By default, VirtualBox keeps all sources of time visible to the guest synchronized to a single time source, the monotonic host time. This reflects the assumptions of many guest operating systems, which expect all time sources to reflect "wall clock" time. In special circumstances it may be useful however to make the TSC (time stamp counter) in the guest reflect the time actually spent executing the guest.

This special TSC handling mode can be enabled on a per-VM basis, and for best results must be used only in combination with hardware virtualization. To enable this mode use the following command:

VBoxManage setextradata "My VM" "VBoxInternal/TM/TSCTiedToExecution" 1

To revert to the default TSC handling mode use:

VBoxManage setextradata "My VM" "VBoxInternal/TM/TSCTiedToExecution"

Note that if you use the special TSC handling mode with a guest operating system which is very strict about the consistency of time sources you may get a warning or error message about the timing inconsistency. It may also cause clocks to become unreliable with some guest operating systems depending on they use the TSC.