Dual Core Support in build 5608?

Hi,

I am not sure if this is the right thread - but can anyone confirm that build 5608 makes use of both CPU cores in an Intel Core 2 Duo Mac?

(I have the 2.0 GHZ Mac Mini for reference)

In earlier reviews (2005 - early 2008) it was mentioned that only VMware Fusion offers this but a recent PDF product information sheet of Parallels sort of implies that both cores are fully used "giving almost full native OS speed". I have Parallels and this info would be greatly appreciated.

I have not been able to find / confirm this info anywhere else online. (And let's not exclude the possibility that I am either too blind or dumb to find it).

Thanks,
Joe

 

in current both cores are used but you can see only one CPu in VM, in PD4 you will be able assign 4 CPU

 

Ok, just for me to understand - does this mean that

* The full performance of both cores is used (also by load-balancing the process threads among the cores)?
* The guest OS (let's say XP) only sees the VM's CPU as one large one that has the full speed of both cores working but with no advantage of multi-threading?

Thanks,
Joe

 

Not exactly load balancing, but in common - yes
Yes

 

Thanks!

Yes - I meant "normal" 2-Core operation (without having deep insights into the mechanics - sorry bout that)

So in Essence, the VM running the Guest OS has the benefit of Dual Core but anything running within the Guest OS does not (or only in limited capacity with the total speed of both cores working as one CPU).

Thank you for clarifying - I am happy to wait for Ver. 4 for that.

Joe

 

One Parallels process uses more than one thread (in Activity Monitor I'm seeing 22 threads at the moment with XP running) which means each thread gets to a different core according to load, like with any other application under OSX.

 

Yeah that's what I mean by my first point.

But if the guest OS only sees one CPU - then I guess the applications in the guest OS don't get the benefit of multi-threading among 2 cores, just 1 simulated bigger one? Otherwise why build the support for dual core into Parallels or VMware for that matter?

 

It only sees one CPU, but the Parallels threads are managed by OSX, build multi-core support into a VM means I can picket-fence my VM just to use n cores and and not let it interfere with the load of other cores. So, if I have 8 cores, I can assign just 2 cores to a VM and I can be sure it won't use my other 6 cores that I need for OSX, in the end the VM might get slower than it would if I would let OSX manage the load of the threads between the 8 cores, but OSX will probably run faster if I'm using Photoshop for instance. Multi-core support might also mean that the VM runs the processes and threads directly on the CPU without them being encapsulated under Parallels threads (a Parallels thread might include a series of VM processes inside it).

In practical terms, multi-core support only makes a noticeable difference if you have more than 2 cores, and even more difference if you're running more than one VM at the same time.

 

in PS there will be an option soon to assign cores to VM ,maybe in PD 4 too

 

Wow - thank you for the very good explanation!!!

That actually clears up the question I had nicely I was basically trying to gage if there would be a performance increase in my case with the new feature. But from reading your description it seems that I am fine with my 2 cores for performance (I am only using XP for utils that don't exist for the Mac so right now no "heavy load" in the VM - also not planning to run multiple VMs next to each other with active processes in each).

And in this case the multi-core feature would only really make sense in the server version or for a hardcore-developer / user scenario.

Thanks - this was very helpful!

Joe