Parallels Desktop 9 or Bootcamp?

[Wayne783]

I am fairly new to the Mac side, and i have recently been introduced to Parallels & Bootcamp.

My system: iMac i5 3.2GHz, 8Gb RAM, GPU: GT755M

I am an Architectural student, and i require the use of intense memory demanding software such as AutoCAD, Revit, Lumion and Photoshop. However, Revit and Lumion don't come out for Mac users. I recently realised there is a possibility of installing Parallels on to my system, in order to run windows software such as the above. However, before i decide to do so, i would like to know if the following is true as i have heard so:

Apparently, Parallels will halve your memory, by giving OS X 50% and Parallels (Windows) the other 50%, which means ill be running the required software mentioned above, at a really slow speed - Is this true?

Apparently, Bootcamp will allow both systems (Mac & Windows), to run at 100% memory, rather than halving the memory for each.

Is the above true?

Any other advice regarding my specific circumstances and requirements would be greatly appreciated!

Wayne

 

[Parallels User]

Parallels doesn't halve your RAM, you can set the amount of RAM to assign to the virtual machine, in your case, however, it would be recommended to leave 4 GB for OS X, and as such results in 50% for each. You can upgrade your system's memory to 16 GB and in that case you can safely assign 12 GB to Windows.

Bootcamp is having a dual boot Mac that can boot to Windows or OS X, and as such OS X isn't running when you run Windows and you can use your 8 GB RAM all on Windows.

Parallels also allows to use Bootcamp partitions as virtual machines, so you can run Windows natively (Bootcamp) or run the same install as a virtual machine under OS X.

 

[BoilermakerU]

Unless you have a need for using applications from both operating systems or need to share files across them, I'd go with bootcamp of Windows. PD9 is buggy and may not be worth the effort. I use PD9 only because I have Primavera P6 for scheduling and I use mostly my OSX stuff for everything else. If P6 ran on OSX, I'd never have come to this.

As far as performance goes though, I run it on a similar machine, splitting resources 50% to each and it runs fine. I have my laptop from work as the VM in Parallels, and it runs faster on half a laptop than it does on the hardware my IT department gave me. LOL

...Parallels also allows to use Bootcamp partitions as virtual machines, so you can run Windows natively (Bootcamp) or run the same install as a virtual machine under OS X.

What is the advantage of this method? I've not tried this, am based on my experience so far with PD9, I may not want to if it is less stable or more difficult to get going. But if there is an advantage to it, I may give it a shot.

 

[Parallels User]

What is the advantage of this method? I've not tried this, am based on my experience so far with PD9, I may not want to if it is less stable or more difficult to get going. But if there is an advantage to it, I may give it a shot.

I don't have the same experience with PDM9, it isn't buggy for me, so I cannot reply to your question using the same assumptions, my assumptions are different and as such I prefer to use Windows under Parallels even if I'm not doing something that requires sharing files across OS X and Windows.

With that said, the advantages of having a Bootcamp install running in Parallels is that you don't have to reboot or leave OS X to do most things on Windows, but if you require to use all of the machine resources (CAD, 3D modelling and animation, Graphic Intensive games or anything that requires Direct X 11 for instance) you can boot into Bootcamp.