Graphics in Virtualization: VMware Fusion vs. Parallels Desktop

[theapeman10]

hangon when you say you left the defaults with vmware - the directX mode driver is NOT enabled on the vmware virtual machine you have to tick it for windows VM - your link page page has ZERO info - you haven't said the anything hardware specs and you haven't said the virtual machine config settings - pretty useless comparison without proper technical information - sounds fishy.

[PCEggo]

Fusion: owned

[hraqhraq]

Thank you very much for this video.

[voodoovoodooo]

VMWare Fusion makes EMC2 looks bad.....

[SniperLi0n]

this is a pretty comprehensive video in my opinion -- this is exactly the kind of questions i find myself wondering too!

thanks for the upload of this video! :)

[emilner5]

Which is the best way to run Windows 2000 on a Mac? Windows 2000 doesn't work on BootCamp. I'd say Parallels, and as far as games, not too many.

[adaliu7]

can you compare the new VMware 3.1 since it is indicating significantly faster than its previous version 3.0

[ebutuoyjg]

thanks this was helpful, but could you possibly now go a step further and show us the same kind of thing but comparing a pc with an honestly similiar build to a mac running in virtualization? not to try to test which is better per se, but just so that we can see what exactly we are missing out on.

thanks

[piccioneITA]

Why wast time on VM for play when you can use Wine/Bottler!!

one exemple?

SPORE, EVE-ONLINE etc...

all working on wine...

[jruddock]

I've tried both - honestly both work fantastic for your everyday Windows apps.

But despite what both manufacturers say, neither work sufficiently for any serious gaming. Sure Solitaire and Minesweeper work fine, and many older games run "ok" - but you're not going to run Modern Warfare, GTA or Bioshock and get a satisfactory experience.

To run your games on a Mac just reboot into a Windows partition using Bootcamp. All the games will then work flawless at 100% the frame rate you would expect.

[leobaby]

Why did you decide to leave the menu bar on in vmware?

[mactechlive]

See below. That's not the menu bar -- it's VMware's default state for when you are doing full screen. It's the VMware "menu" for controlling it. (BTW: A nice feature in my opinion.)

[leobaby]

Yes, we all know it is default because VMware doesn't want newbies stuck in full screen. Are you in this category? On, Auto, Off. The question is why did you leave it on? Would you not want to eliminate even the most obvious variable differences to make you conclusions more trustworthy?

It looks and smells funny. Which makes it curious you didn't detail the guest operating systems.

Guest Tools?

Why XP? 32bit?

Results under Win 7????

I see notification for updates, did you update XP?

[mactechlive]

@Leobaby: check out the full article for the answer to your questions. In short, however, we stuck with defaults of VMware because by selecting that as the default, VMware is indicating that's how they want to be perceived by most.

[dertbox]

Looks to me like someone forgot to update the gfx card drivers on the VM mac.

[mactechlive]

Nope. No drivers necessary on this type of installation.

[weirdo666666]

To me they both look rather choppy, especially towards the end though that might be because you're using laptops rather than the powerhouse gaming rigs some of these graphics might have been intended for. Also no matter what you're doing, a virtual machine will have inferior performance to being the normal os.

[mactechlive]

So, for some things, both were choppy. For several things, however, Parallels was very "playable". Obviously, BootCamp would do better, but for a casual gaming experience it was pretty amazing to see what virtualization can do.

[geekmorgan]

Looks like the OS X Dock is showing on the left machine, also some other window is at the top. is this screwing up the video performance?

[mactechlive]

Not sure what you are seeing about a dock on the left - but the Mac OS X dock is definitely not showing. And the small menu bar at the top of the VMware machine is part of VMware when it's in full screen mode.

[geekmorgan]

At about 2:55, something pops up on the bottom of the screen. A trapezoid. Its shaped like the dock but its hard to tell since its overexposed.

[mactechlive]

Ah. That's part of 3DMark06. Inside that are a bunch of measurements (which the video camera washes out on). In the case of Parallels, that test has it displaying just below the bottom of the screen (see how VMware displays it narrower with the wider black bars). I make a comment about this at one point in the video. But again, while this is done with 3DMark, it's consistent with what we saw on real games. See the full article for more info.

[geekmorgan]

Cool, thanks for clarifying. You've made it really easy to choose between VMWare and Parallels ;-)

[Apache2400]

thanks

[drbackjack]

Glad I don't own a mac.

[MakolFromFP]

do Boot Camp vs. Parallels Desktop.

[weirdo666666]

@MakolFromFP Thats not even a contest.

[HanZie82]

I do not own an macbook, but i have a notebook. Wich has some cooling ports on the left side.

I was wondering were they are on these notebooks, because if they do not cool good enough it would influence the test.

For the rest very nice test, and very clearely explained...

[mactechlive]

The machines were well ventilated and cooling should not be an issue on these tests.

[HanZie82]

Thank you, for your answer.

Was really wondering about this, because heat is a real issue with smaller computing devices.

But as you said with sufficient ventilation there should be no problem.

[tdreamgmail]

my comment goes here

[zainil0]

Could you do a test between Parallels and Boot Camp?

[CRAKIZGOOD]

this is on engadget btw

[tdreamgmail]

This test is like asking which one is the shinier turd?

At the end of the day it's still a piece of turd.

Also what's with the stylised commentary? Wisps of snow, give me a break....

One is rendering like a slideshow and one isn't even rendering at all.

Gaming on the mac is a complete joke compared to the PC.

[yNeville]

what about these 2 vs each other for software other then games.. like general speed and application load times etc

[outaru]

even though I dont usually play games on my mac I dissed VMware fusion since I used parallels

[FrankCashio]

You could spend 80$ on this or just buy a copy of windows 7 for 10$ bucks more and actually do everything.

[CRAKIZGOOD]

10$ ?

where

[Eeieeioo93]

I think your mistaken. This software still requires a copy of windows if you wish to virtualize that OS on a mac. You do not get a copy of windows with VMware Fusion or Parallels.

[kaiban42]

that was very useful as i have tried both products over the years for myself and my customers. thanks.

[mike3k]

VMWare Fusion is completely unusable on my MacBook, but Parallels runs acceptably. With VMWare, the MacBook locks up for several seconds at a time and everything slows to a crawl. Not so with Parallels.

[edwinhawthorne]

How does this compare with the new VMware Fusion 3.1 Beta?

[mactechlive]

Well, 3.1 Beta just came out, and it is still beta. This was shot prior to beta.

[AstAMoore]

@edwinhawthorne I have tried this very same benchmark under Fusion 3.1 (release version) and the experience is the same, unfortunately. I have noticed no improvement on the graphics side.

[arnantrsyd]

How about running anything remotely useful for any length of time? I've always found Parallels to sacrifice stability to be that little bit faster, or add some feature that doesn't quite work as well as their competitor.

I'll stick with Fusion - it might not run some games as well as Parallels (yet) but it's rock solid, and that's more important to me.

[mactechlive]

Interesting thought. Not sure if we have time to do it, but what kind of remote things are you thinking about?

[arnantrsyd]

'Remotely' as in office products, development IDEs & server environments - not as in running something remotely. Sorry about that - I should have chosen my words more carefully.

[kirillkokorin]

Nice!

[ownedaxis]

Parallels is better than VMware in everything, not just'a 3D graphics.

[NowTrendingJon]

Parallels Desktop 5 really kicks VMWare's butt!