Performance Test 7 results, 1:1 compared in P6.

Discussion in 'Windows Virtual Machine' started by pixelsmack, Sep 14, 2010.

  1. pixelsmack

    pixelsmack Junior Member

    Messages:
    14
    Here are my results running Performance Test 7 in Windows 7 Home Edition 64b. These figures represent how Parallels scored using my Boot Camp partition for Windows 7 versus Boot Camp being booted natively. Parallels is running fullscreen and isolated from OSX.

    Macbook Pro 2010 (i7 2.66, 4GB, nvidia330(m))

    CPU: 20% slower
    Memory: 30% slower
    2D Graphics: 20% *faster*
    3D Graphics: 30% slower
    Harddrive: 572% slower.

    Overall that is mighty impressive sans the harddrive performance. I'm not sure what is going on there but that is pretty terrible. Ideas? I have 8GB arriving this week. I will run the tests again when it's installed.
     
  2. joevt

    joevt Forum Maven

    Messages:
    1,229
    Can you add a virtual hard disk .hdd to your VM and compare performance between the Boot Camp partition and the .hdd? Maybe Boot Camp isn't using caching or something.
     
  3. pixelsmack

    pixelsmack Junior Member

    Messages:
    14
    Okay WOW!

    Tested again after importing Boot Camp. MUCH BETTER. I can see from these numbers that Parallels loads most the disk files in to ram giving you a pseudo SSD setup. The hard drive performance is now 88% FASTER than the real install. Also of note is 3D performance is now only 3% slower! VERY GOOD!!!

    Parallel's 6 is amazing!
     
  4. pixelsmack

    pixelsmack Junior Member

    Messages:
    14
    I forgot to include the improved CPU number with the imported Boot Camp. It's now only 8% slower than the real install for CPU.
     
  5. aa.

    aa. Member

    Messages:
    58
    Hello,

    How did you configure BootCamp and PD6 VM? I mean did you have identical *hardware* configuration of BootCamp and VM?

    BootCamp Windows use all resources of your Mac by default, i.e. it will use 2CPU + 4GB RAM. But Virual Machine is typically limited to 1CPU and 1GB. So if you have such configuration, then to compare BootCamp and VM correctly you should limit your Windows (in BootCamp) to have just 1CPU and 1GB RAM.
     
  6. aa.

    aa. Member

    Messages:
    58
    It's also interresting that when you run your BootCamp partition in a VM, you get so slow harddrive performance. Actually harddrive mustn't be slower than native, i.e. it must be on pair. Could you please boot your BootCamp as a VM again and then:

    1) re-run Performance Test
    2) go to top menu -> Help -> Report a Problem
    3) tell me the problem report ID

    Thank you!
     
  7. ReinaldoG

    ReinaldoG Bit poster

    Messages:
    5
    Could you point me to a link explaining how to setup a virtual hard drive .hdd in a VM?

    Sorry if the question is silly, but I am a beginner in Parallels.
     
  8. aa.

    aa. Member

    Messages:
    58
    What exactly do you want to do? Convert a BootCamp VM to .hdd or add a new disk to a VM or something else?
     
  9. ReinaldoG

    ReinaldoG Bit poster

    Messages:
    5
    Well, I was referring to the performance issue reported above and the suggestion about it made by joevt.
    I have Parallels installed in a Boot camp partition, and I was wondering if performance would improve if I reinstall it in another way.
    Is there a way to convert a Parallels based on Bootcamp without reinstalling from scratch?

    Thanks!
     
  10. aa.

    aa. Member

    Messages:
    58
    As I mentioned before disk performance in BootCamp VM should be equal to native BootCamp. We need some time to investigate why disk in BootCamp VM could be slower than in native BootCamp. We can't reproduce it so far, but we're working on it.

    So before convert VM, it would be great to check whether the problem exists on your Mac. To do so, you can download PassMark Performance Test v7 to compare disk performance of native BootCamp vs. BootCamp as a VM. You can download it here:

    http://www.passmark.com

    It looks they have a trial version?

    Then if you will confirm the problem really exists on your Mac also, you can import your BootCamp VM to a .hdd VM:
    * open VM list (Window -> Virtual Machines List)
    * do right mouse click (or Command + click) on your BootCamp VM
    * select "Import" and follow instructions
     
  11. ReinaldoG

    ReinaldoG Bit poster

    Messages:
    5
    I did the tests. Please let me know if this seem to be normal or not.

    R



    PassMark(TM) PerformanceTest 7.0 Evaluation Version (http://www.passmark.com)
    Results generated on: Friday, September 17, 2010


    Benchmark Results

    Test Name: This Computer
    CPU - Integer Math: 263.1
    CPU - Floating Point Math: 1091.3
    CPU - Find Prime Numbers: 700.4
    CPU - Multimedia Instructions: 8.3
    CPU - Compression: 3355.0
    CPU - Encryption: 12.2
    CPU - Physics: 159.3
    CPU - String Sorting: 1987.3
    Graphics 2D - Solid Vectors: 11.8
    Graphics 2D - Transparent Vectors: 10.4
    Graphics 2D - Complex Vectors: 110.4
    Graphics 2D - Fonts and Text: 130.0
    Graphics 2D - Windows Interface: 131.4
    Graphics 2D - Image Filters: 366.8
    2D Graphics - Image Rendering: 322.0
    Graphics 3D - Simple: 59.2
    Graphics 3D - Medium: 59.2
    Graphics 3D - Complex: 34.6
    Memory - Allocate Small Block: 3746.1
    Memory - Read Cached: 2271.4
    Memory - Read Uncached: 1909.9
    Memory - Write: 1362.2
    Memory - Large RAM: 946.7
    Disk - Sequential Read: 47.4
    Disk - Sequential Write: 45.3
    Disk - Random Seek + RW: 2.6
    CD - Read: 0.8
    CPU Mark: 2265.7
    2D Graphics Mark: 1068.3
    Memory Mark: 796.3
    Disk Mark: 344.9
    CD Mark: 97.1
    3D Graphics Mark: 176.3
    PassMark Rating: 916.7

    System information: This Computer
    CPU Manufacturer: GenuineIntel
    Number of CPU: 1
    Cores per CPU: 4
    CPU Type: Intel Core i7 M 620 @ 2.67GHz
    CPU Speed: 2678.1 MHz
    Cache size: 256KB
    O/S: Windows XP (32-bit)
    Total RAM: 2815.5 MB.
    Available RAM: 2082.0 MB.
    Video settings: 1920x1123x32
    Video driver:
    DESCRIPTION: Parallels Video Adapter
    MANUFACTURER: Parallels
    BIOS: Parallels(R) VGA-Compatible BIOS Version 3.0.2111.89721
    DATE: 9-14-2010
    Drive Letter: C
    Total Disk Space: 232.4 GBytes
    Cluster Size: 4.0 KBytes
    File system: NTFS
     
  12. pixelsmack

    pixelsmack Junior Member

    Messages:
    14
    My hardware config was the same for bootcamp and Parallels except for memory. Because when running parallels I need to leave some ram for OSX. Bootcamp sees Windows getting the full 4gb and Parallels was only getting 2gb. However I'm installing 8gb this weekend.

    I updated my results after importing the Bootcamp partition as a VM hdd file and am getting much better results even with my existing 2gb ram allocation.
     
  13. aa.

    aa. Member

    Messages:
    58
    ReinaldoG, Did you run Performance Tests in native BootCamp Windows? If so, then you also need to run tests in BootCamp VM under PD6. So we need 2 set of results to be able to compare performance between native Windows and Windows under the PD6
     
    Last edited: Sep 17, 2010
  14. ReinaldoG

    ReinaldoG Bit poster

    Messages:
    5
    Hi:
    These are the test results on Bootcamp boot.
    Please, let me know what you think.

    Thanks,

    R



    PassMark(TM) PerformanceTest 7.0 Evaluation Version (http://www.passmark.com)
    Results generated on: Friday, September 17, 2010


    Benchmark Results

    Test Name: This Computer
    CPU - Integer Math: 258.8
    CPU - Floating Point Math: 1093.1
    CPU - Find Prime Numbers: 708.9
    CPU - Multimedia Instructions: 8.4
    CPU - Compression: 3409.6
    CPU - Encryption: 12.4
    CPU - Physics: 182.7
    CPU - String Sorting: 2405.6
    Graphics 2D - Solid Vectors: 3.8
    Graphics 2D - Transparent Vectors: 3.5
    Graphics 2D - Complex Vectors: 127.9
    Graphics 2D - Fonts and Text: 162.9
    Graphics 2D - Windows Interface: 267.8
    Graphics 2D - Image Filters: 387.6
    2D Graphics - Image Rendering: 327.0
    Graphics 3D - Simple: 620.6
    Graphics 3D - Medium: 218.0
    Graphics 3D - Complex: 52.1
    Memory - Allocate Small Block: 3540.2
    Memory - Read Cached: 2265.3
    Memory - Read Uncached: 2051.9
    Memory - Write: 1052.4
    Memory - Large RAM: 803.7
    Disk - Sequential Read: 50.8
    Disk - Sequential Write: 53.4
    Disk - Random Seek + RW: 2.8
    CD - Read: 0.8
    CPU Mark: 2364.3
    2D Graphics Mark: 565.1
    Memory Mark: 735.3
    Disk Mark: 386.9
    CD Mark: 94.3
    3D Graphics Mark: 554.6
    PassMark Rating: 1081.8

    System information: This Computer
    CPU Manufacturer: GenuineIntel
    Number of CPU: 1
    Cores per CPU: 2
    CPU Type: Intel Core i7 M 620 @ 2.67GHz
    CPU Speed: 2660.7 MHz
    Cache size: 256KB
    O/S: Windows XP (32-bit)
    Total RAM: 2230.0 MB.
    Available RAM: 1714.6 MB.
    Video settings: 1680x1050x32
    Video driver:
    DESCRIPTION: NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M
    MANUFACTURER: NVIDIA
    BIOS: Version 70.16.58.0A.00
    DATE: 1-11-2010
    Drive Letter: C
    Total Disk Space: 232.4 GBytes
    Cluster Size: 4.0 KBytes
    File system: NTFS
     
  15. aa.

    aa. Member

    Messages:
    58
    ReinaldoG, you can just compare scores.

    At first glance Performance Test showed final performance rating of VM is ~10% worse than native. Mostly that happened because of slower 3D in VM. As of disk performance - according to this report VM disk drive performance is on par with native for random access, and 5-10% slower for sequential access. But maybe it's just a test results deviation, or some application on Mac side (Spotlight for instance) also accessed the disk a little at the moment when you run Performance Test in guest.

    Anyway we'll check what could be wrong with disk performance on BootCamp VM on pixelsmack's Mac, when disk was 500% slower (!?)

    Thank you all for the reports and independent benchmarking!
     
  16. ReinaldoG

    ReinaldoG Bit poster

    Messages:
    5
    Thanks!
    I also noticed performance is better with Parallels in some specific tests.

    Another question. Would it have any advantage (performance wise) to import the Parallels from Bootcamp to a VM?

    R
     
  17. pixelsmack

    pixelsmack Junior Member

    Messages:
    14
    For now, yes. I am seeing much better disk performance with an imported BC versus running from it.
     
  18. pixelsmack

    pixelsmack Junior Member

    Messages:
    14
    Did you still need me to do this?
     
  19. aa.

    aa. Member

    Messages:
    58
    pixelsmack, just if you're going to run your BootCamp partition as a VM, then could you please re-run Performance Test in it, generate problem report and send me the ID? Thank you!
     
  20. aa.

    aa. Member

    Messages:
    58
    good!

    I think BootCamp VM must have the same performance as imported VM, there should be no difference except data location on disk. But with imported VM you will have some other advantages, like normal suspend and snapshots.
     

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