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Boot Camp vs VMware or Parallels

Tuesday, February 19th, 2008
at 6:07am

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Apparently, Virtual Machines are a hot topic! I’ve had a few calls lately asking about them, the differences, and my recommendations. This caller is buying a Macbook Pro, and is wondering what he should use as far as running Windows programs. He has a copy of Photoshop, and wonders what program he needs on the Macbook in order to use Photoshop to its peak performance. He’s also curious as to whether he should use Rosetta.

What exactly is Rosetta? You’ll never see it, you’ll never configure it, you’ll never have to think about it. It’s built into Mac OS X to ensure that most of your existing applications live a long and fruitful life. Here are all the instructions you’ll need: double-click the application icon. Behind the scenes, Rosetta dynamically translates most of your PowerPC-based applications to work with your Intel-based Mac. There’s no emulation. No second-class status. It looks and feels just like it did before. On a Mac, you’d expect nothing less.

If you want, you could always use Photoshop inside a Virtual Machine, using something such as Parallels or VMware. Or, you could use Boot Camp, which is included with OS X Leopard. Boot Camp supports the most popular 32-bit releases of Windows XP and Windows Vista. When you use either operating system on your Mac, your Windows applications will run at native speed. This is exactly what the caller is looking for! Windows applications have full access to multiple processors and multiple cores, accelerated 3D graphics, and high-speed connections like USB, FireWire, Wi-Fi, and Gigabit Ethernet.

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34 Comments

FirebrandNIRE

February 19th, 2008
at 1:56am

Software for running Windows on the Mac

DeeDeeDee28

February 19th, 2008
at 1:57am

bootcamp is free, but you need to buy a Windows XP or Vista petition to be able to use boot camp, parallels, or VMware

funkwurm

February 19th, 2008
at 4:32am

CHRIS, the guy calling isn’t confusing rosetta with bootcamp/virtualization solutions. He has Adobe CS 2 for XP, and because he’s not switching to the Mac, he’s thinking about also upgrading to CS 3, but now for Mac OS X in stead of XP.

He’s right that Adobe (though one of the biggest developers of Mac apps) doesn’t support the intel-platform yet, so he would have to run CS3 on Rosetta. I’d argue that CS2 on a Bootcamp XP partition is going to be way faster than CS3 on Rosetta in Mac OS X

an80sGuy

February 19th, 2008
at 5:53am

“how did he zoom in like that”

System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Mouse > Check: zoom using scroll wheel……

Also look at,
System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard Shortcuts

jonnyk5614

February 19th, 2008
at 6:24am

Can I run a newer OS than the OS in use in a VM? I use XP Pro but would like to run Vista in a VM. Will it work all right? My hardware is able to cope with vista.

skyrider007

February 19th, 2008
at 6:37am

i love ur screensaver, where can i find it?

Jeff Glasson

February 19th, 2008
at 7:41am

I’ve been a long time user of VMware products, and I have to say that Fusion wins hands down over Parallels. It does a much better job of processor and memory management. Combine it with Spaces on Leopard and you a great multi-OS on-demand system.

delfmeek

February 19th, 2008
at 8:37am

sure can! if you run Vista in a VM, you won’t be able to use the Aero interface, but that’s about it. i do it at work, and I’ll admit, it looks a bit weird running Vista in a VM on XP, but, hey it works.

Cruzingama

February 19th, 2008
at 9:03am

I dont even use windows on my mac no need for me!

Mike

February 19th, 2008
at 9:43am

A friend of mine told me that Adobe had given him what he calls a “cross-platform upgrade” for CS3 when he moved from Windows to Mac. I didn’t know they’d do that — that may be a solution for some.

I thought you’d have more on the particular advantages/disadvantages of Bootcamp/Parallels/Fusion. I was interested to note that in one post you said you said you’d be using a virtual machine on your Mac Pro but in another you said Ponzi would be using Bootcamp on her MacBook Air. What’s the reason for the difference in approach there? The only thing I could think of was that the Mac Pro had plenty of RAM to spare, so that you wouldn’t mind allocating some to the VM, but perhaps the laptop had less to juggle with. Is that it?

veggiedude

February 19th, 2008
at 1:23pm

Why didn’t you just tell your friend to upgrade his PhotoShop to the latest Mac OS X version and then it will be at ‘peak performance’?

Matt-attack

February 19th, 2008
at 2:41pm

i heard VM-ware fuson was better. my freind uses VM-ware and he says its fast

Nanotech11

February 19th, 2008
at 5:15pm

Search for “fenetre volantes”

Joe S.

February 19th, 2008
at 6:47pm

Your caller can crossgrade his photoshop XP license to a Mac license for the cost of shipping, usually about six bucks. Tell him to call adobe & ask about crossgrading. If he has a heavy investment in postscript fonts that may be the only isse as the Mac can handle true type, Windows True type postscript & open type fonts. If he wants to run PS native this is probably his best bet.

http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2.....ing_p.html

http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2.....an_be.html

Hope this helps.

Windows Vista Torrent

February 19th, 2008
at 6:58pm

Tech Interviews Mac Media Software (and Saving Money)Boot Camp vs VMware or ParallelsParallels or VMware Open Source Media Player Alternatives Wubi or Live CD for Linux Eventually, Someone Wins the Web cam Korg Kaossilator for Easy Music Creation How to Develop a Sense of Rhythm

Morgan

February 19th, 2008
at 7:29pm

I believe both the vmware and parallels products are able to launch the boot camp partition as a virtual machine, as long as it’s on the same physical drive as OS X and you allocate more than half your RAM to avoid XP activation issues. (Similar to how VMware can use a VM from a physical disk or partition on a Windows box).

kevinm

February 19th, 2008
at 11:41pm

Parallels disappointed me in performance and stability. Once I checked out VMware, I never thought about going back to Parallels. VMware is better in all aspects.

Rikai

February 20th, 2008
at 10:16pm

Another VM available for mac that might also work would be Virtaulbox, available @ http://virtualbox.org/

Just trying to help give all the available options. :)

twistedkatana1

February 21st, 2008
at 5:41am

i so so so so badly want a macbook

ajustwar

February 22nd, 2008
at 7:21pm

I would use boot camp for what this caller was talking about since you would get full performance. If i were going to rum a virtual machine my vote would be VMware.

Greg Selker

February 27th, 2008
at 9:55am

I have a Macbook Pro with 4 GB ram that I am running as a virtual PC with Parallels and I have been pretty disappointed with performance. Parallels has crashed several times and I have lost data in the process, upon crash Parallels reverted to an older snapshot. I travel extensively so my backup was from a week earlier, week’s worth of data lost, ugh! I would like to keep the option for a VM, but I know I am not even taking advantage of the ram that I have. In fact, Parallels tech support has advised me to ratchet down partitioned ram to 1 gb instead of 2. I need 2 for the apps that I run on the PC side are memory hogs and performance would be adversely affected with them. I am very open to suggestions/advise on what to do.

Asc3nsi0n

March 4th, 2008
at 5:58am

can you game in VMware?games like UT3,crysis etc.

bigjohn955

March 6th, 2008
at 8:02am

They would run really slow inside of a virtual machine. Better to boot directly into windows.

SubNegativeStudios

March 24th, 2008
at 3:12am

No. You cannot run any sophisticated games in VMWare fusion.

from vmware website

“VMware Fusion now has experimental support for DirectX 9.0 3-D graphics (without shader support) to enable more Microsoft Windows 3-D applications and games to run. This will allow for many new games to run in VMware Fusion that could not be previously run. However, if a game requires shaders it may not run at all. Games that provide the ability to run without shaders can potentially run in VMware Fusion 1.1.”

SubNegativeStudios

March 24th, 2008
at 3:13am

However, if a game requires shaders it may not run at all. Games that provide the ability to run without shaders can potentially run in VMware Fusion 1.1.”

This sentence says it all, any games that require shaders can not run. And any games that are released nowadays have shaders.

iAsiaFan

March 28th, 2008
at 1:40am

no, only in boot camp

sacredgeometry

April 13th, 2008
at 9:32pm

No mac except a Mac Book Pro with non standard gfx updates will run crysis at native resolutions to thier screens…. at least thats on first glance. My pc has trouble with core2duo and 8800gtx (hopefully the geforce10 series will play it)

I havent tried on my 17″MBP but im pretty sure a 8600 gt at 1920×1200 will do jack ****.

Peace

Brian

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