I have a Mac Pro 8-core 3.0 GHz with 16 GB RAM on the way. One of the things I need to do on it involves testing Flash games under various Windows setups. I'd like to hit the ground running and am trying to decide whether to order Parallels or VMware for this. I hope that some of you who are using Parallels or VMware can read my needs below and comment on how either package might or might not meet them.
My needs are:
--Bug testing Flash games under different Windows versions/browsers/Flash player versions - I need the Flash games to play as close as possible to the way they'd play naively under Windows, including running at close to the same speed.
--Running multiple VM's at once (Win 98, Win2000, WinXP, Vista) with little to no slowdown of each VM or of the main OS. Does Parallels or VMware take advantage of multiple cores better? Can my 8-core 3.0 GHz with 16 GB RAM handle running OS X plus 3 or 4 (mostly idle) Windows OS's without too much slowdown?
--Would be nice (but not absolutely necessary) if I could simulate a virtual test machine on a specified set of hardware: i.e., "how would this run on Windows XP on a Pentium 4 2.0 GHz with 1 GB RAM?" Limit the VM's performance as if it were running on that set of hardware. Alert me if the system is falling behind and simulating the VM slower than it would run naively on that set of hardware.
My needs are:
--Bug testing Flash games under different Windows versions/browsers/Flash player versions - I need the Flash games to play as close as possible to the way they'd play naively under Windows, including running at close to the same speed.
--Running multiple VM's at once (Win 98, Win2000, WinXP, Vista) with little to no slowdown of each VM or of the main OS. Does Parallels or VMware take advantage of multiple cores better? Can my 8-core 3.0 GHz with 16 GB RAM handle running OS X plus 3 or 4 (mostly idle) Windows OS's without too much slowdown?
--Would be nice (but not absolutely necessary) if I could simulate a virtual test machine on a specified set of hardware: i.e., "how would this run on Windows XP on a Pentium 4 2.0 GHz with 1 GB RAM?" Limit the VM's performance as if it were running on that set of hardware. Alert me if the system is falling behind and simulating the VM slower than it would run naively on that set of hardware.
