VMWare Server (Guests very slow)

If you are having trouble with guest machines being slow it could be because they don't have any shared memory setup. Make sure you have /dev/shm setup with tmpfs and at least half your physical memory mounted. Then add tmpDirectory="/dev/shm" to your /etc/vmware/config file and restart vmware. (Full directions at above link).

I've also found that staying close to the recommend memory settings in guests is better than adding more memory.