Parrallels Desktop for Mac Question

iBear

iBear

iBear

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20 Sep 2005
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Kings Lynn, UK
Hi Guys/Gals,

A quick question really, would like to know if Parrallels makes use of your full system spec like Bootcamp does?

Reason being, is that i want to put my PC games on there and id prefer it if i didnt need to reboot everytime i do so. But if its going to be like an emulator and only use half my system id rather just use Bootcamp.

Have looked on Parrallels website but doesnt state on there either way, at least i couldnt find it.

Anybody have it /or can help?

Appreciated,

iBear
 
Well, in terms of games, Bootcamp will be best as Parallels doesn't have video card acceleration. However, applications run quite well and you'll struggle to see performance differences especially considering you'd need to restart the machine.

Games - Bootcamp
Applications - Parallels

Hope that helps!

BeatMaster :D
 
Both

You can of course run both Bootcamp and Parallels. Bootcamp can use the iSight but Parallels is more convenient.
 
Guys i'm guessing that you use parrallels, mine crashes my mac as soon as i start the vm to install xp. Any ideas?
 
I'm trying to get Parallels to work with my Bootcamp installation and it's not going too well. It's giving me a hardware error.
 
In reply to the original poster, Parallels is not a multi-cpu application, eg. it will only scale to use up to 100% of one CPU. So in some circumstances (the one that springs to mind is movie/audio encoding) Parallels will not fully utilise your machine.

Most of the time having one core for OS X and one core for Parallels should be fine though.
 
Hijack if I may. I've just got a new imac and can't get xampp to work on it. So was simply going to install windows via bootcamp....

However, would parallels be an equally valid alternative?

A lot of the sql work I do is VERY intensive under windows (50-60% cpu @ 3.2Ghz for 30 mins at a time).... would bootcamp be better or would it not matter?
 
Just use the mysql .pkg from mysql.org
Install PHP using the entropy .pkg (www.entropy.ch)
Apache is already installed of course, turn it on in the sharing options in system preferences.

After that, bob's your uncle, no configuration needed unless you want to do special tuning to mysql or apache, then its just standard /etc/httpd/httpd.conf and /usr/local/mysql/my.cnf :)
 
E1mo said:
In reply to the original poster, Parallels is not a multi-cpu application, eg. it will only scale to use up to 100% of one CPU. So in some circumstances (the one that springs to mind is movie/audio encoding) Parallels will not fully utilise your machine.

Most of the time having one core for OS X and one core for Parallels should be fine though.
Click to expand...

Seems to have no trouble going above 100% for me. Parallels is worth every penny.
 
jdickerson said:
Hijack if I may. I've just got a new imac and can't get xampp to work on it. So was simply going to install windows via bootcamp....

However, would parallels be an equally valid alternative?

A lot of the sql work I do is VERY intensive under windows (50-60% cpu @ 3.2Ghz for 30 mins at a time).... would bootcamp be better or would it not matter?
Click to expand...

Have you tried MAMP?
 
jdickerson said:
Hijack if I may. I've just got a new imac and can't get xampp to work on it. So was simply going to install windows via bootcamp....

However, would parallels be an equally valid alternative?

A lot of the sql work I do is VERY intensive under windows (50-60% cpu @ 3.2Ghz for 30 mins at a time).... would bootcamp be better or would it not matter?
Click to expand...
Parallels can now boot Bootcamp partitions so you can install Bootcamp then setup Parallels to use it - see here for more info, namely:

* Boot from BootCamp partition. Another long awaited feature that lets you boot your 32-bit Windows XP residing on Boot Camp partition directly in Parallels Desktop for Mac.
IMPRORTANT! You need to boot in your Windows XP natively through Boot Camp and install Parallels Tools for Boot Camp package in it before your first boot in Parallels Desktop for Mac.
Click to expand...
Parallels rocks :)

To clarify, you don't need Parallels but this gives you the option to Bootcamp for maximum performance, but also just flick open a Parallels instance when you need to quickly check/run something under Windows and don't need full performance. That said, Parallels' CPU emulation is pretty good - it's slower than a native boot, but not slow :)
 
punky_munky said:
Have you tried MAMP?
Click to expand...
Funny you should mention that..

I tried xampp the other day but for some reason mysql never worked properly. Also phpmyadmin said a few files couldn't be read etc... so I abandoned it.

However, having since uninstalled it.. going to localhost still redirects to "http://localthost/xamppp/index.php" - how do I change that?!
 
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