I run a guest ubuntu 12.04 on a host ubuntu 12.04, with virtual box, and the guest is much, much slower than the host (ALT+TAB costs 4-5secs). I had a look around and I found contradicting opinions on virtualbox vs vmware (free), so I taught to keep the former.

Both systems are updated, I installed the additions on the guest and I evenly split memory and video memory (64mb) between guest and host. I am running a toshiba m200 laptop with 4GB ram and shared video memory. The host bios does not include a configuration option for machine virtualization. I have 2 cpus and I can't give them both to the vm.

Is there anything I overlooked that could solve my problem?

Feel free to ask for more info, and thank you for any help.

EDIT Idling with the monitor open the (single) guest cpu never gets below 55% and could raise to 80 - 90% just moving the mouse around, opening ff will cause the monitor to run 100% in the guest, while the host shows that both cpus are evenly working around 60%.

My cpu is Intel® Core™2 Duo CPU T5450 @ 1.66GHz × 2.

If this is not a configuration problem, does it mean my machine is too weak for virtualization?