Geoff, I experimented with the # of CPUs to apply to the Drone2Map task, and I got fastest results when I requested 8 out of 16 available CPUs. My processor type I also set to CPU+GPU. As a result, Drone2Map ran 3x faster on my virtual machine as compared to my laptop. That sounds like a win, but I think there's a lot of performance left on the table.
The performance should be more like 4x, based on the clock speed (2.12 faster on the virtual machine) of the 16 processors, and the fact that there are 16 of them, not 8. I noticed that Drone2Map managed to use 100% of the CPUs on the laptop, the performance meter was pegged at 100%, but on the virtual machine the CPU virtualization was very spiky... up and down, up to 100% then down to a low level, then up to 100%, etc., with the end-result being that the average CPU utilization was not that high. There perhaps some odd interaction with the software and the way the CPU is virtualized by the hypervisor?
Who at Esri is responsible for this software, how to I get feedback to them? I'm getting this software as part of an academic project, and in my role as a student I'm not entitled to interact directly with support. Hopefully an Esri team member is reading this. Also, the company which provided the workstation to me for the benchmarking study might be able to extend a seat on the machine to Esri for testing and debugging, I can always ask.
Thanks everyone for reading this.