Bootcamp vs. Parallels

[skinnylegs]

I reccomend crossover!

What's that?

 

[xUKHCx]

What's that?

Crossover

Our flagship Windows-to-Macintosh compatibility tool. Intended for Intel Mac OS X machines, CrossOver Mac will allow Mac users to run their favorite Windows applications and games seamlessly on their Mac. Windows files can be opened directly within your file browser, or from email attachments. No rebooting, no switching to a virtual machine, and no Windows Operating System license required; CrossOver is a complete replacement for your Windows OS as far as your Windows software is concerned.

I tried it but it couldn't install office 2007 so it wasn't useful to me. It basically installs windows applications inside "bottles" (IIRC) that enable them to be run inside OS X.

Just retired VMware Fusion but unfortunately it won't recognise my boot camp partition ( a problem quite a few people are having it seems) so I am left with parallels, not that i have anything wrong with parallels just like to see the other products.

 

[Quboid]

I reccomend crossover!

I've never even heard of crossover.
I use bootcamp mainly becuase its free. But thing parallel is better all factors into consideration.

 

[skinnylegs]

I went to the Crossover website and it looks really interesting. I'd love to hear from someone who has actually used it.

 

[rogersmj]

It works OK for some things, but generally it's just a pain in the butt and a full Parallels VM will be much more reliable.

 

[xUKHCx]

It works OK for some things, but generally it's just a pain in the butt and a full Parallels VM will be much more reliable.

Sums up my experience rather well.

 

[skinnylegs]

It works OK for some things, but generally it's just a pain in the butt and a full Parallels VM will be much more reliable.

Thanks for the heads-up. I think I will stick with Parallels.

 

[spookje]

I am using VMWare virtual machine which starts from my Bootcamp partition works wonderful. Too bad I need Bootcamp for some DirectX 9.x development. Otherwise I wont been having a Bootcamp partition.

Anyway I really like Fusion and way more stable th en Parallels. Also booting from a Bootcamp Partition works directly compared to Parallels.

 

[xUKHCx]

Anyway I really like Fusion and way more stable th en Parallels.

Only had little experience with VMware so can't comment on its stability but I have had one crash with parallels ever and have been using it rather extensively.

Also booting from a Bootcamp Partition works directly compared to Parallels.

Care to explain what this means (it is rather late here so maybe i am missing something)

Edit: are you simply saying they both work the same?

 

[spookje]

I am saying that Bootcamp partition get recognised by VMWare and it will work straight away compared to Parallels. Also the stability of VMWare is better i keep getting kernel panics from Parallels. After that my Mac is reluctant to startup again. Getting grayscreen when starting up!

One of the reasons I am using Fusion now I havent had such problems with VMWare yet. Beside of that the support for DirectX 8.1 is really nice to have to for some applications. It would have been a killer if it supported DirectX 9 as used by the XNA Game Studio stuff of Microsoft. Then I could develop my XBox 360 game in the virtual machine.

 

[xUKHCx]

I am saying that Bootcamp partition get recognised by VMWare and it will work straight away compared to Parallels. Also the stability of VMWare is better i keep getting kernel panics from Parallels. After that my Mac is reluctant to startup again. Getting grayscreen when starting up!

One of the reasons I am using Fusion now I havent had such problems with VMWare yet. Beside of that the support for DirectX 8.1 is really nice to have to for some applications. It would have been a killer if it supported DirectX 9 as used by the XNA Game Studio stuff of Microsoft. Then I could develop my XBox 360 game in the virtual machine.

Well currently VMware fusion won't even recognise i have a bootcamp partition at all and reading through the forums i am not alone in this issue, don't see why it doesn't work with the latest build. Parallels always picks up the bootcamp partition for me and have never had any issues with parallels in this respect.. However from an earlier build my experiences were

Downloading now, should have it in 3 minutes. I like to see what the alternatives are. May switch when final release if it proves to be a better program than parallels.

Will edit after trying out:

Edit 1:

Install - Very easy reasonably quick.
Upon First open it immediately recognises the Bootcamp partition. Will let me boot straight away. I altered some settings so it has the same system available as my parallels setup.

Booting takes a long time in comparison to parallels. The system is very sluggish, this is with debugging turned off.

Setup: 1024 mb Ram, 1 virtual processor, 3d support enabled, VMware tools installed. This is on my C2D 2.16 ghz iMac with 2gb Ram and 256 Vram.

Connects to the vpn, not having any trouble doing what i normally do in windows, except it is slower than parallels.

For my next edit i will install XP using the automated installer. For reference i did this yesterday, as it happens, in Parallels from a .iso of an install disk. It took a total of 16 minutes to install XP, very pleased there.

Edit 2:

Point about installing the VMware tools, bit of a pain not having mouse support at all during this process (initail boot from bootcamp partition), have to remember the old tab and space tricks.

Subsequent booting times have fallen and are more in line with parallels. They are still generally slower than parallels but not by such a large margin.

As mentioned below seems to co-exist with parallels nicely, no fighting. The installation of XP from the .iso went smoothly and apart from entering a few details at the beginning such as desired user name and password along with the activation key was totally unattended which is good.

A bonus over parallels is that the automatic installation sets up the user-name and password for you, rather than the default administrator that you get with parallels.

Installation time:

Parallels: 16 mins
Fusion: 34 mins

Time saved from a usually cd install with manual input, based on my experience of 55 minutes

Parallels: 39 mins
Fusion: 21 min

The whole process was overall far too slow form my liking, but as people should only do this once or twice not so much of an issue. I however seem to do this lots, but that is because i like testing various features, programs and settings. There is mouse support when installing the tools this time, bonus.

Point worth noting The host operating system, i.e. OS X, is noticeably less responsive while VMware Fusion is running in comparison to when parallels is running.

Vmware fusion is a lot faster when booting from a virtual harddrive but it is about the same as parallels in that respect.

Anyway I'm off to the local apple store now to get some supplies, if anyone wants any questions answered or tests done i will try upon my return

 

[spookje]

Well, somehow Parallels just fails to work as expected by me. The tings that ain't working for you with VMWare seem to fail for me under Parallels which is even a final release! No recognition of my Bootcamp Partition, and the feature for fast Windows XP like with VMWare doesn't work for me. One of the reasons why I use this incredible stable beta of VMWare Fusion compared to the Parallels final release. Indeed I hope they will speed the overall performance but it performs quite nicely for me already.

 

[hopejr]

Well, somehow Parallels just fails to work as expected by me. The tings that ain't working for you with VMWare seem to fail for me under Parallels which is even a final release! No recognition of my Bootcamp Partition, and the feature for fast Windows XP like with VMWare doesn't work for me. One of the reasons why I use this incredible stable beta of VMWare Fusion compared to the Parallels final release. Indeed I hope they will speed the overall performance but it performs quite nicely for me already.

I think many people are using a beta version of parallels, with the features that appear to be missing in the final release.

 

[user13]

I've never even heard of crossover.

Crossover is bulky and useless. I met difficulties when I tried to install it properly. It supports few apps. Parallels is much better.

 

[user13]

I think many people are using a beta version of parallels, with the features that appear to be missing in the final release.

Well, Parallels is RC2 currently, if I'm not mistaken. The full version will definitely include 3d support etc. - all that is missing now.

 

[TBi]

I've noticed lately that parallels has become a massive CPU hog on my machine. Running at a near constant 100% CPU. The older versions were no where near as resource hungry. At this rate I'll have to try VMWare to see if it is any better.

 

[user13]

I've noticed lately that parallels has become a massive CPU hog on my machine. Running at a near constant 100% CPU. The older versions were no where near as resource hungry. At this rate I'll have to try VMWare to see if it is any better.

I haven't tried Fusion myself, but that would be an option to see how it works - if Parallels is slow. How much RAM do you have? It is important. I think that it might be some kind of memory leak
[edit] I saw you system info in the signature. Is this the machine you run Parallels on? And what particular programs are you using?

 

[TBi]

Yes this is the machine i run on.

Basically all i run is Safari, Mail and Adium. They aren't hogging the CPU, only parallels is.

The weirdest thing is that while the parallels program can be seen hogging the CPU in activity monitor (100%), windows running inside it is using very little CPU time according to windows task manager (10%).

Plus while parallels is running my battery life halves, my macbook gets really hot and OSX gets really slow. Same thing happens with my Vista VM so i think it is a parallels problem.

 

[user13]

Yes this is the machine i run on.
Basically all i run is Safari, Mail and Adium. They aren't hogging the CPU, only parallels is.
The weirdest thing is that while the parallels program can be seen hogging the CPU in activity monitor (100%), windows running inside it is using very little CPU time according to windows task manager (10%).
Plus while parallels is running my battery life halves, my macbook gets really hot and OSX gets really slow. Same thing happens with my Vista VM so i think it is a parallels problem.

I'm not complaining about Parallels, it works very fine. But there really have been some reports about system slowdown linked with Parallels. The system you have is optimal to have Parallels running at native speed. If you really would like to find out what can be the reason of this slowdown in Parallels performance, I'd advice you to visit Parallels Support Forum(in fact, I've posted this link here for a numerous number of times already ). I think I saw people report similar problems there.