However, you mention that you have your VM pinned to CPU 1, while the command line is doing '-cpu 4'. When I run a VM with -cpu 4 locked to a single physical cpu, it definately does not do well. I'm not sure whether to call that a bug or mis-use.
Example:
cgm create cpuset qemu cgm setvalue cpuset qemu cpuset.cpus 0 cgm movepid cpuset qemu $$ kvm -hda x.img -cdrom ubuntu-13.10-desktop-amd64.iso -m 1024 -realtime mlock=off -smp 4,sockets=1,cores=4,threads=1 -rtc base=localtime
(resulting VM hangs; without the -smp 4,sockets=1,cores=4,threads=1' it runs fine.)
However, you mention that you have your VM pinned to CPU 1, while the command line is doing '-cpu 4'. When I run a VM with -cpu 4 locked to a single physical cpu, it definately does not do well. I'm not sure whether to call that a bug or mis-use.
Example:
cgm create cpuset qemu 13.10-desktop- amd64.iso -m 1024 -realtime mlock=off -smp 4,sockets= 1,cores= 4,threads= 1 -rtc base=localtime
cgm setvalue cpuset qemu cpuset.cpus 0
cgm movepid cpuset qemu $$
kvm -hda x.img -cdrom ubuntu-
(resulting VM hangs; without the -smp 4,sockets= 1,cores= 4,threads= 1' it runs fine.)