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waloshin

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Oct 9, 2008
3,339
173
I have some windows software to run on my 2018 Macbook Air which software will give me the best performance?
 

BigMcGuire

Cancelled
Jan 10, 2012
9,832
14,025
I've used all 3. I run VS 2019 with large project files with Oracle databases. Games (even old games) are unplayable (AOE II on steam). Virtualbox was the slowest, VMWare was faster, but Parallels was the fastest for me - near native speeds. Love the auto pause when I moved off of it back to Mac OS. Unfortunately, it is also the most expensive. (Personal experience - not scientifically tested at all).
 

chscag

macrumors 601
Feb 17, 2008
4,622
1,946
Fort Worth, Texas
Try VirtualBox first since it's free. If it doesn't work for you, remove it and go for VMWare or Parallels. You may be able to find Parallels bundled with other software. Parallels can be expensive but their stand alone (not subscription) app is not too bad.
 

waloshin

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Oct 9, 2008
3,339
173
Try VirtualBox first since it's free. If it doesn't work for you, remove it and go for VMWare or Parallels. You may be able to find Parallels bundled with other software. Parallels can be expensive but their stand alone (not subscription) app is not too bad.
True thanks.
 

jeyf

macrumors 68020
Jan 20, 2009
2,173
1,044
any virtualization environment dosnt work well for video intensive applications.
vmWare will support windows, linux and macos
boot camp?
 
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waloshin

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Oct 9, 2008
3,339
173
any virtualization environment dosnt work well for video intensive applications.
vmWare will support windows, linux and macos
boot camp?

Anyway to use Bootcamp with an external SSD as my Mac has an anemic 128 GBs of storage.
 

AppleSmack

macrumors 6502
Jun 30, 2010
336
114
Anyway to use Bootcamp with an external SSD as my Mac has an anemic 128 GBs of storage.
Yes there is! Google "bootcamp external ssd" and you'll find various guides. I used one that needed Virtualbox for part of the process.

It works fine for my needs - occasional Windows gaming and light office work.
 
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msp3

Suspended
May 9, 2015
489
608
Also have 2018 Macbook Air and want to understand the difference between Parallels, VMware Fusion, and Boot Camp. I remember from using Boot Camp during the PowerPC-Intel transition its just dual booting Windows, but I need to switch between the two seamlessly.

What speed penalties do Parallels and VMware Fusion suffer from being run alongside Mac OS? It should be nothing like Microsoft Virtual PC, right?
 

jeyf

macrumors 68020
Jan 20, 2009
2,173
1,044
What speed penalties do Parallels and VMware Fusion suffer from being run alongside Mac OS?
actually very little for most applications. Virtualization suffers where applications are graphic intensive.
i think there are restrictions on how macIOS apps run in virtualization such as full-screen, partial windowed, etc?


It should be nothing like Microsoft Virtual PC
not totally familiar but if this is the microsoft virtulization effort i ma thinking about it would be nice to try out new apps before buying them
 

Soba

macrumors 6502
May 28, 2003
450
700
Rochester, NY
What speed penalties do Parallels and VMware Fusion suffer from being run alongside Mac OS? It should be nothing like Microsoft Virtual PC, right?

Performance is nothing like the Virtual PC days. When Macs transitioned to Intel, virtualization became a lot less painful. Performance will of course depend on what you're using it for, but it's fairly snappy for most apps that are not graphics intensive.
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It should be nothing like Microsoft Virtual PC
not totally familiar but if this is the microsoft virtulization effort i ma thinking about it would be nice to try out new apps before buying them

He's referring to the (now very old) Virtual PC software made by Connectix that ran on PowerPC Macs. It was kind of painful emulating an Intel CPU on a PowerPC chip, but we didn't have a lot of options and just dealt with the slowness.

Microsoft bought the product in 2003 (I think) and released one more version before killing the product and making it Windows only. This was more or less the genesis of Microsoft's virtualization technology.

This is now long enough ago to feel like a past life, ack. :)
 
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MacBH928

macrumors G3
May 17, 2008
8,309
3,706
I've used all 3. I run VS 2019 with large project files with Oracle databases. Games (even old games) are unplayable (AOE II on steam). Virtualbox was the slowest, VMWare was faster, but Parallels was the fastest for me - near native speeds. Love the auto pause when I moved off of it back to Mac OS. Unfortunately, it is also the most expensive. (Personal experience - not scientifically tested at all).

When did you test the games? AOEII should have worked. I did test running games on Parallels long ago and I remember I could run 90s games.
 

BigMcGuire

Cancelled
Jan 10, 2012
9,832
14,025
When did you test the games? AOEII should have worked. I did test running games on Parallels long ago and I remember I could run 90s games.

It worked, it just wasn't comfortable for me - meaning, it was enough lag to make the gameplay not pleasant. I think too it may have been the fact that I played Steam's new rendition of AOE - not the actual old AOE II from the past. I bet that would have run a lot better.

/wave to another AOE player :).
 
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