BootCamp vs VMware Fusion vs Parallels Desktop vs CrossOver

[antony]

Cnet Labs (Crave) published benchmark result of Windows performance on the Mac. They tested Apple's own Boot Camp (public beta), VMware Fusion 1.0, Parallels Desktop 3.0 and CrossOver Mac 6.0 which based on open-source API, Wine.

Without a doubt, boot into Windows directly (via Boot Camp) gives the best performance.

Between VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop, VMware Fusion supports multi-core, hence higher performance, however, Quake 4 only runs on Parallels Desktop.

More detail at http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9760910-1.html

[Mrious_be]

QUOTE(antony @ Aug 19 2007, 06:56 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Between VMware Fusion and Parallels Desktop, VMware Fusion supports multi-core, hence higher performance (...)

For a moment you had me believe Apple's Boot Camp did not support multi-corre, but it does
Interesting test, not to long winded to read but still I guess they took most important aspects in mind.

[chriskleeman]

The prevailing wisdom at this point from folks in the Parallels forum are leading me to try Boot Camp for my daughter's specific needs. As in a previous post, she needs to connect from a USB enabled MIDI driver, which is only recognized by certain versions of Windows. Their point is that there should be none of the USB connectivity issues with Boot Camp that have sometimes plagued both Fusion and Parallels.

I have a 500 GB backup drive for her MacBook Pro and I am considering installing Windows on a cloned version of her drive instead of directly on her MacBook drive. That way, if something gets hosed, then her MacBook would still be operational.

Chris K

[Paddy]

Speed tests aside, what you're planning on doing with Windows on the Mac is really the determining factor on what method/software to choose. I use Parallels for the following: testing web site designs on Windows browsers and opening Publisher documents and saving them as PDFs for various web sites. At the moment, I don't use it for much else. Both of those things are pretty much necessary for me, but neither require a lot of speed. What they do require is convenience - hence my choice of Parallels. I can do quick checks on sites, convert a Publisher doc to PDF and then flip back into OS X immediately. Or go back and forth...all without shutting anything down or waiting for something to boot up.

For Chris' daughter, it sounds like Bootcamp is the way to go. For anyone who wants to run a few non-Mac games, it's probably also the answer. But as for all those media-related things they used to test the speed of the various options...who'd want to do that in Windows?? Not me!

[Paddy]

Chris, your post left me wondering if it was actually possible to boot Windows from an external drive using Bootcamp. It would appear that it isn't quite so easy (and some conclude, impossible.) Apple quite clearly states that BootCamp will only run on INTERNAL drives. However, that hasn't stopped people from trying:

http://guides.macrumors.com/Boot_Camp_Wind..._External_Drive
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?m...58&#4814258
http://forum.onmac.net/showthread.php?t=1015
http://forums.macnn.com/104/alternative-op...n-external-hdd/

What is clear is that you can't do it simply by cloning your internal HD to an external!

So, unless you want to really muck about, it's probably best to just use BootCamp as instructed by Apple.

[chriskleeman]

Hi Paddy,

Thanks for that info! I may or may not be able to get this done out here in California before I leave back to Vermont on Thursday.

I'm just very paranoid about installing Windows on her MacBook for obvious reasons. But, if that's the only way, so be it, I'll be burning the midnight oil tomorrow night before I leave to go back.

I'm thinking I might make her wait until Thanksgiving to do this, as we will be here for almost a week and I can tweak her computer while I'm here for a longer period. I'd hate to install all this stuff tomorrow and then try to diagnose problems long distance. She's not very patient, and frankly, spoiled by her Dad who can fix most things on her computers thanks to all of the great folks here at TS!!!  

So much uncharted territory, so little time...

Chris K