For my digital logic class i need to run a program (Altera's Quartus) and use their USB CPLD programmer in windows...since none of my windows pc's have anything close to the processing power i need. i need to load xp on my mac...boot campwould require me to reformat my hard drive(it was formatted in such a way) which is not a viable option. so my question is which is the best solution...i prefer to use only about 10 gb of HD space but if i move things around i can make more room...so my question is which one is the better solution VMWare Fusion or Parallels desktop?
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VMWare or Paralells?
- Thread starter abuzzl23p
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Sorry but dont understand why you cant load xp via bootcamp ( the formating
bit) but anyway Fusion gets my vote
bit) but anyway Fusion gets my vote
BC should be able to dynamically repartition your hdd without having to destroy any data. Provided you have Leopard of course, since I think Tiger's BC software has expired. Then you could run either off of that partition. I'd recommend VMWare anyway, and there are several threads about the difference between it and Parallels.
I dunno if Parallels would work in your specific case, but that's what I've been using.
Also, Boot Camp will definitely NOT reformat your drive. It will non-destructively (i.e. without deleting anything) repartition your drive so the Windows installer can format the 2nd partition.
Also, Boot Camp will definitely NOT reformat your drive. It will non-destructively (i.e. without deleting anything) repartition your drive so the Windows installer can format the 2nd partition.
I have purchased my first Mac not far ago. It was important for me to run Windows on it. I've started my researching on software to use. It was rather hard for me to choose between VMWare and Parallels. I think such difficulty comes from the fact that Fusion and Desktop are pretty similar.
Parallels Desktop was my choice. Mainly my choice was due to their attractive Christmas special offer . I couldn't resist this offer!
I use it for couple of weeks and I really like it. I have no problems with it and it runs rather fast. It fully satisfies my needs. Easy to install, easy to use. Excellent usability! So, keep it, hold it, love it!
My vote goes to Parallels!
Parallels Desktop was my choice. Mainly my choice was due to their attractive Christmas special offer . I couldn't resist this offer!
I use it for couple of weeks and I really like it. I have no problems with it and it runs rather fast. It fully satisfies my needs. Easy to install, easy to use. Excellent usability! So, keep it, hold it, love it!
My vote goes to Parallels!
I concur with others in this thread and recommend Boot Camp as the best option for your particular situation.
As for Fusion or Parallels I prefer Fusion. I have tried both and Fusion was faster and far more stable for me. There are other smaller reasons I prefer it to Parallels: it is the only one that allows me to use my Firewire DVD-R to write CDs and DVDs and I prefer the Fusion support forums over those of Parallels.
That said, I know some do prefer Parallels. Parallels has more features. VMware has been in the virtual machine business forever though. If it is a choice between the two you should probably try them both and see which you prefer. Just make sure that if you're using them to access your Boot Camp partition that you fully install one before trying the other.
As for Fusion or Parallels I prefer Fusion. I have tried both and Fusion was faster and far more stable for me. There are other smaller reasons I prefer it to Parallels: it is the only one that allows me to use my Firewire DVD-R to write CDs and DVDs and I prefer the Fusion support forums over those of Parallels.
That said, I know some do prefer Parallels. Parallels has more features. VMware has been in the virtual machine business forever though. If it is a choice between the two you should probably try them both and see which you prefer. Just make sure that if you're using them to access your Boot Camp partition that you fully install one before trying the other.
I have purchased my first Mac not far ago. It was important for me to run Windows on it. I've started my researching on software to use. It was rather hard for me to choose between VMWare and Parallels. I think such difficulty comes from the fact that Fusion and Desktop are pretty similar.
Parallels Desktop was my choice. Mainly my choice was due to their attractive Christmas special offer . I couldn't resist this offer!
I use it for couple of weeks and I really like it. I have no problems with it and it runs rather fast. It fully satisfies my needs. Easy to install, easy to use. Excellent usability! So, keep it, hold it, love it!
My vote goes to Parallels!
How can you comment on something you aint tried, Fusion is far more stable and is better suited to digital logic stuff
If his HDD is already multiple partitions then BC won't partition it (unless it's changed somehow)
solvs said:
Yes, I haven't tried VMWare. But I satisfied with my choice and I have nice impressions after my purchasing!
I think it's like Mercedes and BMW. Let's illustrate the real situation.
For instance, yesterday I've bought BMW and said: "What a nice car I have now!"
.And you say: "Heeeey! But you haven't tried Mercedes!"
Yes! I haven't tried Mercedes, because I have chosen BMW!!! And I think I've made a right choice. This choice is right for me. And I can't try EVERYTHING to make right choice!
I've gathered many opinions about these 2 piece of software. And all of them are different! If there was a unity of the opinions I could easily make my choice. But there is no unity. That's why I think this is a nice and illustrative example with Mercedes and BMW...
I don't agitate for Parallels. I just share my positive impressions and experience of my first days using Parallels Desktop. I hope it could be useful.
I like Fusion better, it feels more solid and it is reassuring having a company with such a history of great virtualization software.
Yes, I haven't tried VMWare. But I satisfied with my choice and I have nice impressions after my purchasing!
I think it's like Mercedes and BMW. Let's illustrate the real situation.
For instance, yesterday I've bought BMW and said: "What a nice car I have now!"
And you say: "Heeeey! But you haven't tried Mercedes!"
Yes! I haven't tried Mercedes, because I have chosen BMW!!! And I think I've made a right choice. This choice is right for me. And I can't try EVERYTHING to make right choice!
I've gathered many opinions about these 2 piece of software. And all of them are different! If there was a unity of the opinions I could easily make my choice. But there is no unity. That's why I think this is a nice and illustrative example with Mercedes and BMW...
I don't agitate for Parallels. I just share my positive impressions and experience of my first days using Parallels Desktop. I hope it could be useful.
With respect i think your missing the issue the OP wants to do digital logic
stuff for this reason fusion is the better option
its not a fusion VS parallels issue
You said that you wanted more power right? I think the best choice would be Boot Camp in this situation. As stated it can nondestructively partition your drive and will give you 100% performance.
1. Boot Camp will be 100% performance- best choice
2. VMware is probably the more powerful of the two. It has support for two processor and it seems more stable. However, it doesn't have a lot of features for integration with Windows and Mac OS. You probably don't need these anyways.
3. Parallels seems the most buggy and slow. However, it has the most features that integrate the two OSes together. I have to use Parallels because my wife needs full integration such as sharing Desktops and files seamlessly. You can also set default apps from both OSes to use apps in the other OS.
Recomendation- Use Bootcamp. However, if you really don't want to partition use VMware as it has the best performance and stability.
1. Boot Camp will be 100% performance- best choice
2. VMware is probably the more powerful of the two. It has support for two processor and it seems more stable. However, it doesn't have a lot of features for integration with Windows and Mac OS. You probably don't need these anyways.
3. Parallels seems the most buggy and slow. However, it has the most features that integrate the two OSes together. I have to use Parallels because my wife needs full integration such as sharing Desktops and files seamlessly. You can also set default apps from both OSes to use apps in the other OS.
Recomendation- Use Bootcamp. However, if you really don't want to partition use VMware as it has the best performance and stability.
Well, I am agree that VMWare is more experienced company. But as you know, Parallels = SW Soft which is the company with rich history either. I think we need more specific facts about advantages/disadvantages of each piece of software to give a favour to one of them...
I've used both, I prefer Fusion. I use VMWare in the enterprise, so it's more comfortable for me. Sharing files between my VMs and OSX is seamless. Being able to allocate one or both cores to a VM is great. Unity works great. And the 64bit OS support in Fusion is great. As for performance, all the third party testing has shown Fusion to be significantly (as much as 2x) faster than Parallels.
Parallels Server will be interesting though as it allows OSX itself to be virtualized.
Parallels Server will be interesting though as it allows OSX itself to be virtualized.
We use Parallels at work because we set it up when Fusion was still in beta and we don't deploy beta software. Same reason we didn't support BootCamp. But I run Fusion at home from my BC partition because it's much better. When Parallels works, it's fine I guess, but I've run into so many issues with it at work that I see it's ugly side. Mostly speed and stability. We're working on getting everything moved to Fusion at work because of all the issues we've had, but it's a slow process doing anything like that, no matter what we keep saying, support and the users themselves. Bureaucracy. Most people who use both will say the same.
Some advantages of Parallels Desktop over Fusion:
- Parallels Desktop supports OpenGL
- You can get access to the guest OS files without starting it
- Built-in Parallels Transporter that provides migration of VMs
- Mirroring of files and folders
- Parallels Desktop supports OpenGL
- You can get access to the guest OS files without starting it
- Built-in Parallels Transporter that provides migration of VMs
- Mirroring of files and folders
Use the Trial versions
To the OP
Both companies have trial versions (or at least did last year when I tried them). Trial them both, also check out the support forums. See which one works for you.
Doesn't matter which one I chose - my needs were different than yours.
My recommendation is to bump your RAM up, if possible. It will make the biggest difference to you. Each machine (that is the host machine and the virtual machine) will work best if they each have enough RAM. With enough RAM there shouldn't be too much of a performance hit running the virtual machine concurrently with OSX, unless they are both doing CPU intensive tasks simultaneously. The advantage of either Fusion or Parallels (as opposed to bootcamp) is that you can be doing your Windows tasks *and* your OSX stuff at the same time.
Good Luck.
To the OP
Both companies have trial versions (or at least did last year when I tried them). Trial them both, also check out the support forums. See which one works for you.
Doesn't matter which one I chose - my needs were different than yours.
My recommendation is to bump your RAM up, if possible. It will make the biggest difference to you. Each machine (that is the host machine and the virtual machine) will work best if they each have enough RAM. With enough RAM there shouldn't be too much of a performance hit running the virtual machine concurrently with OSX, unless they are both doing CPU intensive tasks simultaneously. The advantage of either Fusion or Parallels (as opposed to bootcamp) is that you can be doing your Windows tasks *and* your OSX stuff at the same time.
Good Luck.
I'm a Parallels guy myself, but I have a to question the veracity of these statements.
- OpenGL: I'm not sure what's meant by "supports". Does it emulate it in software or is it hardware accelerated? Both Parallels and Fusion support hardware acceleration of DirectX 8.1. Fusion also supports 9.0. Personally, I just restart into Windows if I want to play a game.
- You can access guest OS files without starting it if you use Parallels/Fusion with your boot camp partitions, which is what most people do anyway. To be honest, accessing guest OS files without starting it up is one of those features I thought would be really useful but actually aren't.
- VMware Converter isn't included, but it's a free download here. Parallels Transporter isn't really "built-in"; it's a separate app.
- I'm not sure what "mirroring of files and folders" means. As far as I can tell there's still only 1 copy of every file and folder when I'm using Parallels. I'm guessing what was meant was the ability to browse the guest OS files in the Finder while it's running. If my guess is correct, then I'm pretty sure Fusion has this feature as well, according to the screenshots on their website.
Like snberk103 said, you should experiment with both, since no one can tell you which one is better unless they want to run the same exact software as you. Of course, if you're not using Boot Camp with Fusion or Parallels this will take a lot of time, as you'll have to install Windows twice, once for each software.
I prefer Parallels. I already had XP installed with Boot Camp but for the life of me could not get Fusion to run the partition. Parallels will run my Boot Camp partition no problem though.
My recommendation is to download a trial of each to see which one you prefer.
My recommendation is to download a trial of each to see which one you prefer.
OpenGL in Parallels is hardware accelerated, OpenGL in Fusion is not. There is still some overhead because the OpenGL calls have to be passed from within the Windows VM out to the OS X OpenGL drivers, but it is not anywhere near as slow as software emulated OpenGL.
Most people? Not sure about that, but if you are only using Fusion or Parallels with a Boot Camp partition you are missing out on a of the number of benefits of using virtualization over a real PC.
However that's exactly what is meant by "built-in" in this case; Parallels Transporter may be a separate application, but it is part of the Parallels Desktop install, not a separate download. Also VMWare Converter is only meant to convert existing VMs, it isn't able to also migrate from a real PC like Parallels Transporter can.
Parallels supports cloning VMs and has full snapshot support. To be fair, cloning in Fusion can usually be done by simply copying the VM bundle, and Fusion does have partial snapshot support. Parallels is still slightly better in this area though.
I agree on this, trying both is really what anyone who is considering getting Parallels or Fusion should do.