Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Boot Camp vs Parallels vs VMware Fusion Benchmarks

cpatch said:
I own the latest versions of both Parallels and Fusion and can say without a doubt that Fusion is faster and more efficient than Parallels when used with XP.
Click to expand...

Me too. I run VM ware and Parallels (using XP) on two identical iMacs, and it sure SEEMS like VM is snappier. Not sure what to make of this. For certain I much prefer VMware's interface and it seems more stable than Parallels.

For what it's worth, I recently got Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 Preferred to work in VMware Fusion /XP (took a little doing...) and it is actually quite useable. I think it is faster and more accurate than it was on the WinPC I tried DNS (v.6) on a few years ago.
 
Parallels had a nasty habit of grinding my system to a halt for minutes at a time for no identifiable reason. Fusion does not suffer from this. My team at work has been using these virtualization solutions since the release of Parallels, we have purchased and deployed several Parallels installations but we've migrated to Fusion after getting a few licences and testing it out for a couple months. The general consensus among the 4 of us using them both is that Fusion generally feels snappier (especially when running multiple VMs but when running a single it still feels snappier), Fusion seems to be more stable, Fusion seems to have better support for USB devices. We've migrated our distribution plan of virtualization to Fusion rather than Parallels. It's also my understanding that VM has a much more solid base with 64 bit support and multi core support. The scuttlebutt is that Fusion is a Cocoa app from the ground up with VMs solid VM tech behind it and that Parallels Desktop is a Carbon app, I can't verify this, just what I've heard.

My vote is for Fusion having used both extensively.
 
Got a Blackberry? Sync with Outlook?

Then Fusion is the only reliable choice. I used Parallels quite happily until I got a Blackberry and encountered extreme frustration trying to install Desktop Manager; the install hangs before finishing. Since I had zero problems with Parallels prior to that, I hadn't thought to check the forums at Parallels website for conflicts. The official word from Parallels is that Blackberry support is "coming soon". Some people have managed to get Parallels to work with their Blackberry, but connectivity is sporadic and usually requires a lot of plugging and unplugging their Blackberry.
So I tried Fusion and it works flawlessly. I've found it to be faster than Parallels and more stable.
 
Interesting, I always thought XP running through Parallels was surprisingly fast. It's nice to know I wasn't blinded by my Apple Newbie love affair. :)
 
I'll echo ryan on connecting up a PDA or phone under Windows.

Fusion is the first virtual app that allows Microsoft Activesync to function without any problems. I started off using MS Virtual PC 7 on my G4 Mac mini and it wasn't pretty when trying to hook up a Treo or Windows Mobile device.

First time installing and hooking up my Treo 750, it worked, synced and hasn't had any issues since.

To be honest, I've not tried Parallels for this.
 
This is great info to have, as I have been trying to make up my mind on which solution to use. The resultant feedback in this thread is most helpful as well, as it appears to paint a somewhat different picture...
 
~Shard~ said:
This is great info to have, as I have been trying to make up my mind on which solution to use. The resultant feedback in this thread is most helpful as well, as it appears to paint a somewhat different picture...
Click to expand...

Ya, I wonder if 1.1 really made substantial speed increases, or if VMware just "feels" faster.

Regardless, both are available for free trial, so you can make your own comparison. But I found MacTech's methods to be particularly precise so I wouldn't discount their results off hand.

arn
 
I had both Parallels 2.x and VMWare 1.0 and couldn't really tell a difference in Windows XP.

However VMWare was MUCH faster running Linux VM's and provided Linux drivers from the beginning. Also since VMWare does have a free player for both Windows and Linux I could move/clone my VM's between all 3.

VMWare 1.1 feels much faster than 1.0 did... I didn't "upgrade" to Parallels 3.0...
 
Boot camp is slower????????

I've used parallels v2 and 3 and found it so slow that it was unusable.

Boot camp is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay faster than parallels
 
cpatch said:
Horse puckeys. I own the latest versions of both Parallels and Fusion and can say without a doubt that Fusion is faster and more efficient than Parallels when used with XP. Maybe if you only use Fusion with one core (Parallels is limited to a single core) then it's slower, but with the option to use both cores enabled it's not even close. Plus the amount of CPU Fusion uses when idle is significantly lower than Parallels.
Click to expand...

Couldn't have said it better myself.
 
I know CrossOver isn't in the same category as these other programs, but how does it compete with them? I really like the idea of running Windows programs without going through the hassle of installing Windows, even if it means a hit in speed.
 
I tried Crossover (which uses the Wine technology) and it's limited to a list of programs they have tested with. I ran IE 6 ok, but it wasn't without some limitations.

If you are just looking for a program or two, it's not a bad solution. But needs some tweaks to make it work (at least when I tried it out).
 
Boy are you guys going to be crying...

Let's see what these posters are saying when virtual machines and boot camp kill off OS X and Apple becomes a high end Windows OEM. This coming year will make the path clear. Intuit has already dumped Quicken for the Mac. They say they're working on a Mac version for 2008 but those in the know say it will be a browser based, online version. Adobe will be next. Heck Photoshop Elements 6 is out for Windows for goodness sakes. The Mac version is 4. Just wait until the first big developer announces that Mac users will run the new version under bootcamp or virtualization. The rest will soon follow. Apple itself is worried about it and said so in recent guidance releases.:mad:
 
After reading through that article... all I can say is, I'm not particularly sure the authors know what the heck they're talking about. Some of what they said sure sounded like they were attempting to translate something that'd been explained to them without actually understanding the explanation.

I'd also have liked to see more specific details regarding their methodology.
 
I had Parallels until they came out with the latest update, which broke my install, so I had to do a reinstall anyways. With Parallels, it worked just fine with the virtual HD image, but I could not get it to work right with bootcamp while allowing seemless booting in Parallels or native bootcamp.

I downloaded the latest VMWare Fusion, and it is flawless with bootcamp, even to the point of not having to select a hardware profile when booting. That never quite worked out with my Parallels install. I'll probably go ahead and purchase Fusion, and ditch Parallels.

As for games... If you are going to run WoW or Guild Wars, teh option is pretty clear. I've ran Guild Wars in both Parallels and Fusion (You have to enable activeX support), but neither was really enjoyable. This is the primary reason why I wanted to use Boot Camp to begin with, so I just boot native to play, and then will load Fusion when I need Windows for other things, like editing visio drawings, or other things I don't want to or can't do in OSX.

-jt2
 
F12 Key Doesn't Work With Parallels Running Leopard

If you need the F12 key for certain applications in Windows, Parallels won't be able to help you if you are running Leopard. In Tiger it works just fine. Our company just switched to VMware Fusion which takes care of this issue and runs great on Leopard.
 
lkrupp said:
Apple itself is worried about it and said so in recent guidance releases.:mad:
Click to expand...

They did? Where?

Quite the slew of predictions.

Mac users that run these virtualization tools are not sending the message to sofrtware developers, "Hey, we don't care about the Mac" It's the money and Windows marketshare that drives companies decisions to reduce their development efforts on the Mac.

Mac users are increasing their numbers. Other developers besides Intuit and Adobe are making Mac software.

Personally, I don't think it's as bad as your post makes it out to be. But I do agree that companies need to keep loyal to the Mac platform instead of simply looking at the bottom line and the number of Windows users.
 
SmartSelect messes your machine up

Parallels has a malicious feature called SmartSelect. It is apparently "ON" by default, or at least I didn't specifically enable it when I brought some Parallels 2.x VM images into Leopard with a fresh Parallels 3.0 install.

The result was that OS X was now registered three times to open a bunch of windows file types- one time for each of my three VMs. You can turn this feature off, but in my case I was left having to repair OS X after the damage was done. I had to do some manual cleanup including rebuilding my launch database.

Damage done to my VMs is also uncertain since Parallels registered all my OS X file types in the Windows VM images! I can guess my registries are a wreck after this.

This acted a lot like a virus and in my opinion goes too far in attempting to blur the line between OS X and Windows. I view Windows as an uncontrolled beast and I believe Parallels should be a tight sandbox. When I have three versions of OS X Application launcher stubs for garbage like Notepad, Wordpad, and all their nasty Windows relatives, I get upset.
 
I first tried pd and it caused several kernel panics on my mac pro. Then I have to switch to fusion, which so far has been extremely stable.
 
This study seems a bit flawed.
1. They didn't use the newest version of fusion
2. They didn't activate fusion's multi-core support
3. They didn't do any gpu benchmarks (all of which would show fusion being faster / actually working)
4. It's impossible for parallels to be faster than bootcamp. At anything. Virtualization just doesn't work that way.
 
psxndc said:
What I'd REALLY like to see is a way for my "hardware" not to change when I switch from Parallels to Bootcamp or vice versa. I've already had to call Microsoft once due to "too many activations" and I'm getting really sick of it.

-p-
Click to expand...

Aint that the truth. At one point I was running BootCamp, Parallels, and Fusion (evaluating) and each time I booted into one or the other, I'd have to re-register Windows and Office 2007 (even Adobe Acrobat at one point) due to "significant hardware changes." I had to call MSFT numerous times and walk through that annoying million digit authorization code nonsense. At one point I just went to a MSFT operator and hammered her with questions as to why I get that error each time I boot into another program (Fusion, then Parallels, then BootCamp, etc). Every single time I had to re-register and it triggered their "piracy alarm." Of course, MSFT support had no answer other than "you must have changed your hardware." :rolleyes:

Anyhow, those of you running Fusion and say it's so much faster than Parallels, how much RAM are you allocating it? My WinXP/Fusion is kinda slow (MacBook current version w/2GB RAM, fresh install of everything). I have allocated 512MB to Fusion.
 
I've tried both and I have stuck with VMware Fusion. It's more reliable and quicker and far less buggy especially ver. 1.1. Parallels seemed slower and glitchy, so this benchmark makes no senseto me.:confused:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back