Boot Camp vs. Parallels
 

I'm a recent switcher and I've installed Boot Camp and bought Parallels and I'm running my boot camp partition through Parallels. My question however is do I really need to use boot camp if I don't have a compelling reason to run XP native (not in a VM)? Basically I'm only running a few apps (MS Money, Outlook, Work VPN, etc) and nothing that is graphic intensive. Is the speed of a VM close to booting into XP via boot camp? While I'm not expecting identical speed, if a VM is nearly as fast as booting via boot camp I'm willing to ditch boot camp.

If anyone has any input on this comparison I would appreciate it.

So far I gotta say the Mac rules...glad I switched.

How much RAM have you got? It's pretty important because your VM speed depends on RAM. I can say that I've got 2 Gigs of RAM and I run Windows via Parallels. The speed is very close to native - so, there's no speed difference between Boot Camp and Parallels. To sum up, 2 Gigs are optimal for Parallels.
The apps you are going to run will not slow down the system and running Windows in Parallels will become much more convenient!

I can only second what Specter has said. 2Gigs will provide optimal speed in Parallels (as it happened when I upgraded to 2 Gigs).
But why do you choose Between Boot Camp and Parallels? You can use both - for games and for work...

I've got 2GB of RAM on a Macbook Core 2 Duo 2Ghz. Sounds like I should be getting pretty close to native speed with my setup.

The main reason I'm wanting to ditch boot camp is because I partitioned 22GB of space for XP and I'll likely never use all that space. I'm starting to run low on space on my Mac partition (120GB drive) so I thought about reclaiming that space. Though I could just remove boot camp and repartition but I would image that's a long process. Anyone ever tried that?

Thanks for the good information everyone!

Yes, I have no doubts that Parallels will work great on your Mac, taking into consideration that you are not going to run very complicated apps.
With Boot Camp support under Parallels you'll be able to resize Boot Camp partition (Parallels tools or something like that), if I'm not mistaken.

With such setup you should have started using Parallels Desktop extensively long ago:D :D
Of course, if you don't play games - it's still impossible, Parallels doesn't have 3d support. I deem this to be the only drawback, in fact, but I'm a big fan of Parallels and my opinion is definitely biased:)
But playing games and doing work with graphics is much better with Boot Camp.

Oh, I forgot to mention Parallels Compressor - a tool that is included in Parallels when you buy it. You spoke of increasing free disk space and I thought of it. In fact it will help you to compress your Parallels/Boot Camp partition and free up to 50% disk spaces. This app somehow organizes the work of VM, so it starts to work a little faster. The increase in speed wasn't significant, but it was quite sensible anyway

Well, I must say it for :)
Compressor is really good. At first I didn't expect much from it, as it was included as a free addition to Parallels Desktop and Parallels Tools. But then I changed my opinion rather quickly. It really helps save some35-40% of disk space. The speed increase was not as sensible as it has been said. In fact, Windows under Parallels works almost at native speed on my Mac - I mean it can't work faster!:D

can anyone explain the differences between the two? and virtual pc (is parallels an incarnation of VP?)
thanks

Parallels (intel only) uses 'virtualisation' so it uses your computer hardware to run Windows as its own application within Mac OS at almost full speed.

BootCamp (intel only) effectivly partitions your Mac in two, one half runs Mac OS, the other runs Windows... so to all intents and purposes it IS half PC, only downside is that you have to 'boot' up in one OS or the other.

Virtual PC (PPC only) uses software to allow you to run Windows in a very similar way to Parallels, the main differance is speed.. because it is getting Windows to run on a PPC Mac it is DOG slow.

CrossOver (intel only) runs some Windows only apps without Windows at almost native speeds

thanks for the quick reply!
how do I know which app's would run on CrossOver?

you can check their compatability center!

http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/

personally... I like the idea of CrossOver... as I dont like having Windows on my Macs :D But Parallels gets some great reviews coz you can effectivly 'hide' windows so you dont have to see it!

back to the original message...

since you're not using any 3d stuff on your mac, i suggest that you delete bootcamp and just run windows through parallels.

1. this enables you to pause your windows. instead of having to wait windows to boot up when you launch parallels, you can just 'resume' it. this is much faster. a 'bootcamped VM' won't allow you this.

2. claim back that unused space. a normal parallels VM only takes space as much as it needs to, and has the ability to expand when needed.

I was previously using 1GB running XP in parallels and I find it adequate. Of course, more RAM is always better.

Yes, this is called Coherence mode, this is what I like most about Parallels!(I couldn't help writing about it!). This is how Coherence is defined at Parallels homesite.

This feature is really interesting, I wonder what Fusion will introduce as an answer.
Most of all I enjoyed Boot Camp support(as I have to use it with 3d graphics apps) and Coherence. But Parallels Compressor was also great:)

If I want to remove my boot camp partition and simply run parallels, will I need to reinstall parallels and reinstall the Windows apps after deleting the partition?

Just a minor point here, there is actually a big difference between what Parallels and Virtual PC have to do. Virtual PC does a much bigger job than Parallels which is to emulate an Intel chip on a non-Intel chip. That is why it is so slow. Parallels doesn't have to emulate anything because it already runs only on Intel chips. It only has to do virtualization, not emulation. That is why it runs at near-native speed.

That's absolutely right!
Parallels is a piece of Virtualization software, not Emulation software. It works faster, because it doesn't emulate anything.

The new version of Parallels now has 3D support, correct? So I can use Parallels instead of Boot Camp and still play 3D games (if I have 2GB of RAM in my MBP)?

Yes, but you will still take a hit on performance and framerate. It will not work as fast as BootCamp.

but can the new version support huge games like san andreas and half life 2?

2 Gigs of RAM is very good for Parallels. But you shouldn't forget that Parallels supports only DirectX 8.1 yet. That means that you will not be able to run all the available games, but only a few. In some time Parallels, of course, will provide better 3D support. But I would use Boot Camp for gaming until it is done.

I'm not sure about San Andreas, but I think that H-L 2 will not work, it is a new game, I assume. I'm not very much into the word of gaming.

Aha! I was not aware of the DirectX-only support! Have they mentioned plans to incorporate OpenGL in the future? I was definitely planning on getting Parallels, but now I'll have to check my most-played games to see if it will really be worth it.

I wouldn't consider H-L 2 a new game. It came out, what, a year ago?

i think 1 and a half, but graphically its huge, and san andreas is like the biggest game ever. but if it ran games like that smoothly i would consider buying it, and while were on the subject of gaming, with the new gaming engine for leopard, maybe games like gta 4 or hl episode 3 will run on mac anyway and the need for having windows just for games will fade away, but seriously imagine how cool gta would be on a mac :)

OpenGL does work, but DirectX is only supported to 8.1, which is pretty old.

Sorry for disinformation, I failed to put it right: Parallels of course supports OpenGL, I meant that it supports DX8.1 and earlier when I saud "only"
Parallels Desktop 3DGraphic support - info from their homepage
Well, as I have said I know almost nothing about the world of games, that's why I don't know when Half Life 2 appeared. But it definitely requires something more than DX 8.1

- as you can see from Parallels site, they say that it supports Half-Life 2

Here's the list of games that, according to Parallels team, will definitely work(they have been thoroughly tested).
The list is said to be frequently updated. Check the link above in one of my posts.

sounds good, has anyone tried any of these more graphical games? do they run smooth like in native windows

I haven't tried anything yet, but they have a demo on their page. I have already posted the link somewhere in this thread, here it is once again: link. There's a video about running games in Parallels - Quake 4 and something else, I don't know.
All this sounds very good, you are right. A great prospect for gamers

so i'm thinking of switching to a mac...
im thinking of using either parallel, but if i wanna play some games would it be better to get 1 or 2 GB of ram? im not a hardcore gamer or anything.

or should i just get boot camp? becuase ive heard that its better for games?

An eternal RAM question...
If you want to have a fast system, take as much RAM as you can afford. For Parallels 2 Gigs will do good.
Parallels supports OpenGL and DX8.1 - if you want to run games that require a higher version of DirectX get Boot Camp, it's free.
If you need to run Windows on your Mac simultaneously with Mac OS (that's a very useful feature I should say), then get Parallels Desktop.
Well, I've summed it all up briefly for you:)