VMWare Fusion 3 vs Parallels 5

[Kmax82]

So looks as if Parallels has just released their flagship v5 to combat Fusion 3. I'm curious to know what everyone else thinks about these two?

I've tested both on a Windows XP VM, clean installed on each VM with the system specs below. (I will try and test Windows 7, but haven't had time to run it through it's paces)

Nothing earth shattering, but simply while running one instance of IE and downloading a file... I was seeing:

Parallels 5: 5-25% CPU
Fusion v3: .3-1% CPU

Dramatic difference there.

I tried the new Left 4 Dead 2 demo on Steam on both installs and Parallels looked graphically better, but was not playable (stutter, stutter, stutter). Fusion 3 had major graphical issues with it and was just as stuttery as Parallels.

I'm kinda back and forth on this, but I think the biggest thing that will keep me with Fusion 3 is the fact I mainly use my VM for web development. I can keep Fusion 3 running in the background and not even notice that it's using any resources. It sits there completely idle, while Parallels 5 is constantly grabbing resources for who knows what.

So this round, for me, goes to Fusion 3.

What's your experience?

 

[Kaido]

I can tell you my history:

1. I was a big fan of Parallels when it first came out, because it was the only game in town and it was amazing! Parallels 2 was also excellent.

2. Parallels 3 was terrible. Super buggy for me. VMware Fusion came out - not as many features, but super super super reliable. SUPER reliable. So much so, that I ditched my Windows desktop rig. I run two VMware sessions of Windows XP 24/7 with NO problems. Parallels 4 also proved buggy for me.

3. Parallels has more bells & whistles than VMware, but VMware has more stability - at least in my experience. I haven't had any crashes from VMware 2.x onward. VMware has a lot of history & experience in VM's, and their products show. It's the most stable Windows machine I've ever had

4. I just upgraded to VMware 3.0. It's VERY fast. Installation is fast, and it runs very very nicely on my Mac rig (Quad Hackintosh). Again, not a lot of frills, but very stable. The only quirk I've noticed is that my VM image was huge (20gb), but shrinking inside XP (using the VMware tooltray app) shrunk it down to 5 gigs. Stable & fast overall.

5. I believe starting with version 4, Parallels required VT-X, while VMware does not. If you don't have VT-X, that's kind of a big deal. I'm not sure if Parallels can actually run on non-VT-X CPUs or not.

My two XP SP3 VMs are as follows:

1. Single-core, 2gb ram (sandbox - for testing)
2. Dual-core, 3gb ram (for work/school)

Then OS X has 2 cores plus 5 gigs of RAM. Currently I just keep everything on a single Samsung F1 1TB hard drive and backup using Time Machine & SuperDuper. I'm extremely pleased with this setup.

 

[jalaram]

Have you tried Fusion with only 1GB of Ram? I just ordered a refurb Mac Mini and it only has 1GB of RAM on it.

 

[Kaido]

Have you tried Fusion with only 1GB of Ram? I just ordered a refurb Mac Mini and it only has 1GB of RAM on it.

Well, it's more of a matter of how you partition the RAM: when you setup the virtual machine, you actually specify how many megabytes or gigabytes of memory you want to partition for it. So if you give your Virtual Machine 512 megs of memory, then OS X only gets 512 megs of memory because that's all that is leftover. XP can run decently well on 512 megs, but OS X is a memory hog and loves eating memory for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I wouldn't run OS X on less than 2 gigs on its own, and in fact all of my OS X rigs have 4 gigs, with the exception of my Media Center which only has 2 gigs (I should note that these are all hacks, so memory is cheap, hehe). I would suggest upgrading to 2 gigs or even 4 gigs of memory in your Mini. Memory is the best performance investment you can make in a Mac. Even doing 2 gigs, and then giving XP 1 gig, would be really great. Or 512mb for XP and 1.5gb for Mac. Play with it and see what works. But 512/512 would be kinda slow. Usuable, but not an optimal experience. I'd say buy that $20 AR VMware Fusion 2, and use the money you would have spent on the new v3 to upgrade to at least 2 gigs of memory!

 

[Kmax82]

I installed Windows 7 and I've been messing around with that, and to be honest it's just about as snappy as Windows XP. I'm impressed.

[tangent]
Anyway, I went to do the Windows Experience Test, and watched Activity Monitor while it was going on. It never went above 15% CPU usage. However, I had Adobe Flash CS4 running in the background (doing nothing, only had one file open).. at idle, hidden, it was using 12% of my CPU. Ugh.. just further reiterates how much I hate Flash. A WHOLE VIRTUALIZED VM is using less resources than your native OS X app? Really? Wow...
[/end tangent]

 

[Kaido]

I installed Windows 7 and I've been messing around with that, and to be honest it's just about as snappy as Windows XP. I'm impressed.

[tangent]
Anyway, I went to do the Windows Experience Test, and watched Activity Monitor while it was going on. It never went above 15% CPU usage. However, I had Adobe Flash CS4 running in the background (doing nothing, only had one file open).. at idle, hidden, it was using 12% of my CPU. Ugh.. just further reiterates how much I hate Flash. A WHOLE VIRTUALIZED VM is using less resources than your native OS X app? Really? Wow...
[/end tangent]

Yeah, 7 is surprisingly nice. I personally don't care for the Vista-style GUI, but I can't argue with the speed - it's nice! Stability is pretty good too.

I also lol @ Adobe - they posted this message for iPhone users:

http://images.macworld.com/images/news/graphics/143610-flashiphone_original.png

And yet their Flash player runs like CRAP on Snow Leopard - my Safari crashes every day because of Flash, or it pops up a message that says "Flash quit working" They just need to optimize Flash, like they did with the new Adobe Reader for Windows (stellar job on that, by the way - I'm glad it doesn't bog down my system anymore when I open a PDF on Windows lol).

 

[fatpat268]

I installed Windows 7 and I've been messing around with that, and to be honest it's just about as snappy as Windows XP. I'm impressed.

[tangent]
Anyway, I went to do the Windows Experience Test, and watched Activity Monitor while it was going on. It never went above 15% CPU usage. However, I had Adobe Flash CS4 running in the background (doing nothing, only had one file open).. at idle, hidden, it was using 12% of my CPU. Ugh.. just further reiterates how much I hate Flash. A WHOLE VIRTUALIZED VM is using less resources than your native OS X app? Really? Wow...
[/end tangent]

I'm not surprised... any little bit of youtube or hulu, and my temps will jump up to 70-80F at default fan settings. The CPU is working way too hard it seems.

Never gets that hot when I'm in bootcamp watching youtube.

 

[Parasitic]

Have you tried Fusion with only 1GB of Ram? I just ordered a refurb Mac Mini and it only has 1GB of RAM on it.

Did the refurb mini arrive yet? Chances are you're in for a small surprise

 

[TheStu]

I'm not surprised... any little bit of youtube or hulu, and my temps will jump up to 70-80F at default fan settings. The CPU is working way too hard it seems.

Never gets that hot when I'm in bootcamp watching youtube.

Are you sure you mean 70-80F? That would be absolutely insane if your load temp is room temperature. I think you mean 70-80C, which is also a more likely number if Flash is involved. 80C being about 180F if my mental math is right

 

[Kaido]

Are you sure you mean 70-80F? That would be absolutely insane if your load temp is room temperature. I think you mean 70-80C, which is also a more likely number if Flash is involved. 80C being about 180F if my mental math is right

My Mac Mini would max out at 84C on load, and it was fine. 90C is a little toasty tho :biggrin:

 

[fatpat268]

Are you sure you mean 70-80F? That would be absolutely insane if your load temp is room temperature. I think you mean 70-80C, which is also a more likely number if Flash is involved. 80C being about 180F if my mental math is right

Yea, I meant 70-80C. Not sure why I said F.

 

[tonyyy]

I personally like VMWARE and the community/support is great. I had zero problems using fusion 3 and I love suspending/resuming my VM's when in the background. Alot faster then having to start up a VM when I have to do something for work. I did try starcraft for gaming which worked fine but I had problems dropping out of a LAN game with my brother.

 

[jalaram]

Fusion v2 Educational is supposed to be Newegg's PM deal today. I didn't even realize there was an Edu version of Fusion. Only students and teachers then?

[Edit] - N/m

*** This special deal is a full version of VMware 2 and is open to all customers, not just students. ***

 

[fatpat268]

Fusion v2 Educational is supposed to be Newegg's PM deal today. I didn't even realize there was an Edu version of Fusion. Only students and teachers then?

[Edit] - N/m

There's a free upgrade to fusion 3 on NewEgg if you buy fusion v2 before 11/30. Now, this rebate doesn't specify what retailer, so you can presumably buy Fusion v2 for $29 at amazon and upgrade to v3 for free.

 

[InverseOfNeo]

There's a free upgrade to fusion 3 on NewEgg if you buy fusion v2 before 11/30. Now, this rebate doesn't specify what retailer, so you can presumably buy Fusion v2 for $29 at amazon and upgrade to v3 for free.

Looks like it is a VMWare rebate, not a NewEgg rebate. Nowhere does it say you need to purchase it at a specific retailer. Almost sounds too good to be true.

 

[jalaram]

I just got the pdf and it seems to allow for an email submission.

 

[Foghorn]

Just a word of caution, The rebate process is one of those that requires you to "remind" Smithmicro that they owe you a rebate. I emailed the forms that stated you would get a link for the v3 DL in 2 weeks. It took a month, had to email them to see what the holdup was.

 

[Plester]

I bought Fusion 2.0 from Amazon, used the rebate form from Newegg and submitted everything via email and got my 3.0 key 2 days later. Smooth and painless except for scanning the paper work.

 

[happycamperjack]

I can tell you Parallel 5 is vastly superior running my Windows 7 bootcamp partition. Vmware does well for images, but it is just horrible at running bootcamp partition, here are my experiences

1. Fusion has a buggy USB controller. I got this SISO tablo thing that can convert macbook to tablet PC. And Fusion's USB controller simply fails to give my windows 7 an unrecognized malfunction USB controller error. I've tried everything to fix it, just doesn't work. In fact I tried and completely convert to Parallel 5 because of this fact alone. Because Parallel's USB controller WORKS, that simple. Now I can use my macbook pro as a tablet without booting to bootcamp.

2. Fusion 2 and 3 have horrible harddrive management at kernel level. when using bootcamp partition, my OSX experiences random temporary freezes and horrible performance when the two OS are competing for harddrive usage. So unless you have a SSD, AVOID FUSION!

3. Even when the bootcamp partition is idle, Fusion uses a huge number of CPU cycles, like 15 to 20% on each core. Parallel uses about 5-10% by comparison. So it's simply not feasible to use fusion on battery.

4. 3D performance in parallel is also much much higher. Fusion's poor harddrive usage make games absolutely unplayable with random freezes.

Again, all of these above observations are made when using the BOOT CAMP partition in these virtualization machines. Parallel 5 performs superbly when running boot camp partition, I would give it 9/10. As for Fusion, 4/10, because USB controller seriously needs to be fixed, and harddrive utilizations needs to improve significantly.

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

Is there anyway to transfer a VM from Fusion to Parallels or vice versa?

 

[PricklyPete]

I can't add too much to this thread as I have never used Fusion, but I have been very happy with Parallels since version 4. I had a lot of problems with 3, but I upgraded to 4 (after it has been out a while) and it has been smooth sailing ever since. I'm on 5 now and never have any problems with the XP VM. I haven't put on Windows 7 yet...but might try it after upgrading my computer's memory soon.

 

[RedWolf]

My experience has been the same as happycamperjacks. Well, with vmware. I stopped using parallels a while ago. Might be time to look at it again since I only run my bootcamp install and don't do vms.