Parallels Desktop 6 vs. VMware Fusion 3...which would provide the best Windows 7 x64 experience?

Hi all,

I was just curious to know which virtualization software would give the smoothest experience on a 13" MacBook Pro?

Both new versions of the software include updated 3D support (SM3.0), so how would older games fare in a VM (KOTOR, Fable, etc.)

I would be running some Steam games natively in OSX (HL2, Portal, TF2, Torchlight, etc.); I will also be playing my Blizzard games natively as well (SC2, WC3, etc.)

Thanks.

 

games are all hit or miss in virtual machine land.

Steam games will run OK, as will starcraft 2. edit: I meant in OS X, obviously, not in vmware/parallels.

 

Get parallels 6 then get vmware fusion for $10 Fusion Upgrade Promotion and then let us know.

 

I've tested both and selected Parallels 6 for virtualizing windows. I did test games like TF2 and while they are much faster they still aren't playable...

Everything else is much faster in Parallels 6 though.

 

Rumours say that Parallels 6 is kicking , but I can't say much by myself

 

much better off using something Wine based to play old games... light years better than any virtual machine can go... only fallback to a virtual machine if you cannot get it running right in something Wine based.

Wine based... would mean using Wine itself (all command line on the Mac), Crossover, Wineskin, etc... or finding wrappers on the web that other people have made customized for specific games and putting your game in it and using it just like a Mac app.

 

I just have Fusion 3.0 load my Windows 7 Pro 64bit Bootcamp Partition. Seems to work well for what i need it to do.

 

I've tried using parallels 6 with my win7 64bit bootcamp but theres a really annoying lag when i go between mac and windows. I uninstalled p6 and went back to vmware fusion 3. I have a 13" MBP 2.26 8GB ram. If you're gonna play games it's better to stick with using bootcamp.

 

I want to give Parallels a go with my Boot Camped Win7 install, but I already have VMWare Fusion on it. Has anyone had experience with both installed at the same time (though not running at the same time)?

 

@Rhodan
Though it's off topic, I want to ask u which machine u enjoy better? your 13" mac, m11x or thinkpad? sepecially for windows experience.

 

When I tested them they were both installed at the same time and I was able to run one or the other without noticing any issues. In the end I went with Parallel 6.

The M11x is long gone, it was a poor choice as the build quality is bad. The only good things on it was cooling and the 335M GPU. I would not recommend Dell or Alienware...

I use a Thinkpad X200 for work and I like it, good solid system, average screen.

At home I only use my Macbook Pro, I have many other systems (2 Mac Mini, 2 Windows Servers) in the house and I VNC/RDP to them has needed. Bootcamp on the mac is great although I only boot in it to play Bioshock 2...

 

nice,i got a macbook pro,was looking for a windowz machine, never liked poor contrast on thinkpads, though solid machines those are.

 

how come parallels have all those negative reviews on amazon:
17 x 1 stars.
Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: Parallels Desktop 6 for Mac

 

I tried both Parallels and Fusion and ended up picking Parallels. I love it! I run Windows 7 x64 with no problems...

 

Will i be able to run parallels smoothly on a mbp 2010 dual core i7 with 4gb ram and the 5400rpm hdd?

 

Most definitely! You can probably dedicate 1 or 2 of the processors to the VM and 2GB of RAM.

If you do want to do anything intensive in the windows environment though, i.e. gaming or running visual studio etc... , I'd recommend investing in 8GM of RAM (2 x 4GB SODIMM of DDR3). It's only $80-$100 on Newegg for the pair. It's a good investment in my opinion, but only if the tasks will require it.

Here is a link to the memory on Newegg.com just in case.

 

Another vote for Parallels at this time.

I have used both over the years and use which ever has the best currently.

I hear good things about the new vmware that is coming out sometime this year.... but until then I say stick with parallels

D.

 

I use VM ware fusion and it works awesome, if you look at benchmarks VMware performs better than parallels

 

Parallels Desktop 6 get the vote.
Faster than VM Fusion 3.

Have tried running FarCry 2 on Parallels Desktop 6, its flawless. I wont dare do the same on VM Fusion 3..

*am using Windows 7 64 bit*

 

The only thing parallels perform better at is 3D gpu processing, as shown in benchmarks

If you are coding or otherwise, vmware fusion has superior stabilit yand speed

 

i never try running fusion and also parallels for coding yet.
thanks for sharing the info on coding part for the system stability. i have both in my Mac OSX, just in case those "coding works" only run in Windows environment, i would give fusion a try.

 

Honestly, I've used both for coding and they're very close in terms of system stability and usage. If you're using only that as the criteria, either one will be fine, Fusion isn't the clear winner in this category.

However, if you throw in the far advanced 3d GPU support in Parallels, it becomes the clear winner on an overall level when compared to Fusion.

 

What is so advanced in Parallels graphics that Fusion doesn't have?

 

I guess I should have worded it differently. Parallels just has far superior 3D performance when compared to VMware, particularly for games. Many games are 100% playable in Parallels compared to Fusion, which is great if you don't want to bother with BootCamp.

Here's a decent article comparing the two: MacTech Labs: Virtualization Benchmarks | MacTech

 

Can someone explain the fundamental difference btw running Windows 7 in bootcamp and this whole parallels/vmfusion stuff?

 

Boot Camp

• Sets up separate partition on primary hard drive to install Windows onto.
• Allows Windows to run at "full speed" without suffering a hit in sharing of resources on the machine.

VMWare / Parallels

• Allows you to run OS X and Windows simultaneously at the same time.
• There is a performance hit when running a virtual machine, but...
• Intel and AMD processors now have hardware support for running virtual machines, which Parallels and VMWare take advantage of.
• Allows running of "boot-camped" copy of Windows as a virtual machine.

 

its nice that Parallels 6 has come that far. It was exact opposite when it was Parallels 5... I do all my Windows gaming with Wineskin, so I never really pay attention to graphics speeds in VMs though.

 

Does Wineskin support DirectX 9 games? Or is it more for older Windows/DOS games (pre-3D accelerated era)?

 

Boot Camp is "free" while you'd need to pay for Fusion or Parallels.

Parallels and Fusion offer easy ways to set up shared files across your NTFS/HFS drives. You could do the same with ntfs-3g (which is actually what they use), but it's just more complicated to set up yourself.

Ideally, you'd set up both a boot camp partition and use either parallels or fusion.

 

Its Win32, its not great for DOS, you are better off with Dosbox for that... It (Wine in general) has compatibility up through DirectX 9.0c, it just can be difficult getting a game ported right with it at times, depending on the game, and of course not everything works, and occasionally for some games you have to use actual Microsoft DirectX dlls to get around some issues. If you really want to get in and figure out how it all works, you can play a lot of good games without having to have Windows.

Parallels also uses Wine to do its Direct3D to OpenGL part of its graphics drivers, but since it has a full MS version of Windows and DirectX, it sometimes has less compatibility issues, but does run a bit slower.

 

Interesting, I'll definitely give Wineskin a look.

 

Thanks so much for all the replies.

So if there is a performance hit (however slight it may or may not be thanks to the recent hardware changes) why do people use Parallels and VM?

Is it more for convenience then? Being able to switch between 1 OS to the another? Rather than have to shut down the laptop and boot it back up into the other OS?

 

Convenience. But much less so now than in prior years. It takes all of 10-15 seconds to cold boot into any OS on the latest MBP with SSD. You might save about 3 seconds if you open a Windows app from OSX (which would automatically launch VM or Parallels) instead of rebooting into Windows and opening it there.

The real benefit is having the ability to run both operating systems concurrently.

Interface. Some people simply want to run Windows software using the OSX interface (which you can do through VM or Parallels).

File System access. Much easier to access NTFS drives using VM or Parellels while in OSX instead of setting it up yourself.