VMWare Fusion 4.01 comparison

Yesterday, I attempted to post a comparison between PD6, PD7 and VMWare Fusion 4.01. That thread has yet to appear and I suspect that it's being censored. That's rather disappointing. I would think that the Parallels community would be very interested in this information.

 

This is the comparison post I attempted to add as new thread yesterday.

Yesterday, I installed VMWare Fusion 4.01 on Lion and compared it against PD6 and PD7 which I also ran on Lion. I used my Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit VM do do this comparison. Here are my findings:

PD6 Windows Index Numbers:
Processor: 4.7
Memory: 4.5
Graphics: 5.7
Gaming graphics: 4.9
Primary hard disk: 6.5

VMWare Fusion 4 Windows Index Numbers:
Processor: 4.6
Memory: 4.5
Graphics: 5.9
Gaming graphics: 4.9
Primary hard disk: 6.3

PD6 vs. PD7 Windows Index numbers:
Desktop performance for Windows Aero fell from 5.9 to 5.2
3D business and gaming graphics performance fell from 5.2 to 4.9
The other numbers are identical

Full Screen/Mission Control Feature Comparison:
Keep full screen in desktop #2: PD6 = Yes, PD7 = No, Fusion = Yes
Notes: PD6 and Fusion both allow the VM to be assigned to desktop #2 which allows me to use a configured hot key to switch to it. PD7 uses Lion's Full Screen app feature which puts the VM in its own desktop. That desktop cannot be configured with a hot key. In my opinion, this is a significant regression from PD6.

Show menu bar at bottom left: PD6 = Yes, PD7 = No, Fusion = N/A (shows mini menu at top)
Notes: PD6 allows the bottom right hot corner to be assigned to Show Menu Bar. PD7 does not allow "Show Menu Bar" to be assigned to the bottom left or right hot corners. Fusion does not require this because it shows a mini menu bar at the top of the full screen VM. In my opinion, this is a bug inside PD7.

Suspend/Resume Comparison
On my system, all three products suspend and resume my VM with similar performance. On PD6, resuming the VM will cause the VM to display on the active Mission Control desktop and not the desktop assigned to PD6 (this bug was reported but not fixed). On PD7, the VM is resumed to a new desktop (see Full Screen above). Fusion resumes the VM to the assigned desktop regardless of which desktop is currently active.

Idle CPU Usage
All three products are similar. Idle CPU usage hovers between 2 and 3%

 

Just saw the availability of an update to PD7 (link is below). I am going to download this update and post an updated comparison.

http://kb.parallels.com/en/112281

 

I installed PD7 7.0.14922 and here are my updated findings.

PD7 Windows Index Scores:
Processor: 4.7
Memory: 4.5
Graphics: 5.9
Gaming graphics: 5.1
Primary hard disk: 6.5
These are now better than PD6 and Fusion 4.01.

Integration with Lion's Full Screen app support can be turned off. This allows me to assign my full screen VM to desktop #2.

Show Menu Bar still cannot be assigned to the bottom left hot corner or the bottom right hot corner. Is there a reason why Show Menu Bar cannot be assigned to the bottom hot corners?

Resuming a full screen VM from PD7 resumes the VM in desktop #2 even if another desktop is active. This fixes the resume issue I found in PD6.

 

Wow 6.5 for HD, I cannot get parallels above 5.9 for that even though I have a 3 disk raid 0 system!

 

You don't happen to be running on a macbook do you?

Parallels locks up my macbook when it tries to suspend to disk, and has done for all of version 6 too. If you are on a macbook does vmware have same issue as its driving me nuts enough to switch.

 

My testing was done on the following system:

MacBook Pro - 17-inch, Mid 2010
Processor 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M 512 MB
Software Mac OS X Lion 10.7.1 (11B26)
Harddrive Seagate 7200 RPM 500 GB

 

The Windows performance index numbers don't mean much as the measurement itself is virtualized - so a system can be faster even though the index numbers look lower. The only valid tests for a VM are "real-world" tests: measuring a given task with a stop watch (if the test is crude).

 

So Keith do you get the suspend problem where parallels locks up if you fold the screen down and leave it long enough to suspend to disk? I'm considering my options and wondering if vmware is more robust. I couldn't care less about 2% performance differences when I can't fold my screen down without following up with a hard reset!

 

trying out the 30 day eval for fusion 4, got a kernel panic right as soon as I started up the vm (brand new vm hadn't installed windows yet). Lion, 8gb, plenty of disk, etc.

nothing else was running.. Haven't tried again. I'm ocd about panics/bsod - usually carbon copy or image back to a fresh install.