3 replies to this topic

[MacFeast]

I was thinking about the virtualization capabilities in modern Intel (and AMD?) cpus. How well does it go with Windows + OSX simultanously? Have somebody tried? I read somewhere that vmware supports it, but does it need support from the operating system as well ?

[errandwolfe]

Right now I think the only product supporting VT on the Mactel side is Parallels.  Unfortunately my P4 does not have the VT capability so can't really evaluate the performance difference.

[Korrupted]

I've run Parallels on my P4 desktop(in Mac) and it runs windows at about 80-85%(just an educated guess, no scientific proof) of native speed, and that's without V-T.  On my macbook pro, it's about 95% native speed.  Regardless of V-T, Parallels is VERY fast.

[MacFeast]

Well, I've been using vmware for a while and cpu-wise I can't tell the difference from "native" mode. But I was led to believe that the virtualization would also speed up hardware access etc (as opposed to pure algorithmic parts of the program which should run with no noticable difference). And what about memory efficiency? For instance, I would guess that one common swap for all OSs would be better... ?