CPU usage and performance

I am new to Parallels and notice that the CPU usage with Parallels 3 is very high and that things are not always that speedy.

I have a new MacbookPro 2.4 / 2GB RAM and Parallels build 4128 - I get 130% or so CPU usage downloading a file with Internet Explorer on Windows Vista and 60% - 90% usage when 'idle' (not doing anything at all with Parallels though the Windows VM is still running. About 6% of CPU time is still used up by Parallels when the VM is paused.

As laptops get hot and noisy when very busy this is a bit of an issue.

Could anyone suggest any measures to minimise CPU usage and improve performance?

Reviews of Parallels are what convinced me to buy a macbook for the first time. Unfortunatly I need to use Windows apps quite a bit and wanted to avoid boot camp. Not sure at this stage if Parallels V3 is something I can use as a primary workspace however...

 

Are you able to run your programs from XP SP2? I think you'd get MUCH better performance out of XP if you can use it. Vista is a bloated pig, and i have downgraded my real PC back to XP.

There are other options you can try such as setting the performance to "VM" from "OS X" as well as tweaking memory settings a bit. You can also disable Direct3D if you do not need it. Parallels runs ok on my MBP, but I am using XP SP2 and have more than enough RAM for it. With XP you can allocate 512 or 768MB RAM to the VM and still have plenty of RAM for OS X to run nicely.

 

I could buy another copy of XP I guess... Seems a retrograde step but perhaps worth it is performance woould be better. What sort of CPU usage do you get on XP when idle?

Thanks for the tweaking tipes - I'll play about a bit and see if that makes a difference.

 

I have been reading up on running a Boot Camp Windows installation under Parallels. Seems like the disadvantages with this approach are that such an installation cannot have a snapshot taken of it and it cannot be paused and resumed. Despite this I guess it could be viable for me especially if the CPU usage issue was improved.

Does anyone have experience of COMPARATIVE CPU usage between 1) a Vista Parallels VM and 2) Parallels running a Vista Boot Camp installation? What is each like when 'busy' and when 'idle'? It would be useful to have a feel for this before deciding if the Boot Camp in Parallels route is sensible.

 

The performance should not be very different between Vista running in Parallels and Vista running in Parallels pointing to a bootcamp partition.

You will, however, have the option of booting (through bootcamp) in native Vista, in which case performance should be, well, native, because Vista will be running on an Intel machine with both cores available to it, and all memory available to it (none has to be shared with OSX.)

 

I read on this forum that once Parallels has been run on a boot camp partition one of the processors shows as disabled. Sounds to me like that could impact performance! See This thread>. .

 

Perhaps laptop battery life is a guide?

I cannot give a precise answer, but I think my experience is relevant. I "captured" my Boot Camp partition with the second or third 2.5 beta (the first to allow switching back and forth between hardware boot into Windows and running Windows within the Mac OS without Microsoft repetitively demanding Windows re-authorization).

On my first generation MacBook Pro, I could complete a session making patient rounds in my dialysis center connected to the server via 802.11g WiFi (about 1.5 hours) running Windows under Boot Camp, but could not do so running the Windows XP within Parallels Desktop for Mac.

I don't know enough about Windows to monitor processor usage within Windows XP, but the Activity Monitor "meter" frequently was "pegged" to ? 100 % for Parallels (the application) when I was running Windows XP within Parallels Desktop.

I've not tried again with Parallels 3.0, although I'd LOVE to have access to my Mac when working with my patients.

Jim Robertson