MacBook Pro 16" and Parallels

[hch3psa]

Hi everyone! Today has been really exciting! I can't wait to upgrade but I'm very hung up on what I need to get.

I currently have a 13"
2.4 GHz Intel Core i7
16gb RAM
512 GB HD

I run Parallels a lot for my job, almost daily, and it lags often when using QuickBooks on Windows 10. I'm leaning towards the base model with 32gb RAM. I'm wondering if anyone has input? It feels like that would be a huge upgrade for me(plus the new keyboard and bigger screen) but I'm still on the fence. Any help would be AWESOME!

 

[poorcody]

I would do a little experimenting to check this. Have you checked the memory pressure under activity monitor? See how much memory you are using. I would also increase the amount of ram you are giving the Windows VM in parallels (shutting down other apps if necessary), and see if you improve the performance of QuickBooks. Then you will see if more ram will help.

What model year is your 13"?

 

[hch3psa]

I would do a little experimenting to check this. Have you checked the memory pressure under activity monitor? See how much memory you are using. I would also increase the amount of ram you are giving the Windows VM in parallels (shutting down other apps if necessary), and see if you improve the performance of QuickBooks. Then you will see if more ram will help.

What model year is your 13"?

Thanks for the feedback. This is the 2016. Not a bad computer but the keyboard and two ports kills me. I will definitely give this a whirl first.

 

[jerryk]

I think you are correct. It will be a huge upgrade. Even upgrading to a 2018 15" would be a huge upgrade. This will be even more. Only downside would be the size, but it sounds like you are OK with this.

FWIW, I am looking at also ordering a 16" with 32GB, and I am going with the 32 GB because of VM/Container use.

 

[donawalt]

I have 32GB memory on a MacBook Pro 2019 and I also use Parallels every day, it is very fast. I would concur with the other folks here that suspect more memory would be the biggest benefit for you.

 

[MrGunnyPT]

Hey mate, I spend 90% of my day in Parallels due to SAP and MRemote and some other VPNs.

You'll be more than fine with 16GB. If you do office work 3/4GB of RAM towards Parallels for a single VM is enough.

I'm upgrading from a 13" TB 2017 to the 16" due to this and after I have run countless tests on my mate's 15" It turn out I just need 16 because my memory pressure will be only at 50% leaving other 8GB left towards MacOS.

 

[hch3psa]

I think you are correct. It will be a huge upgrade. Even upgrading to a 2018 15" would be a huge upgrade. This will be even more. Only downside would be the size, but it sounds like you are OK with this.

FWIW, I am looking at also ordering a 16" with 32GB, and I am going with the 32 GB because of VM/Container use.

I have 32GB memory on a MacBook Pro 2019 and I also use Parallels every day, it is very fast. I would concur with the other folks here that suspect more memory would be the biggest benefit for you.

Hey mate, I spend 90% of my day in Parallels due to SAP and MRemote and some other VPNs.

You'll be more than fine with 16GB. If you do office work 3/4GB of RAM towards Parallels for a single VM is enough.

I'm upgrading from a 13" TB 2017 to the 16" due to this and after I have run countless tests on my mate's 15" It turn out I just need 16 because my memory pressure will be only at 50% leaving other 8GB left towards MacOS.

Thank you all so much! The input is priceless. I also realized that the current version of Parallels I have limits my RAM to 8gb with 2 cores. I will upgrade to the Pro version and see if that helps. I guess I may be able to just rock the stock configuration? Honestly, the idea of having a bigger screen is fantastic! I love the portability of the 13" but really, I need more screen real estate.

 

[gplusplus]

Dude... If QuickBooks can't run smoothly with 2 cores and 8 GB RAM, I'd point the finger at QuickBooks, not your computer or virtualization software. That's ridiculous. You're not doing fluid dynamics simulations, or worse, opening 5 Chrome tabs.

 

[The Mercurian]

Thank you all so much! The input is priceless. I also realized that the current version of Parallels I have limits my RAM to 8gb with 2 cores. I will upgrade to the Pro version and see if that helps. I guess I may be able to just rock the stock configuration? Honestly, the idea of having a bigger screen is fantastic! I love the portability of the 13" but really, I need more screen real estate.

Wait they charge more to use more cores and ram now .... Jesus 🙄.... so glad I stopped using this

 

[tigres]

Switch to VMware fusion 11

 

[BarredOwl]

I have 32GB memory on a MacBook Pro 2019 and I also use Parallels every day, it is very fast. I would concur with the other folks here that suspect more memory would be the biggest benefit for you.

Yes! 32 GB is the minimum I need to run (and productively use) Windows 10 via Parallels.

The more RAM, the better.

 

[hardax]

I use Parallels on my 2014 15" MacBook Pro with 16GB. I only give the virtual machine 2 processors and 2GB of memory and dont have any issues. Mac memory pressure never goes out of the green range and Parallels processor usage meter never jumps above 30% with some pretty heavy Excel files.

16GB is more than enough.

 

[matram]

I use VMWare Fusion. I run Visual Studio in an 8 GB machine with four virtual cores and some test and office VM with 4 GB and one core each. Visual Studio is a 32 bit app, so it cannot use more than 4 GB. Each VM seems to have sufficient memory. My current 2016 MBP runs a single VM ok, but running two VM 8 + 4 GB does not work well so I have ordered 32 GB.

But my input would be, it depends on what apps you are running in you VM and if you intend to run several VM at the same time.

 

[fgengineer]

I use Parallels on my 2014 15" MacBook Pro with 16GB. I only give the virtual machine 2 processors and 2GB of memory and dont have any issues. Mac memory pressure never goes out of the green range and Parallels processor usage meter never jumps above 30% with some pretty heavy Excel files.

16GB is more than enough.

Don’t know how you do it.

Do you use chrome? Do you regularly close browser tabs and windows?
Do you regularly close your apps?

For me 16 GB is not enough. 32 GB is adequate, but I would want 64 GB just to be safe.

 

[Deacon-Blues]

Is Parallels any good for gaming or is Bootcamp the better option for that? (Core i7, Radeon 5500 8gb)

 

[nickf1]

Don’t know how you do it.

Do you use chrome? Do you regularly close browser tabs and windows?
Do you regularly close your apps?

For me 16 GB is not enough. 32 GB is adequate, but I would want 64 GB just to be safe.

Agreed. I use VS as well, all day, every day and with the browsers and postman and everything my 2018 with 32 GB is barely making it (29 GB used with a 16 GB VM in //). Visual studio is sluggish when scrolling through codes, takes ages to load all the dependencies in the projects and not as responsive as it should be (or as it is in Bootcamp). I ordered 64 GB for the 16”, we’ll see if it changes anything...
[automerge]1573861185[/automerge]

Is Parallels any good for gaming or is Bootcamp the better option for that? (Core i7, Radeon 5500 8gb)

If the 5500M is sitting between a GTX 1650 and 1660, you’ll barely make 60 FPS in Bootcamp at 1440p (or 1536p now). Forget about // for gaming (unless playing oldies)

 

[hch3psa]

All these posts are wonderful. So judging from the comments, QuickBooks is a major issue with its handling of memory. I was thinking it was also Windows 10. I’m leaning 32gb RAM just to bump up and hopefully with the better set of hardware it will handle everything better. On a side note, everyone is recommending VMware Fusion over Parallels? Why so? More efficient?
To give everyone an idea, I use QuickBooks daily. I also use word and excel. I can’t use the Mac versions because of the other people I work with, it’s too difficult work with the different file types and I’ve found it’s not worth the hassle. I would just rather use Windows 10. Thanks all, appreciate the discussion we have going!

 

[nickf1]

I’ve used both Fusion and Parallels. I don’t see a significant difference in performance. But the price difference is dramatic $71 (Australian) per year for Parallels, $180 for Fusion Pro. And these are the upgrade prices, the initial versions are almost double the price.

 

[kmahmood]

How’s the fan noise when running VMs on the new 16” MacBook Pro?

 

[erigas]

FYI I got a brand new maxed out 16" MBP and parallels 15 does work but it has no AMD drivers for the 5500M......it only relies on the Microsoft drivers which renders it useless .
I was excited because it did work for my 2018 i9 MBP and its performance w my CAD programs was quite nice.
I'm quite pissed and hate to have to go back and forth to bootcamp all the time

 

[trailmonkey]

How’s the fan noise when running VMs on the new 16” MacBook Pro?

16" i9 32Gb running P15 Win 10 Pro very well. Fan noise kicks in when Win is doing its updates and sometimes when running 4k external display. Other than that, nothing natively in Win 10 is causing any heat/fan issues - only stuff I simultaneously run in Mac OS.

 

[TiggrToo]

16GB used to be OK for me at work until we moved to using Sophos - which due to reasons apparently not even known to Sophos likes to consume 6GB of RAM while running.

I'll be getting a new 2019 16" in a few weeks with 32GB.

 

[donawalt]

FYI I got a brand new maxed out 16" MBP and parallels 15 does work but it has no AMD drivers for the 5500M......it only relies on the Microsoft drivers which renders it useless .

What is it that you cannot do under Parallels 15 due to this problem? I have the same config as you with the 5500, and for the things I do, I have not had issues with the display drivers. I do some unique work-based stuff that uses the 5500 for its work. You may be pushing the display harder, I am just trying to see if I can help/offer any insight...

 

[erigas]

First off, thanks for willing to help...I really appreciate it.
It doesn't even run right. Slow as a slug with no apps running........only at a resolution of 800x600 does the mouse pointer move at an acceptable speed.
I'm using the bootcamp partition in parallels.
When I completely switch to bootcamp it runs like a dream ....

 

[donawalt]

You may want to peruse the parallels support forums, if you are just doing normal stuff like that something is not right- mine is very fast and others have said the same. I would focus on some of the parameters, something mau be set wrong. Here is one good one that highlights some of the most obvious settings- it's from a knowledge base article dated July 2019:

Virtual Machine Configuration

1. Shutdown your VM > open its configuration > switch to Hardware tab > CPU & Memory > make sure that the number of processors (CPUs) selected is not maximum (e.g. 4 out of 4). In most cases, half of total CPUs will provide optimal performance. Assigning more than a half of CPUs for the virtual machine may cause performance degradation for both Mac and VM.
2. Make sure that memory allocation is within the recommended level. Similarly to processors, best practice is to assign half of Mac's total RAM.
   NOTE: The amount of memory assigned to a virtual machine must be multiple of 1024 or Windows may behave inappropriately. E.g 1024, 2048, 3072 MBs and so on.
3. Under Advanced settings make sure that 'Parallels' hypervisor is selected.
   
4. Under Hardware > Graphics set Memory option to Auto (Recommended).
   NOTE: For Windows 10 virtual machines make sure that under Advanced Settings 3D acceleration is set to DirectX 10.
5. If your Mac uses an HDD or a FusionDrive (not SSD), make sure that the option TRIM is disabled: go to Hardware > Hard Disk 1 > Advanced Settings > uncheck Enable TRIM option.
6. Start you virtual machine and test performance.