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iomatic · Nov 4, 2006, 04:07 PM

Any experiences, benchmarks, comparisons to Virtual PC would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

mduell · Nov 4, 2006, 04:33 PM

For CPU-bound stuff, it's going to be dramatically faster. Still no 3D games.

iomatic · Nov 4, 2006, 05:36 PM

Sweet. I'll just be testing IE 5.5, 6, 7. It was so bad in VPC, I deleted it off my 2GB 1.67 HR/DL PowerBook.

BkueKanoodle · Nov 7, 2006, 01:59 AM

Originally Posted by iomatic

Sweet. I'll just be testing IE 5.5, 6, 7. It was so bad in VPC, I deleted it off my 2GB 1.67 HR/DL PowerBook.

The difference is night and day. I've been back on a mac for 4 years nw, but unfortunately I admin windows at work so I did need windows for some stuff. I spent a fortune every couple of months buying new apple hardware trying to eke the last little bit of performance out of VPC.

Once I got a macbook pro 1.83 in April (I ordered it the day somebody managed to get windows running on it - pre bootcamp) i have been happier then a clam. A few weeks later when parallels came out for beta testing my world was complete.

Since then, I've watched each speed bump that apple has given the MB and MBP as well as the C2D upgrade, but have yet to feel a need to upgrade to gain a few MHZ like I used to on VPC. This is the longest I've ever owen a singe Apple laptop and I can honestly say it is because Parallels offers all the speed I need. (I don't game)

Cold Warrior · Nov 9, 2006, 11:51 PM

Parallels is working very well for me on a new 15" 2.16 C2D 2GB RAM 160GB HD. XP pro boot times are quick, and the OS is smooth, responsive, and capable. I'm very pleased.

iomatic · Nov 12, 2006, 01:01 AM

Parallels installs some extra network ports? Is this necessary?

Strupat · Nov 15, 2006, 10:39 PM

Parallels is similar to the Wine 'emulator' that has been available on many Linux distributions for a while now. Look it up to find out why this 'new' technology is almost as fast as running a program natively.

Atheist · 11:15 PM

Originally Posted by Strupat

Parallels is similar to the Wine 'emulator' that has been available on many Linux distributions for a while now. Look it up to find out why this 'new' technology is almost as fast as running a program natively.

Strupat, you may want to check your facts. Wine and Parallels are two entirely different things. Wine emulates the Windows API whereas Parallels is a hardware emulator.

But to answer the OP, Parallels on my MacBook is awesome. Performance is exceptional, networking works flawlessly. I'm very happy!

mduell · Nov 25, 2006, 06:18 PM

Originally Posted by Atheist

Strupat, you may want to check your facts. Wine and Parallels are two entirely different things. Wine emulates the Windows API

No it doesn't! Hence the name Wine is not an emulator.

Atheist · Nov 25, 2006, 06:30 PM

Originally Posted by mduell

No it doesn't! Hence the name Wine is not an emulator.

Forgive me... it implements the windows API. Regardless, it's entirely different than Parallels.

ghporter · Nov 26, 2006, 09:59 AM

WINE implements the Windows API, or at least most of it. In doing so, it allows some Windows programs to run under Linux (or OS X) seamlessly. Not all programs are seamless, though, since not all of the API is what you'd call "perfectly" implemented. Frankly, the Windows API is so convoluted that Microsoft doesn't seem to understand all of it, and thus they keep coming out with new ways for programmers to use it, such as the ".NET Framework" and the like.

So anyway... Parallels does different things from WINE and vice versa. They both have their uses and are both good choices for their particular strengths.