Archive for VMware tag
Windows Experience Index on MacBook Pro 2GHz compared
I just got the opportunity to try out the latest version of VMware and thought I’d do a quick Windows Experience Index on Boot Camp, Parallels and VMware to see what the performance is like before my new MacBook Pro 17″ arrives (hopefully on Friday!)
When I installed Leopard on my machine I took the opportunity to carve out a dedicated 20GB partition again to put a fresh install of Vista on. As well as being able to boot natively this also now means I can run my single Windows partition switching between native, Parallels or VMware at will which admittedly drives Windows Activation crazy.
Host machine
| Hardware | MacBook Pro 2GHz “MacBookPro1,1″ |
|---|---|
| Memory | 2048MB DDR2 667MHz |
| Processor | 2.0GHz Core Duo |
| Graphics | ATI Radeon X1600 256MB |
| Disk | 100GB 5400RPM |
| Operating system | Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.1 |
Configuration
| Memory | 848MB (Virtual machines only) |
|---|---|
| Disk | 20GB Boot Camp partition |
| Operating system | Microsoft Vista Ultimate Edition 32-bit |
Testing notes
- No other applications running in OS X or Vista
- Full-screen mode
- Vendors guest OS tools & drivers installed
Scores
| VMware 1.1 62573 |
Parallels 3.0 5570 beta |
Boot Camp 2.0 drivers |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Processor | 4.7 | 4.7 | 4.7 |
| Memory (RAM) | 3.9 | 3.9 | 4.9 |
| Graphics | 1.9 | 1.9 | 4.1 |
| Gaming graphics | 1.0 | 1.0 | 4.4 |
| Primary hard disk | 5.9 | 5.9 | 5.9 |
| Overall | 1.0 | 1.0 | 4.1 |
Thoughts
Processor: A little surprising given that VMware supports multiple cores but that Parallels doesn’t.
Memory: To be expected given that the VM was only running with less RAM.
Graphics: Disappointing and likely caused by the VM vendors graphics drivers not being WDM which based.
Gaming graphics: Very disappointing and caused by lack of DirectX 9 graphics support.
Hard disk: Like processor this is a pleasant surprise.
After my new 17″ MacBook Pro arrives (hopefully this Friday) I will produce another set of scores which should show how much faster the 2.6GHz is with all the options and let me compare like-for-like on the memory front.
I also want to run some Visual Studio 2008 build time comparisons (probably of SubSonic) because compilations are what really counts ;-) If you have any further suggestions for benchmarks, leave a comment!
[)amien
Parallels Desktop 3036 beta build out
Parallels have released a beta build of their excellent virtual machine for the Mac and it’s loaded with cool new features. Once out of beta it will be a free upgrade to existing owners.
The feature list runs something like this:
- Drag & drop files between Finder & Explorer for copying
- Boot from the Boot Camp partition (will require another activation and you loose suspend VM)
- Read/Write to the Boot Camp partition (NTFS or FAT)
- Use Mac clipboard cut/copy/paste short cuts in Windows (opt XCV)
- Graphics performance increases of up to 50%
- Windows auto resizes to Mac window size (about time)
- Coherence mode puts Windows application on the Mac desktop & DockBar instead of in the VM window
- Transporter lets you convert VMware and VirtualPC images to Parallels Desktop
- UI has been revised & polished throughout to be more Mac-like
It’s not all perfect though – some people have been reporting problems with Mac Pro systems and video driver support so waiting for a few days might be a good idea but it’s great progress.
Microsoft have a number of VirtualPC images available including the Visual Studio Orcas preview and the Internet Explorer 6 test platform. With Transporter you should just be able to convert them and get going although I would imagine the copy of XP will baulk and require re-activation :(
Now we just need virtualised multi-processors, 64-bit support and hardware accelerated 3D ;-)
Parallels has gained support for hardware accelerated 3D and VMware support for multiple cores/processors since this post was published.
[)amien
Parallels update and creating VM images from direct disk images
Parallels build 1966
This is now a very old build, check out the Parallels Desktop product page for the latest official release.
Parallels have put ‘internal build 1966′ of their excellent Mac virtual machine (VM) software Parallel Desktop up in their forums.
New enhancements and bug fixes include shared networking, OS installation assistant and various minor other fixes.
Seems solid so far (24 hours).
Creating a virtual disk from a real one
Parallels doesn’t support direct access to disk partitions but instead relies on it’s own virtual hard-disk-in-a-file system much like other VM solutions.
VMware have made available a Physical-to-Virtual (P2V) tool, currently free and in beta, that works only on Windows but can ‘hot clone’ systems in use. It supports a number of virtual formats including Virtual PC and Ghost but not Parallels.
Until either Parallels or VMware fill in the missing pieces check out colddiver’s solution on the forums.
[)amien
Why I haven’t yet ordered a MacBook Pro
My ageing Dell 8100 is struggling with the recent demands of Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server 2005 mostly due to the fact it only supports 512MB RAM. Paging is bad enough on a desktop but on a laptop with slower drives and battery drain…
MacBook Pro
Apple’s first x86 laptop is based on the Intel Core Duo processor and will be available later this month. The enclosure is very similar to the previous aluminium PowerBooks with some changes to the socket line-up but retaining the backlit keyboard and wide-screen aspect ratio.
Connections include a new magnetic power connector, FireWire 800 has been dropped and PCMCIA makes a departure to be replaced by ExpressCard/34. Optical digital output makes an appearance too while wireless connectivity is suited by both Bluetooth 2 and 802.11G networking.
Familiarity ends on the outside with the internals sporting a 667MHz front side bus equipped with DDR2 memory sitting round Intel’s latest chip which curiously Apple only supply up to 1.83GHz despite Intel having a 2GHz part. The hard-drive has gone SATA with Apple offering 120GB 5,400RPM or 100GB 7,200RPM drives.
Apple are now offering the 2.16GHz processor option (14/07/2006).
But what about Windows?
There is no way at the moment to run Windows XP on this at the moment. Apple went with Intel on their new replacement for the aging BIOS called EFI. EFI isn’t all-new having already made its début as part of Intel’s 64-bit Itanium platform but at the moment Windows XP doesn’t boot on it.
Microsoft have always claimed they are about shipping software and they don’t care about the platform but I can’t see them bending over backwards for Apple on this one. If Intel are pushing other OEMs to use EFI Microsoft could be pressured into back-porting the EFI support from Vista into a Windows XP service pack or EFI edition.
Virtualised Windows?
Dual-booting would be good but speedy virtualisation like Virtual PC or VMware would be even better… but the Mac’s number one x86 emulator for the PPC, Virtual PC, was brought out by one Microsoft a couple of years ago.
For Microsoft this was a win-win-win deal; it gave them control over the Mac’s entry into the Windows world, gave them virtualisation software for Windows and a code-base to work from for getting their x86 based Xbox games running on their PPC based Xbox 360.
The situation for Apple was much more bleak. The PPC G5 processor came from IBM and as such didn’t have some of the Motorola G4′s features that Virtual PC used… and Microsoft wasn’t quick in coming out with a new version although they eventually did.
There is of course the possibility somebody else will deliver that virtualisation. I can’t see Apple itself compromising by providing it but VMware is one option although that would need substantial porting.
Another option might be Transitive who provided the technology behind the PPC emulation in OS X x86 called Rosetta although their product line-up currently consists of emulated processor and virtualisation, not just pure virtualisation as would be required.
While we’re on the Apple subject check out the responses to the original iPod announcement over at MacRumors forums.
[)amien