QEMU: problems with mouse and keyboard settings

Question

I'm running Windows 8 in QEMU KVM, and two things make it not very usable.

First: mouse is slow (it lags behind movement) and I see the most mouse. That means every time I move, first I see host mouse moving and then guest mouse slowly gets under it.

Second: keyboard doesn't handle holding keys well. So let's say I press 'a' for several seconds. Normally I would expect a's to be typed every x miliseconds. In QEMU, only one a is written at start, and only when I release the key, all others are written at once.

My configuration is:

<!--
WARNING: THIS IS AN AUTO-GENERATED FILE. CHANGES TO IT ARE LIKELY TO BE
OVERWRITTEN AND LOST. Changes to this xml configuration should be made using:
  virsh edit Windows_8
or other application using the libvirt API.
-->

<domain type='kvm'>
  <name>Windows_8</name>
  <uuid>b0208dac-b52b-1c2f-99a0-464daa8028b1</uuid>
  <memory unit='KiB'>8388608</memory>
  <currentMemory unit='KiB'>8388608</currentMemory>
  <vcpu placement='static'>4</vcpu>
  <os>
    <type arch='x86_64' machine='pc-i440fx-trusty'>hvm</type>
    <boot dev='hd'/>
  </os>
  <features>
    <acpi/>
    <apic/>
    <pae/>
  </features>
  <cpu mode='custom' match='exact'>
    <model fallback='allow'>Haswell</model>
    <vendor>Intel</vendor>
    <feature policy='require' name='tm2'/>
    <feature policy='require' name='est'/>
    <feature policy='require' name='vmx'/>
    <feature policy='require' name='osxsave'/>
    <feature policy='require' name='smx'/>
    <feature policy='require' name='ss'/>
    <feature policy='require' name='ds'/>
    <feature policy='require' name='vme'/>
    <feature policy='require' name='dtes64'/>
    <feature policy='require' name='abm'/>
    <feature policy='require' name='ht'/>
    <feature policy='require' name='acpi'/>
    <feature policy='require' name='pbe'/>
    <feature policy='require' name='tm'/>
    <feature policy='require' name='pdcm'/>
    <feature policy='require' name='pdpe1gb'/>
    <feature policy='require' name='ds_cpl'/>
    <feature policy='require' name='rdrand'/>
    <feature policy='require' name='f16c'/>
    <feature policy='require' name='xtpr'/>
    <feature policy='require' name='monitor'/>
  </cpu>
  <clock offset='localtime'/>
  <on_poweroff>destroy</on_poweroff>
  <on_reboot>restart</on_reboot>
  <on_crash>restart</on_crash>
  <devices>
    <emulator>/usr/bin/kvm-spice</emulator>
    <disk type='block' device='disk'>
      <driver name='qemu' type='raw' cache='none'/>
      <source dev='/dev/sda'/>
      <target dev='hda' bus='ide'/>
      <address type='drive' controller='0' bus='0' target='0' unit='0'/>
    </disk>
    <controller type='usb' index='0'>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x01' function='0x2'/>
    </controller>
    <controller type='pci' index='0' model='pci-root'/>
    <controller type='ide' index='0'>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x01' function='0x1'/>
    </controller>
    <interface type='network'>
      <mac address='52:54:00:9f:53:97'/>
      <source network='default'/>
      <model type='rtl8139'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x03' function='0x0'/>
    </interface>
    <input type='tablet' bus='usb'/>
    <input type='mouse' bus='ps2'/>
    <input type='keyboard' bus='ps2'/>
    <graphics type='vnc' port='-1' autoport='yes'/>
    <sound model='ich6'>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x04' function='0x0'/>
    </sound>
    <video>
      <model type='vga' vram='65536' heads='1'/>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x02' function='0x0'/>
    </video>
    <memballoon model='virtio'>
      <address type='pci' domain='0x0000' bus='0x00' slot='0x05' function='0x0'/>
    </memballoon>
  </devices>
</domain>

I have tried all types of mouse: PS/2, touchpad and USB.

Is it a common problem and is there some solution? Maybe some guest drivers? (But I have only found too difficult tutorials to install Spice, so if you know about understandable one, please point me to it)

Thanks for any useful advice.

Solution

I don't think it is strictly related to QEMU as it may be a problem between QEMU and especially Windows. Please see this article, it helped me fixing a similar problem few weeks ago.