About running x86 VMs on M1 Macs

Unlikely. Apple explicitly excluded VMs from Rosetta and they probably had a good reason.
You can already run an x86 OS emulated with QEMU, but the performance is obviously much worse than running a VM.

 

Hello,
What about build time? Is there any difference in build time between building a Delphi project on a native Windows environment and on Windows ARM under Parallels?
Do you have any experience with third party VCL components (e.g. Developer Express, TMS Software,...)?
I sincerely thank you for your response.

Bojan

 

Build times are (in general) excellent! Due to the native/emulated performance of Parallels/Windows(ARM): Massive CPU performance and SSD speed (here: M1 Max, 8 Cores for VM).
3rd party components: No obvious flaws. Just running as they should

 

Thanks for the answer.
I am planning to buy new Mac Mini M2 Pro with 10-core CPU, 512GB SSD, 16 GB RAM. What do you think about this configuration to running Delphi Alexandria in Parallels?
Thanks for your info.

Regards,
Bojan

 

Well.... it depends on many different factors: Usage, size of project(s), 3rd party components, additional databases, additional services (e.g. Webserver).
I would opt for a 24 or even 32 GB RAM machine if this will be your main machine. RAM isn't expandable in any way.
If you plan to use many different VMs (as I do for different configurations, customer projects) 512 GB SSD might be a limiting factor too.
To run RAD Studio Delphi 11.x with only one smaller/medium-sized project in a single VM, 16GB RAM/512 GB SSD is more than enough.

 

Thanks for the answer!
I will use only one VM with Windows and Delphi, Firebird and IBExpert on it.
I hope 16 GB will be enough.

Thanks, regards.
Bojan