Beware potential dumb question: I am a new MBP convert after years of being locked in the Windows prison. I have a MBP 17 inch core duo with 3mb of RAM and using Windows XP SP2 as my VM on Parallels 3.0. What operating or performance differences should I notice between running Parallels in Coherence vs. Full Screen or OS View - does Coherence result in some sort of resource or memory sharing which would degrade the performance of both operating systems? Does running in Full Screen or OS View result in less "sharing" or are all resources allocated to the OS one is currently using? I would assume (dangerous) that when Parallels is not running that all memory resources, etc. are dedicated to running the Apple OS. One other dumb question - is there anyway to synchronize the mouse capture such that using Control-Alt "places" the "new" mouse in same place as the previous one? Thank any responders for thier time (and patience)
I've noticed a considerable difference running full screen than OS window especially. Screen updates and redraws seems quicker and the OS seems more responsive (running XP). This is especially noticable when running full screen on an external montor (dell 20inch) where XP seems much snappier redraw wise than OS window mode. Jason
I may be in the minority but I don't use coherence, my hope is that it does use system resources even when I use the VM windows. I like to keep my OSX and windows environments segregated.
Thinking on performance from a programmers point of view (I didn't do any tests): Best: Fullscreen Ok: Windowed-Mode Worst: Coherence Personally, I'm using a 800x600 Window (XP turned off all "eye candy" in it) and then switch to coherence when I'm using windows programs a bit more intensively... Works for me...
