Parallels Desktop 17 very slow performance vs Mac

[Dj3go83]

Hello,
I hope everybody Is well.
I use a software that generates Trading Strategies, called Strategy Quant. The software makes calculations and stress tests to strategies. While it's available also for Mac, for some reasons I have to use it on Windows, so I've used it with Parallels Desktop 17.
When using on Windows with VM though, it is much much much slower vs using directly on Mac. In fact I've had a trial on Mac, and it produces a strategy approx every 50 ms, while on windows every 300 ms. This might look little, but working on thousands of strategies is huge time loss.
I've a MacBook Air from 2021, with M1 Chip, and 8 GB ram. I'm using Windows 11 ARM directly downloaded through the latest Parallels 17 version.
It looks that the application primarily consumes CPU. When I'm directly in Mac environment I can use 6-7 cores out of 8, and it goes fast. When I apply the same configuration, e.g. 6-7 cores in Windows VM, it's much slower as explained above.
The whole point of such a software is to be fast, and I don't understand why Parallels is so slow. I hear people are even playing games, hence would not expect such a poor performance. Any help to get the VM performance closer to Mac one?
Thanks so much!
Diego

 

[MK500]

The problem is that the windows version of the app is executing x86 code which Windows 11 dynamically translates to ARM code. Almost zero Windows developers bother compiling their apps for ARM because almost no Windows devices currently use ARM (likely will change in coming years). The translated x86 code will never be nearly as fast as native ARM code. I am assuming the Mac version of the app is running native ARM code (developers using Xcode can easily update apps to ARM) or even if not; the translation layer in macOS (Rosetta) may be just a lot more efficient than the Microsoft one in Windows 11.

I am making some assumptions here, as I do not use that app. But this is the most likely scenario.

Convince your boss you will make them more money if they license the macOS version.

 

[Dj3go83]

Thank you so much for the swift reply! That makes total sense, actually is what, sadly, I was also coming to. Unfortunately this is for private use, and I won’t be able to use it directly on the mac because of working and personal reasons.

Couple of further thoughts:
- the windows app is not x86 but x64, so anyway at least it s 64 bits. Can it make any difference?
- is there any way I can execute on my m1 mac in parallel an intel version of windows, or any other way for native windows?

Thanks so much again!

 

[MK500]

Couple of further thoughts:
- the windows app is not x86 but x64, so anyway at least it s 64 bits. Can it make any difference?
- is there any way I can execute on my m1 mac in parallel an intel version of windows, or any other way for native windows?

It wouldn’t make any difference that it is 64 bit.

No, the fastest way to execute Intel Windows code on M1/M2 is what you are already doing. It would be even slower to try to execute an Intel version of windows (unusably slow). You are already running ARM native windows in Parallels, but the app still has to run through the translation layer since it it not ARM native.

 

[Dj3go83]

Fair enough, thank you. At least I know the reason now. Many thanks!

 

[Boyd01]

Yeah, I don't think you will get decent Windows performance on the M1, and only having 8gb of memory must also be very limiting. I run Windows 10 in a 32gb VM with Parallels on my 2018 Intel Mini with 64gb memory and have been really impressed with how well it works.

 

[MK500]

Yeah, I don't think you will get decent Windows performance on the M1, and only having 8gb of memory must also be very limiting. I run Windows 10 in a 32gb VM with Parallels on my 2018 Intel Mini with 64gb memory and have been really impressed with how well it works.

Actually the ARM version of Windows 11 runs extremely fast on the M1 using Parallels. Faster than the Intel version runs on my top BTO 2018 Intel Mini with 64GB (we are twins haha). MS Office, browsing, and built in Windows apps (mostly ARM native) are wicked fast even on my M1 Air.

The problem is with any apps you run on Windows that are not ARM native, as they have to go through a translation layer. Amazingly even with this layer I was able to get Battlefield 4 to run at 60fps on my M1 Max though, so that’s kind of wild. Windows on ARM is pretty impressive.

But Intel apps will generally run much faster on Intel CPUs.

 

[Dj3go83]

Thank you all. Very interesting learning, and the more I test, the more I understand that the non-arm-nativity is the issue here.

Crazy/silly question. I was looking for the issue, and I found some articles of recompiling the x64 to arm. Looked something they could be done without source code, like with a window app, as it changed the target CPU.

Anybody knows anything on this?
Huge thanks anyways!

 

[Boyd01]

MS Office, browsing, and built in Windows apps (mostly ARM native) are wicked fast even on my M1 Air
But Intel apps will generally run much faster on Intel CPUs.

Yes, that's the problem. I don't need apps like Office, I already have the Mac version of that. I need windows to make maps with Globalmapper and I can't imagine they would have any incentive to create an ARM version of that.