with two or more CPUsĪ single-processor or multiprocessor host with hyper threading enabled You can assign up to two virtual processors to a virtual machine, in both 32-bit and 64-bit guests. This setting is available only if you choose to create a custom configuration it does not appear in the typical configuration. You can also set the number of virtual processors when you create a virtual machine in the New Virtual Machine Wizard. The number of virtual processors is also displayed in the summary view of the virtual machine. You can set the number of processors for the virtual machine in the virtual machine settings editor (VM > Settings), in the Hardware tab under Processors. However, you can power on and run multiple two-way Virtual SMP virtual machines concurrently. Guests with more than two virtual processors are not supported in Workstation 5.5. This includes any SMP hardware, including dual-core systems and hyper threaded uniprocessor systems. Experimental Support for Two-Way Virtual SMPįor all supported configurations of 32-bit and 64-bit host and guest operating systems running on multiprocessor host machines, Workstation 5.5 provides experimental support for two-way Virtual SMP.

Here is the link to full release notes for Workstation 5.5. Here is the link to best practices for ESX and SMP.

Also do some benchmarking tests inside the VM with the 1 or 2 CPU configuration to see which has the better performance. Try on the VMware workstation assigning 1 vCPU and see how long it takes to boot.
