Parallels 3.0

rhazeman · #1 October 15th, 2007, 08:07 PM

I heard people say the Parallel 3.0 will significantly reduce a Powerbook/Macbook's performance. Is this true? If so, what are the alternative?

DeltaMac · #2 October 15th, 2007, 08:48 PM

No, not true, but for best performance you would use Windows natively, through a Boot Camp install.
So, a variety of choices.
Boot Camp, which you can only use Windows XP SP2 or a later Windows version.
Parallels, which supports installing around 3 dozen different guest operating systems, including just about every version of Windows or Linux, plus a few others. You don't boot into the operating system, but you run that guest OS while Parallels is open. It's a form of virtualized software, along with the third major choice - VMWare Fusion, which is similar to Parallels in a lot of ways.
Windows is quite nice on any of the above (Intel only) solutions.
But, you asked about powerbook/MacBook - and, of course, none of this applies to a Powerbook, which can't run Parallels, or any form of Windows without some heavy-duty software like VirtualPC, which does not give you anything approaching good performance from Windows (on a PowerPC processor, anyway).

These alternatives were also mentioned in the thread from the first time you asked a similar question in July?

**fryke** · #3 October 15th, 2007, 09:25 PM

The reason you might have heard performance goes down when Parallels (along with the whole Windows!) is running probably lies with RAM constraints. If, say, you have 1 GB of RAM, it can be quite low. Just think about it: Tiger on an intel Mac needs 640 MB RAM or it'll feel sluggish at best. This means Parallels (and Windows) can't take much more than 320 MB, which for Windows is rather low nowadays as well.

With 1.5 or 2 GB of RAM, however, things should be much better. And yeah: Look at this very forum, there are alternatives, and if you really asked the same thing in July: Look at your own threads first, please. :/

**mdnky** · #4 October 17th, 2007, 11:09 PM

I made the mistake of dropping the RAM settings for Parallels on my setup. Went from 1.25GB for XP Pro SP2 to 768MB. BIG DIFFERENCE in speed. Switched it back and performance was up again. Its now at 1GB and runs much better. Wouldn't suggest running anything lower. Amazing that 256MB makes that much of a difference.

ApeintheShell · #5 December 25th, 2007, 12:23 AM

I went out and bought Windows Vista Basic and it runs circles around Windows XP and XP Pro in performance and speed. I allot it approximately 1GB of ram in Parallels. We have two laptops with Windows XP Pro so anything below this amount just won't work. I do like the dots they use for loading Windows. Lets me know the computer is thinking about loading the system.