How to fix low webcam fps in VMware Fusion?

I’m using the webcam passthrough feature in VMware Fusion. However, the frame rate is very low. How do I fix this? Or could this problem perhaps be solved using an external webcam?

Problem:

• Integrated Webcam running on very low fps (<1)
• tried with Cheese (like Photo Booth, but for Linux) and VLC Player

Host System:

• MacOS Big Sur
  • 2.4 GHz
  • 16gb ram
  • 256ssd

VM:

• Vmware fusion 12.1.1
• running Ubuntu 18.04
  • 4 Processors
  • 10gb ram
  • 60gb ssd

Solution 1:

Certain cameras may not work well with virtual USB camera. Perform these steps to enable pass through of cameras in to virtual machine:

1. Ensure to shutdown all virtual machines and quit VMware Fusion if its running.

2. Open Terminal ( /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app)

3. Run this command to change the current location.

   cd ~/Library/Preferences/VMware\ Fusion/
   

4. Open the preferences file using vi or nano editors in terminal

   nano preferences
   

5. Add this parameter at the end of the file:

   vusbcamera.passthrough = "TRUE"
   

6. Save and close the preferences file.

7. Launch VMware Fusion and startup your virtual machine.

8. Important: Remove all existing camera devices.

9. (Optional) In some cases, you might want to change the USB compatibility to USB 3.0. It can be changed under "Advanced USB settings"

10. Click Virtual Machine menu > USB and Bluetooth Setting

11. Select the Camera you want from the list to connect it to the virtual machine.

This should improve your fps on the webcam. However, the problem is still remains unaddressed from VMWare. Check out the official thread here.

According to this askUbuntu question. Some people have also had luck switching to older versions of VMware.