Why is the Recommended Configuration only 4 Cores and 8GB RAM on a 28 Core, 192 RAM Mac Pro?

Discussion in 'Installation and Configuration of Parallels Desktop' started by KevinS31, Apr 26, 2022.

  1. KevinS31

    KevinS31 Bit poster

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    Why is the Recommended Configuration only 4 Cores and 8GB RAM on a 28 Core, 192 RAM Mac Pro? I'm starting to wonder if this is all Parallels can handle? I bought this new workhorse Mac Pro to assign more cores, but it doesn't seem to go any faster than the Macbook Pro I used.

    To Test this, i ran an operation in Excel using the recommended configuration and it took 2min 10 sec. with the 4 Core, 8GB ram. I then made a manual configuration of 20 Core, 128GB of RAM. The speed went down to 45 seconds.

    On both tests, it only operated with 1 thread per Core, (4 threads and 20 threads) whereas when I once used Bootcamp it would multi-thread for a total of 8 and 40 threads. Anyways, i thought I'd do better on this. Curious to hear other's experiences when running Parallels off a 2019 Mac Pro.
     
  2. Asish

    Asish Staff Member

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    177
    Hello, We would like to inform you that the Virtual Machine hardware limits completely depend upon the Mac Host Machine hardware specifications. Please refer to this KB article What are the Virtual Machine hardware limits? for more information.
     
  3. KevinS31

    KevinS31 Bit poster

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    OK, now I'm convinced these answers are coming from Bots and not real people. 2 for 2 on reference to articles that in no way answer the question. The link provided is for "Parallels Tools manual installation in Linux virtual machine" and not Virtual Machine Limitations. However, it is in fact what was written in the [correct] article that brought me to my question above, which is: Why does parallels recommend 4 cores and 8GB of RAM when your superior product [parallels pro] allows you to do more? Its like you're telling me to upgrade because it will give you all this additional speed while at the same time telling me I'm NOT going to get the additional speed.
     
    megavolt17 likes this.
  4. DebasmitaM

    DebasmitaM Forum Maven

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    1,017
    Hello Kevin, we are sorry for the performance issue you are facing. Irrespective of the additional memory you can use only 50% of your macs hardware resources, As both the mac and the virtual machine both run parallelly. We have made sure that by allocating only 50% of the mac hardware resources to the virtual machine, You can use the Mac OS and the virtual machine with stable performance.
     
  5. megavolt17

    megavolt17 Pro

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    382
    My new MacBook Pro has 14 CPU cores (10 performance) and 36 GB or RAM. So why does automatic setting select only 4 cores and 8 GB (4 GB for graphics). Is this truly the optimal setting?

    If 50% is the optimal amount of CPU and RAM to use then Parallels should select 5 (or 7?) CPU cores and 18 GB of RAM. Or am I missing something with Silicon Macs?
     
  6. megavolt17

    megavolt17 Pro

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    I bumped the Windows emulation to 6 processors and 18 GB of RAM. Playing Halo: The Masterchef's Collection is much smoother now. It used to stutter and stop for a second or during loading of cutscenes (even when it plays several short ones in a row), or when entering new areas. Now it pauses a split second loading cut scenes and no lags at all during gameplay.

    Funny thing is giving Parallels more RAM I note the Mac is now compressing 5 GB of RAM, so I still have 13.6 GB free.
     
  7. LeRoi

    LeRoi Hunter

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    148
    Maybe it's due to that being the default settings and you have the option to change it to whatever your machine will handle. I don't work for Parallels, my only interest is to have the VMs work. They will work with the defaults and that may satisfy many users. Parallels gives you the ability to change the configuration from the defaults (just like VMWare).
     
  8. megavolt17

    megavolt17 Pro

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    382
    You may be right. I would have thought that there would be some science involved how "automatic" selects the amount of memory and the number of CPU cores.

    I did a test using Unique Heaven to check how the different configurations affect the frame rates. The 6 core, 18 GB setting gives higher overall frame rate, and improves the minimal frame rate.
     

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