Fixing High CPU Usage / Setting Custom CPU Cores

In this guide we outline how to fix the High CPU Usage and set Custom CPU Cores on your virtualized macOS VM using our updated method for Proxmox.

Important Information:

 macOS only accepts CPU cores in **powers of 2**:

1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, ...

We provide a workaround to use non-power-of-two core counts. This may or may not work for your system. If you encounter issues, simply revert the changes and ensure to take a backup!!

1. Editing your VM Configuration:

Open your VM Configuration file replacing [VMID] with your VM ID

sudo nano /etc/pve/qemu-server/[VMID].conf

Intel: Supported Core Configurations

Native (No Args Needed) These core counts work natively in macOS:
**2 cores**
**4 cores**
**8 cores**
**16 cores**
32 cores

Intel: 48 Core Examples

Two working options:

-smp 48,cores=2,sockets=24,threads=1,maxcpus=48

-smp 48,cores=2,sockets=12,threads=2,maxcpus=48

AMD CPUs

For AMD users, replace your current `-cpu` argument with:

args: <default-arg> -cpu host

Then simply set the desired number of CPU cores in **Proxmox → Hardware → CPU**.

If you need any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us