Which is better, VM Fusion or Parallels?

which one of these emulation packages are currently better and should stay on top?
does one run more window apps than the other?

Click here and select the one which best fits your needs.
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Which is better (Boot Camp) or (Parallel / VMware Fusion)???

Hi guys,
I want to install Windows along OS X...
now what is better?
to install Windows via Boot Camp or via Parallel / VMware fusion??
and if through one of the virtual machine softwares, which is BETTER?? the Parallel for Desktop or the VMware fusion one???
Thank you

Guitarcal wrote:
I use both boot camp and vmware fusion. A neat feature of vmware fusion is you can access your boot camp partition as a virtual machine from vmware. This way, you can have both. I believe parallels might also let you do that but I have never used it. This has been helpful to me if I need to access a file from the boot camp partition quickly and easily without rebooting my computer.
I agree with dwb that xp is probably going to be the best os to run through a virtualization software.
I honestly don't think you can go wrong with either parallels or vmware fusion. There is also a FREE software package created by sun called VirtualBox.
Here is the link to there home page: http://www.virtualbox.org/
I hear and read that it is excellent as well.
Hope this helps.
I just installed parallels and you can use your bootcamp partition for the vm with parallels as well. Its pretty slick. Use it for light applications with parallel, reboot to bootcamp for graphics intensive ones.
Cheers.

I want to use microsoft office on my mac. I need it to run on windows platform. Which is better: boot camp or parallels 7 ?

I want to use microsoft office on my mac. I need it to run on windows platform. Which is better: boot camp or parallels 7 ?

Welcome to Apple Communities
You can install Office for Mac. If you don't want it, Boot Camp uses all the hardware, so it has the best performance for Windows, and Parallels allows you to run Windows in Mac without reboot and without Boot Camp. To use only this, download Parallels

Paralles vs Fusion which is better for PC gaming?

Has anyone used either of these platforms for gaming and which do you think works better. Sounds like parallels since it appears faster, based on the discussions on this board, but curious.
Thanks.

I assume you are asking for the intention of running this on an MBA? Either one is going to be terrible on the MBA for any sort of 3D gaming. This machine is really not what you want for playing games.

Which performs better for windows development, bootcamp or parallels?

I have an imac at home and am using parallels to host a w7 vm, wherein I do some web and db development. It is quite sluggish at times. I think i may need to tweak the config to perhaps allocate more ram to it but i'm not sure. I just picked up a macbook pro gen2 i7 and before I install a w7 vm or parttition i was wondering which is better, parallels or bootcamp? I do like the interactivity that parallels gives me with respect to files between the w7 vm and lion, but am wondering it that is perhaps the achilles heal when it comes to performance.
what's the preferred route by other developers out there?
Thanks!

that's what i thought. thanks for confirming. it sounds like i might be able to use parallels ALSO later on to access the windows bootcamp partition, based on reading another thread.

Which is better to run Quicken for Windows - Parallels or CrossOver?

I have the latest version of Parallels Desktop 8 for Macintosh. I use Windows Vista Home Edition with it. The only Windows program I need to run is Quicken 2013 Deluxe for Windows which runs a little slow on Parallels. Does anyone know if the latest version of CrossOver would allow the Quicken program to run quicker? The CrossOver site says it runs Windows programs natively on the Mac. Does natively mean quicker? I'd rather not clog up my computer with Windows if I don't need it.

I'm designing a form that will act as a full screen menu to control access to a large number of forms & reports. Since call_form & run_report_object search for forms & reports on Windows using the forms_path & reports_path I was considering using URLs and the web.show_document built-in to run each form & report from the menu form that was why I was asking if there are any advantages of one method over another.

VMware Fusion vs Parallels Desktop 3.0

i want to run Windows XP or Windows Vista on my mac.
which among VMware Fusion and Parallels would be a much better program/software to buy?
what are the pros & cons of each?
should i buy now or would waiting for Leopard's release (with a new Boot Camp version) be much better?
thanks.

I have Parallels installed on my wife's MacBook and I have Fusion installed on mine. I think if you are using it in a home environment, Parallels would be better as it's snazzier in it's implementation. But for a work type environment, I would recommend Fusion. VMWare has lots of experience with virtualization, and if you have a Linux/Windows VM that is already built and configured, it would be quite easy to just port it over to Fusion to run.
Fusion is probably playing a bit of catch up with Parallels but eventually it will get there, and I expect them to overtake Parallels.
Both software has free trials, and I would recommend that you download both and try them out to see which one you would prefer.

What does it take to run Boot Camp, Fusion or Parallels

I am wondering about upgrading to Leopard to use Boot Camp, Fusion or Parallels. I have found that a significant amount of software that I want to run is not available in a Mac version. The other issue is that many programs I already have for Windows would be very expensive to replace with a Mac version. Thus I want to run a Windows operating system on my MacBook. I do not want to suffer from slow performance because the hardware is not robust enough. I would appreciate some honest chatter about what I need hardware wise to make this thing fly.
1 How much main memory should I have? I currently have 1GB.
2 How big should the hard drive be? I currently have a 75 GB drive with 45 GB available.
3 Anyone that has run Windows or runs both; am I simply better off buying a new HP and running Windows programs on a native Windows computer? I hate this alternative. However, I would rather use my computer than spend time trying to figure out why it is not working.
Thanx in advance

1. Parallels (and probably Fusion) should run in Tiger, though you would almost certainly want 2GB of RAM. With Leopard, 2GB would be the absolute minimum, I think, for Parallels and Fusion. With Leopard and Boot Camp, 1GB should not be a problem, but it shouldn't cost much to upgrade to 2GB which will be better.
2. Since you have 45GB available, you should be ok with Parallels or Fusion. With Boot Camp, you would probably be limited to about a 20GB Windows partition, but that is conceivably plenty. If you decide on Boot Camp, you would also want to back up your hard drive before installing Leopard, and then do an erase and install, not an upgrade or an archive and install, lest you both use too much disk space and/or run into the "some files could not be moved" problem. When installing Leopard, you may also want to select the option to not install languages and/or printer drivers, to save some disk space.
3. I don't see why you should buy an HP unless it has a graphics card and you feel you need a graphics card.
Boot Camp will run faster than Fusion or Parallels, but this is only relevant if your software is computation or resource intensive. Also, with Fusion or Parallels you would be limited to a smaller amount of Windows RAM, which, however, is also mainly relevant only if your software is memory intensive. With Boot Camp, you will get decent performance, but Leopard will take up more disk space, and Windows will require more disk space. This is why I supplied the disk-saving tip above, even though you don't currently have a lot of free disk space.

Boot Camp 2.1 ruined my fonts - Fusion or Parallels for CS3 - need help?

As Boot Camp 2.1 has been known to cause problems with Adobe Open Type fonts, I need to run Windows XP and Adobe Photoshop CS3 on a virtual machine.
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8414651#8414651
Which one would better suit my needs, Fusion or Parallels?
Thanks!

Trisha K:
Parallels and Fusion pretty much use the same principle to use Windows as a virtual machine. I use VMWare Fusion and it pretty much serves my needs as I only use it when I am logged into OSx and need to boot into Windows to run MS Office applications. I personally prefer running Windows natively with boot camp.
Please note that both Parallels and Fusion will share/split RAM with OSx. I am not sure how this will affect the overall performance of Adobe Photoshop. You may sacrifice some speed and performance while using Windows in a virtual machine environment.
Axel F.

Bootcamp or Fusion or Parallels

I need to prepare a tax return that requires a Windows only application. I will not use Windows for any other purpose other than using this program once a year. Do you recommend using Boot Camp, VMWare Fusion, or Parallels? If you have a preference, why? Which version of Windows should I use as well? Thank you everyone for your guidance.
Richard

I use Parallels. One year ago there was some distinction with Fusion and Parallels, but the Parallels team has not only caught up (with things like "coherence mode" where Windows feels like any other Mac application running on your system so your mouse and keyboard and clipboard etc are all shared) but it's even prettier.
I'd say the money on Parallels is very well spent. Don't buy it from their website. Get it from Amazon or search it on Froogle. It's fully worth what you are looking for (BootCamp will be a pain because you have to boot into Windows and cannot use Mac at the same time).
All the stuff the previous poster mentions about "negative reviews" about support and whatnot is history. Parallels is not the better of the two imho, but you won't go wrong with either.

VMWare Fusion and Parallels Desktop Benchmark Comparison

This is a quickie benchmark of VMWare Fusion and Parallels Desktop using Super PI, PC Mark 05, and Passmark.
VMWare Fusion 36932
Parallels Desktop 3094 Beta 2
Notes:
Both virtual machines were allocated with large 10+ GB virtual disks and 640MB of RAM. The VMWare CPU was configured with two processors. The Parallels CPU was configured with 1 (two is not available). VMWare reported the CPU as 1 physical, 2 logical processors running at 2.66 GHz while Parallels reported 1 physical, 1 logical processor running at 9.6 GHz (the combined speed of all four cores on the Mac Pro). The max observed CPU utilization in activity monitor when running under VMWare was 200% and max under Parallels was 173%.
I chose not to compare 1 VMWare CPU vs. 1 Parallels CPU. While Parallels does not support SMP or multithreaded processes on multiple processors the CPU utilization on the Mac went well above 1 core (173%). For this comparison, I wanted to see results of max processing based on what the two vendors have delivered, as opposed to benchmarking the underlying "virtual or hypervisor cpu" on a 1:1 basis. This explains why VMWare was 2x faster than Parallels on some CPU tests.
Both of these products are beta. VMWare is running in debug mode (can not be turned off in this beta).
Caveat emptor on these stats. This was an unscientific exercise to satisfy my curiosity. Some of the extraordinary differences are highlighted with <--.
Platform:
Mac Pro 2.66 GHz, 2GB RAM, Nvidia 7300GT
Disk 1 - OS X, 73GB Raptor
Disk 2 - dedicated disk where each virtual machine image was created separate from the OS or any OS-related virtual memory files.
VMWare and Parallels guest OS: Windows XP Professional, SP 2
Comparison Benchmrk
VMWare Fusion 36932 and Parallels Desktop 3094 Beta 2
Super PI Parallels VMWare
512K 8s 9s
1M 20s 21s
4M 1m 57s 2m 03s
PC Mark 05 Parallels VMWare
CPU Test Suite N/A N/A
Memory Test Suite N/A N/A
Graphics Test Suite N/A N/A
HDD Test Suite N/A N/A
HDD - XP Startup 5.0 MB/s 19.54 MB/s <--
Physics and 3D Test failed Test failed
Transparent Windows Test failed 69.99 Windows/s
3D - Pixel Shader Test failed Test failed
Web Page Rendering 3.58 Pages/s 2.34 Pages/s
File Decrypt 71.73 MB/s 67.05 MB/s
Graphics Memory - 64 Lines 179.92 FPS 111.73 FPS
HDD - General Usage 4.82 MB/s 42.01 MB/s <--
Multithread Test 1 / Audio Comp N/A N/A
Multithread Test 1 / Video Encoding Test failed Test failed
Multithread Test 2 / Text Edit 152.85 Pages/s 138.48 Pages/s
Multithread Test 2 / Image DeComp 5.91 MPixels/s 35.4 MPixels/s <--
Multithread Test 3 / File Comp 3.22 MB/s 6.03 MB/s
Multithread Test 3 / File Encrypt 19.0 MB/s 33.26 MB/s <--
Multithread Test 3 / HDD - Virus Scan 27.91 MB/s 25.49 MB/s
Multithread Test 3 / Mem Lat - Rnd 16MB 5.34 MAcc/s 6.63 MAcc/s
File Comp N/A N/A
File DeComp N/A N/A
File Encrypt N/A N/A
File Decrypt N/A N/A
Image DeComp N/A N/A
Audio Comp N/A N/A
Multithread Test 1 / File Comp N/A N/A
Multithread Test 1 / File Encrypt N/A N/A
Multithread Test 2 / File DeComp N/A N/A
Multithread Test 2 / File Decrypt N/A N/A
Multithread Test 2 / Audio DeComp N/A N/A
Multithread Test 2 / Image DeComp N/A N/A
Memory Read - 16 MB N/A N/A
Memory Read - 8 MB N/A N/A
Memory Read - 192 kB N/A N/A
Memory Read - 4 kB N/A N/A
Memory Write - 16 MB N/A N/A
Memory Write - 8 MB N/A N/A
Memory Write - 192 kB N/A N/A
Memory Write - 4 kB N/A N/A
Memory Copy - 16 MB N/A N/A
Memory Copy - 8 MB N/A N/A
Memory Copy - 192 kB N/A N/A
Memory Copy - 4 kB N/A N/A
Memory Lat - Rnd 16 MB N/A N/A
Memory Lat - Rnd 8 MB N/A N/A
Memory Lat - Rnd 192 kB N/A N/A
Memory Lat - Rnd 4 kB N/A N/A
Transparent Windows N/A N/A
Graphics Memory - 64 Lines N/A N/A
Graphics Memory - 128 Lines N/A N/A
WMV Video Playback N/A N/A
3D - Fill Rate Multi Texturing N/A N/A
3D - Polygon Throughput Multiple Lights N/A N/A
3D - Pixel Shader N/A N/A
3D - Vertex Shader N/A N/A
HDD - XP Startup N/A N/A
HDD - Application Loading N/A N/A
HDD - General Usage N/A N/A
HDD - Virus Scan N/A N/A
HDD - File Write N/A N/A
Processor Intel Core 2 9653 MHz Processor Unknown 2661 MHz
Physical / Logical CPUs "1 Physical, 1 Logical" "1 Physical, 2 Logical"
MultiCore 1 Processor Core Multicore 2 Processor Cores
HyperThreading N/A N/A
Graphics Card Generic VGA Generic VGA
Graphics Driver Parallels Video Driver VMWare SVGA II
Co-operative adapters No No
DirectX Version 9.0c 9.0c
System Memory 640 MB 640MB
Motherboard Manufacturer N/A Intel Corporation
Motherboard Model N/A 440BX Desktop Reference Platform
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Microsoft Windows XP
Passmark Parallels VMWare
CPU - Integer Math (MOPS) 112.35 230.31 <--
CPU - Floating Point Math (MOPS) 280.46 588.33 <--
CPU - Find Prime Numbers (OPS) 446.37 676.99 <--
CPU - SSE/3DNow! (MMPS) 2118.56 4737.13 <--
CPU - Comp (KB/s) 2994.16 5952.34 <--
CPU - Encrypt (MB/s) 18.09 36.27 <--
CPU - Image Rotation (IRPS) 598.21 1184.41 <--
CPU - String Sorting (TPS) 2118.81 3672.59 <--
Graphics 2D - Lines (TPS) 220.71 25.15 <--
Graphics 2D - Rectangles (TPS) 189.74 61.8 <--
Graphics 2D - Shapes (TPS) 39.54 13.71 <--
Graphics 2D - Fonts and Text (OPS) 190.39 75.88 <--
Graphics 2D - GUI (OPS) 439.77 63.72 <--
Memory - Allocate Small Block (MB/s) 2533.83 2526.21
Memory - Read Cached (MB/s) 1960.5 1906.27
Memory - Read Uncached (MB/s) 1871.79 1826.08
Memory - Write (MB/s) 1687.81 1545.43
Memory - Large RAM (OPS) 60.99 46.37
Disk - Sequential Read (MB/s) 102.11 76.45 <--
Disk - Sequential Write (MB/s) 58.33 50.9
Disk - Rnd Seek + RW (MB/s) 51.4 40.4
CPU Mark 711.08 1432.72 <--
2D Graphics Mark 743.31 176.5 <--
Memory Mark 599.94 580.38
Disk Mark 766.11 606.7
PassMark Rating 557.27 637.35 

Thanks for posting these numbers - it's an interesting comparison.
I would expect the final VMWare fusion performance numbers to be quite a bit better than that of Parallels - they have almost a decade's worth of experience more than the Parallels folks in this arena, and a much larger development team to boot.
Once VMWare Fusion is released to the public, I think that you'll see a clearer distinction between the two products. VMWare will continue to appeal to the professional customer, with a more robust feature set and corporate-friendly features (and a correspondingly higher price tag); Parallels will fall more into the consumer/VirtualPC-replacement market. It will be interesting to see how Parallels will be affected when (and if) VMWare player is ported to OS X.
Interesting about the Parallels performance stats on a native partition - looks like almost enough reason to avoid the bootcamp partition approach altogether. Sharing a native windows installation with a VM in parallels is a pretty scary situation in any case, as the two environments have entirely different hardware configurations. Do-able, but there is some black magic involved (if you want to see an example of what I mean, try to move a windows installation from one machine to another w/different hardware sometime - it ain't pretty); I wouldn't try this in a production scheme unless I had REALLY good backups.

VM Fusion and Parallels and even a Boot Camp question

I have both Fusion and Parallels installed and have a question about how Windows is displayed .
with Parallels, I get the usual Windows desktop and with Fusion I get a "menu" for navagating to different areas/programs/settings
What can I do to get Fusion to display the Windows desktop as Parallels does? I haven't used either enough to know which I prefer, but I can tell you one thing, I immediately disabled the internet connection for both. There is NO WAY I would ever connect to the 'net in Windows.
I actually think that after I get Leopard I will try installing Boot Camp just for comparisons sake. I will have to "slipstream" a disk with XP to include SP2, but the directions are pretty clear, if I read them really slowly.
I'd really like to hear from someone who has successfully "slipstreamed" a disk.
thanks

Sounds like you were using Fusion's Coherence mode to launch individual applications which some people prefer. But you should have first had Windows desktop.
http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/desktop/fusion

I wonder which is better

I wonder which is better - Airport Extreme or Time Capsule for use at home. I have a year old Macbook Pro (10.8 OS), am getting a new Macbook Air for use at work, and will be adding a second ipad. Originally iI was researching to find an exgternal backup, but the Extreme sounds interesting.

Install under BootCamp and you need to alter the boot sector of the drive. Also you cannot create any more partitions.
But Parallels can use the BootCamp Windows as is "image", giving you the choice of "how to use it when".

In session and call tansaction methods, which is better . why?

hi
in session and call tansaction methods, which is better . why?

see the link:
<a href="http://www.itcserver.com/blog/2006/06/30/batch-input-vs-call-transaction/">batch inpunt VS call transaction</a>
"The most important aspects of the session interface are:
Asynchronous processing
Transfer data for multiple transactions
Synchronous database update. During processing, no transaction is started until the previous transaction has been written to the database.
A batch input processing log is generated for each session
Sessions cannot be generated in parallel. The batch input program must not open a session until it has closed the preceding session.
The most important features of CALL TRANSACTION USING are:
Synchronous processing
Transfer of data from an individual transaction each time the statement CALL TRANSACTION USING is called
You can update the database both synchronously and asynchronously. The program specifies the update type.
Separate LUW (Logical Units of Work) for the transaction. The system executes a database commit immediately before and after the CALL TRANSACTION USING statement.
No batch input processing log"
I hope I have been able to help you.
cordial greetings.

What USB 3.0 card should I get for early 2009 Mac Pro so I can connect the Drobo 5D? They say get CalDigit or Sonnet. Anyone have preference or experience with reliability. Trying to find which is better.

What USB 3.0 card should I get for early 2009 Mac Pro so I can connect the Drobo 5D? They say get CalDigit or Sonnet. Anyone have preference or experience with reliability with this. I am running Lion and Trying to find which is better as I know from experience not all cards are created equal. Thanks in advance for your help!

yakov536 wrote:
High Point RocketU Quad USB 3.0 for Mac is working great for me. Had an issue with CD/DVD Drive which was resolved with most current driver downloaded from the support site.
Running Moutain Lion on Early 2009, mirroring two Seagate Go Flex 2TB USB 3.0 Drives. Installed in Slot 4.
Using it primarily with VMWare Fusion for Virtual Drives. Windows, Unbuntu and other OS running really well.
HPT Support was responsive and very helpfull using the WEB Portal under the product page.
I have some comments and a suggestion:
Have you tried your setup with a SD/CF combo card reader (like the Lexar or Kingston FCR-H63)? Does the card appear on the desktop when first plugged in?
Did you need to fool around with any kind of power issues in installing this card in the x4 PCIe slot of the MacPro?
Suggestion. Have you tried one of the fixed in this article to cure the BT issues in MacPro 3,1?
Good luck.
Henry

Which is better, VM Fusion or Parallels?

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