How much RAM are you allocating to Parallels?

[daneoni]

Just wanted to get a feel for people's RAM allocation to parallels. I currently have mine set to 700MB and it still that tad bit slow.

 

[netdog]

Only 256MB, but it is much faster than my 3.1 GHz Toshiba with 1GB of RAM. I only run a few apps, mostly for backgammon.

 

[OllyW]

I've allocated 768MB to Parallels and it seems to run ok, just takes a minute or so to settle down after it's finished booting up.

It's loaded on a 1.83 Core Duo MacBook Pro with 2GB of RAM.

 

[daneoni]

Hmmm. Maybe i'm just expecting too much after all, its virtualisation not dedicated hardware.

 

[M@lew]

I set it to 512, which is pretty much the minimum. I tried 256, but some things don't even run with that amount of memory.

 

[yellow]

640MB to all installs under my supervision. I dare not go higher.

And before you ask, no, this is not a typo of 604.

It's 512+128

Following a normal RAM size convention.

 

[kastorff]

I've got both Vista and XP set to 768 MB on a 2 GB Macbook. XP (classic interface, with visual effects off) runs very well with that allotment, but Vista (classic interface, visual effects off as much as is possible) is sluggish.

 

[SalukiWildcat]

Stock ram not enough to run parallels

I am currently running Vista Ultimate edition in parallels, and only have 512 dedicated to it right now. It's not nearly enough, to say the least. Luckily, the new 2 gig matched ram kit from newegg is one it's way, so I'll be trying it with 1 gig after that. But, definitely, the 512 is not enough.

 

[CipherMe]

I run XP via Parallels and I give it 1.5gb on my Mac Pro with 4 gb ram.

 

[kolax]

Give it 1020MB of RAM, works really well after I allocated it more from the original 768MB.

 

[panzer06]

512MB for XP
1024MB for Vista

XP is still faster!

I am mainly using Parallels to access Lotus Notes applications that don't run on the Mac client, Access, Project and Visio. Other than that I live in OS X, mainly running Notes, and the Mac version of Office.

Cheers,

 

[rogersmj]

I already posted this question as a poll a few weeks ago. It would be cool if people would vote there so it's easy to keep track of the results.

 

[daneoni]

I'll try 800 - 1GB and see if there's a difference. After all i have 2GB of ram so that should be doable

 

[Flyinace2000]

i give it about 850mb out of my 2gb installed. Seems to run fine.

 

[Sam*]

Just gave vista 512 and i have 1gb in total

seems to go ok

 

[Nuc]

1024MB here. I just downloaded the new beta from VMWare and noticed it uses much less memory than parallels. So far I like VMWare better, but time will tell....

Nuc

 

[Lancetx]

I've allocated 512MB (of 2GB total system RAM) and the performance is excellent, but I'm using Windows 2000 rather than XP or Vista though which is probably why. Vista for sure is definitely a resource hog.

 

[daneoni]

I've adjusted to 860MB, made parallels adjust reserve RAM automatically and carried out some "Speed up XP" tricks and i think performance is notceably better.

With firefox and iTunes open, the CPU is currently at 3%, page file is healthy as is RAM. No fans blasting...overall pretty good.