Parallels Desktop 18 Performance Worse Than 17

I recently upgraded from Parallels Desktop from version 17 to version 18 with the following environment:

• Host OS: macOS Monterey 12.6.1
• Guest OS: Windows 10 (4 cores, 8 GB)
• Host Hardware:
  • MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019)
    
  • 2.3 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9
    
  • 32 GB 2667 MHz DDR4
    
  • AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 8 GB
    
  • 2TB SSD (816GB Free)

After upgrading to Parallels Desktop version 18, the Windows 10 VM was practically unusable. For example, applications were now taking 5 minutes to open when they tool 30 seconds previously (a big IDE) and even opening the Windows start menu would take a few seconds to open.

I have downgraded back to Parallels Desktop 17 and everything works again.

Are there new settings in Parallels 18 that need to be changed? Why would the performance be so bad (this caught me by surprise)? Is Intel a problem?
Thanks,

Alex

 

I had the same problem. Recently I tried to install Parallels 18.1.0 and, so far, it seems back to normal performances

 

I am on 18.1.1 and it is not as bad as the first version of 18 but I am experience everything being delayed.

 

For those interested, I have recently upgraded to the latest version of macOS Ventura and tried running the latest version of Parallels Desktop (v18.1.1) and had the same problem. After playing with the settings I found that if I switched the "Hypervisor" from "Apple" to "Parallels" (with the "Adaptive Hypervisor" checked), the performance dramatically improved.

 

Sadly the selection of the Hypervisor for "Parallels" is lacking on Apple Silicon systems. "
Hypervisor This menu is available only on Mac computers equipped with an Intel processor. Virtual machines created on Mac computers with the Apple M1 chip always use the Apple hypervisor."

 

Changing the Hypervisor did speed up my Win-11 VM tremendously too! Before, it really was super slow.

 

I did want to state that my speed of Parallels on the M1 Max MacBook Pro is back to full speed again. Solution? Changing Network from "shared" to "bridged - default adapter". Disk speed and everything else is back to full again.

 

I recently bought a MBP 14 M2max32/64GB
I currently have a licence for 17 and I plan to start playing around with running Stable Diffusion locally.
Do you think I would see any noticeable performance improvements by upgrading to v 18?
Thanks