M1 (pro/max) parallels + visual studio

[JamesPet]

First day at work today, I'm super happy with the new Mac. I had a call with MS teams, parallels running in the background with a solution re-indexed by R#. Windows had 4 processors assigned 100% occupied, and the machine was almost cold, with no fans at all.

Before this was mission impossible for me, MS Teams would kill my mac. I'm quite busy the next few days but for sure will send you tests once I run them.

Also debugging is working well with no issues at all. In terms of extensions in VS I have resharper and TortoiseGit running

 

[iaj7]

First day at work today, I'm super happy with the new Mac. I had a call with MS teams, parallels running in the background with a solution re-indexed by R#. Windows had 4 processors assigned 100% occupied, and the machine was almost cold, with no fans at all.

Before this was mission impossible for me, MS Teams would kill my mac. I'm quite busy the next few days but for sure will send you tests once I run them.

Also debugging is working well with no issues at all. In terms of extensions in VS I have resharper and TortoiseGit running

Awesome, thanks for the insight -- this is really crucial for me since we are building x86 app in MS Visual Studio on Windows in my company also.
Is it laggy/sluggish in any way or is it running smoothly, coding in VS?

And SSMS also no problem?

I would pull the trigger on the 14" M1MAX maxed out -- should be pretty similar resultwise right?

Thanks

 

[x600]

First day at work today, I'm super happy with the new Mac. I had a call with MS teams, parallels running in the background with a solution re-indexed by R#. Windows had 4 processors assigned 100% occupied, and the machine was almost cold, with no fans at all.

Before this was mission impossible for me, MS Teams would kill my mac. I'm quite busy the next few days but for sure will send you tests once I run them.

Also debugging is working well with no issues at all. In terms of extensions in VS I have resharper and TortoiseGit running

Hi, thank you for sharing!

Could you give us a little bit more information about the overall performance, please in comparison to you previous machine?

I have to spec intel 16” and want to switch to new 16 max mainly due to proper keyboard and more battery life, but I really need some proof visual studio, sql server and solidworks are usable and not slower on new macs!

Many thanks!

 

[tonykchan]

First day at work today, I'm super happy with the new Mac. I had a call with MS teams, parallels running in the background with a solution re-indexed by R#. Windows had 4 processors assigned 100% occupied, and the machine was almost cold, with no fans at all.

Before this was mission impossible for me, MS Teams would kill my mac. I'm quite busy the next few days but for sure will send you tests once I run them.

Also debugging is working well with no issues at all. In terms of extensions in VS I have resharper and TortoiseGit running

This is very encouraging news! Hoping to receive my M1 MAX next week and will have a similar workflow as you w/ a legacy .NET 4.X project and also a Xamarin.Forms mobile app. Any specific reason you only dedicated 4 cores for your Windows VM? What's the max cpu/memory you can allocate in Parallels + M1 Max w/ 64GB Memory?

 

[skaro]

First day at work today, I'm super happy with the new Mac. I had a call with MS teams, parallels running in the background with a solution re-indexed by R#. Windows had 4 processors assigned 100% occupied, and the machine was almost cold, with no fans at all.

Before this was mission impossible for me, MS Teams would kill my mac. I'm quite busy the next few days but for sure will send you tests once I run them.

Also debugging is working well with no issues at all. In terms of extensions in VS I have resharper and TortoiseGit running

How much memory do You have assigned to your VM? I've used Parallels on both the M1 and now the M1 Pro and find that although Visual Studio 2019/2022 work, they're incredibly slow to load projects and debug - this is with quite a large .net 4 winforms app. I also find SSMS very slow to load but once open performance is similar to what it used to be in my Intel Parallels world.

 

[tonykchan]

How much memory do You have assigned to your VM? I've used Parallels on both the M1 and now the M1 Pro and find that although Visual Studio 2019/2022 work, they're incredibly slow to load projects and debug - this is with quite a large .net 4 winforms app. I also find SSMS very slow to load but once open performance is similar to what it used to be in my Intel Parallels world.

What are your M1 Pro specs and how do you have Parallels configured?

 

[skaro]

What are your M1 Pro specs and how do you have Parallels configured?

10 core CPU and 16 Core GPU with 16GB RAM. Parallels CPU is on auto and 8GB assigned. The VM itself is really fast and responsive, just Visual Studio (and to some extent SSMS) that's slow.

 

[tonykchan]

10 core CPU and 16 Core GPU with 16GB RAM. Parallels CPU is on auto and 8GB assigned. The VM itself is really fast and responsive, just Visual Studio (and to some extent SSMS) that's slow.

Ok, I wonder if it's related to the limited 8GB you have assigned to the VM. Is Parallels maxing out the memory usage being allocated?

 

[zarathu]

I’ve seen emulation speeds on an M1Pro using Parallels that put it at about a 7500 multi in Geekbench. This is as fast as 98% of Windows laptops.

 

[skaro]

Ok, I wonder if it's related to the limited 8GB you have assigned to the VM. Is Parallels maxing out the memory usage being allocated?

No, but this is also the same configuration I had on the VM on my previous Intel MacBook and it was near native to using a Windows machine. I suspect it's the x86 emulation layer in Windows on Arm that's the issue more than the Mac, I was just surprised you were getting such good performance out of Visual Studio.

 

[resonansphere]

10 core CPU and 16 Core GPU with 16GB RAM. Parallels CPU is on auto and 8GB assigned. The VM itself is really fast and responsive, just Visual Studio (and to some extent SSMS) that's slow.

If you don‘t mind, can you tell me the size of the hard drive?

 

[skaro]

If you don‘t mind, can you tell me the size of the hard drive?

Mac is 1TB, 256GB provisioned for Windows VM.

 

[JamesPet]

Hi guys

Sorry was off a few days and didn't have a chance to do some additional tests, but will do, I promise.

Today is my second day at work with the new laptop and I've been spent at least 8 hours in VS parallels.

First of all heath - no heath at all, whatever I do the laptop is the worst-case scenario lukewarm.

Battery - it lasts from 8:30 to 2pm. I know this is far from what Apple advertises but with my Intel one the battery would last 2hours tops

I've been using MS SQL, VS, powerbi - everything runs with decent speed, no issues with debugging. Although I need to turn off R#. I think the speed of windows is similar to my Intel 16" but, I can actually use my laptop. Debugging with MS teams was a mission impossible for me before. Now it works in parallel without any issue

It is 32cores MAX with 64gb if ram.

Memory load

CPU - while VS is compiling a solution

 

[x600]

Hi guys

Sorry was off a few days and didn't have a chance to do some additional tests, but will do, I promise.

Today is my second day at work with the new laptop and I've been spent at least 8 hours in VS parallels.

First of all heath - no heath at all, whatever I do the laptop is the worst-case scenario lukewarm.

Battery - it lasts from 8:30 to 2pm. I know this is far from what Apple advertises but with my Intel one the battery would last 2hours tops

I've been using MS SQL, VS, powerbi - everything runs with decent speed, no issues with debugging. Although I need to turn off R#. I think the speed of windows is similar to my Intel 16" but, I can actually use my laptop. Debugging with MS teams was a mission impossible for me before. Now it works in parallel without any issue

It is 32cores MAX with 64gb if ram.

View attachment 1906589

Memory load
View attachment 1906590

CPU - while VS is compiling a solution
View attachment 1906596
View attachment 1906597
View attachment 1906611

Many thanks for the update!

Have you tried vs2022 yet? It feels more responsive on intel 16", maybe it will work even better on max?

 

[JeffN825]

I'm running VS 2022 on my Parallels VM on my 2.4Ghz i9 Macbook Pro 16 inch. With ReSharper it's very laggy. Trying to decide if an upgrade to the new M1 Max will hurt or help. It sounds like performance can be good on the new M1 Max for this scenario...but anyone know if it's better/worse than with an i9?

 

[JeffN825]

anyone?

 

[Conutz]

I'm running VS 2022 on my Parallels VM on my 2.4Ghz i9 Macbook Pro 16 inch. With ReSharper it's very laggy. Trying to decide if an upgrade to the new M1 Max will hurt or help. It sounds like performance can be good on the new M1 Max for this scenario...but anyone know if it's better/worse than with an i9?

I don’t have one, but I’m sure it can’t be worse – it’ll run cooler and quieter at the very least. And the OS support will just get better from here on out, i.e. more native and less emulation. My 2018 15” is always hot, bothered and laggy in Windows VMs (disabling auto graphics switching helps; running an external display just increases the hot-and-botheredness. I’m strongly considering an M1 Pro, just undecided on 14” or 16”…the 14” is so compact… I’m not sure the price delta between the Max and the Pro would be worth it for non-graphical tasks though.

 

[x600]

I don’t have one, but I’m sure it can’t be worse – it’ll run cooler and quieter at the very least. And the OS support will just get better from here on out, i.e. more native and less emulation. My 2018 15” is always hot, bothered and laggy in Windows VMs (disabling auto graphics switching helps; running an external display just increases the hot-and-botheredness. I’m strongly considering an M1 Pro, just undecided on 14” or 16”…the 14” is so compact… I’m not sure the price delta between the Max and the Pro would be worth it for non-graphical tasks though

anyone?

I’ve ordered max, arriving in early December. Will be able to test visual studio, sql server and solidworks.

Boiling my i9 16” for now

 

[x600]

 

[JamesPet]

I needed to turn of reshaper on Max 64gb ram. It slows down VS a lot. I would say performances are the same or maybe slightly better than i9. I’m still to do some actual tests with a stopwatch. But I guess it will just get faster with ARM VS in future.

But what you will gain is you will be able actually to use your mac while parallel is running. Due heat throttling o wasn t able to have parallels and Ms teams at the same time. Now what ever is happening in parallel mac bit is super snappy, no heating at all, no fans!!! You can actual close the lid without closing parallels and tomorrow morning the battery will have the same percentage. And the battery is amazing, it lasts for me from 9 to 2-3pm with parallels running all the time, numerous ms teams calls, loads of chrome opened tabs…

 

[JamesPet]

Alex is great but not 100% accrued. I have numerous Mvc asp.net 4.5 projects running on Max, parallels windows 11 and vs 2019 also debugger working without any issue

 

[x600]

Alex is great but not 100% accrued. I have numerous Mvc asp.net 4.5 projects running on Max, parallels windows 11 and vs 2019 also debugger working without any issue

That's really reassuring! I almost cancelled my new mac, but now i'm thinking to give it a chance if it is at least as good as i9 mac

 

[info.andreare]

Are your tests with Windows 11 ARM (Insider Preview) or with Windows 11 x64 (GA)?
Thanks

 

[JamesPet]

Inside preview

 

[JamesPet]

That's really reassuring! I almost cancelled my new mac, but now i'm thinking to give it a chance if it is at least as good as i9 mac

Honestly the windows bit is maybe slower, as I said still need to do tests with a stopwatch, but as I wrote you can use your laptop no issues at all while parallels runs. I unplugged my Mac on Friday afternoon, watched a few hours of Apple TV, came to work this morning and plugged in at 2pm. From Friday afternoon parallels was on )