Poor Sound Quality

Sorry for being unclear - I meant "Smart Mouse", which can be set in the VM's configuration dialog (Virtual Machine>Configure>Options>Services). Turning Smart Mouse to "Automatic" allows Parallels to switch the mouse between the VM and the Mac, useful if you run Windows in a window. As I'm running Windows full-screen, I don't need that - I just need a mouse in Windows (I've set Windows to run in a separate Mac Space so I usually switch between Mac and Windows by hitting ctrl-(left arrow).

I find that that if I turn Smart Mouse off the whole system runs really nice and smooth, better than with Smart Mouse on. This works very well in Windows (I'm using Windows 7). However, games that bring their own cursor - such as Warhammer 40,000 or Battle for Middle Earth - will no longer show that cursor when in full screen. The mouse still works, you just can't see where you're pointing as there is no pointer. Hm. I guess the mouse driver still needs a little polishing, judging from its date it was finished 1 day prior to Parallels 5's release.
 
I can confirm that installing the Realtek drivers really helped a lot. So far I haven't heard any crackles like I did before. I think I can finally listen to my Rhapsody music.
 
SmartMouse

Thanks Shaddam for your message. I turned off smart mouse but unlike for you it had no effect on my PC. :-( I still the the crackles and sometimes even drop outs, so I am going to keep trying different things and also stay in touch with support and write back here if I find out something new. Do you have no crackles at all now?

I changed OS type to "Windows 2008" today to try something support was suggesting I try, although it did not improve my sound problem (or make it worse) it improved performance a great deal. Perhaps this can help someone.
 
Go into options (configuration of virtual machine / bootcamp virtual machine), general and underneath the OS Name (or virtual machine name) choose the operating system type.

Let me know what effect this has for you.

I hope I got the names right correct above, I have Parallels Desktop in German.
 
Audio quality troubling

I am trying the driver download fix now. You would think they would have addressed this already. As gaming experience seems to have been a major highlight of this new version. :(

I use Rhapsody and it is unusable in the Parallels VM. Someone must have noticed this and decided to release the product anyway. Not good. When you compound this with the fact that a simple google search brings back the location of a superior driver, it really makes you wonder what they are thinking by releasing this!
 
toonsms said:
I am trying the driver download fix now. You would think they would have addressed this already. As gaming experience seems to have been a major highlight of this new version. :(

I use Rhapsody and it is unusable in the Parallels VM. Someone must have noticed this and decided to release the product anyway. Not good. When you compound this with the fact that a simple google search brings back the location of a superior driver, it really makes you wonder what they are thinking by releasing this!
Click to expand...

Er... licensing issues, maybe? Anyway, I finally begin to understand what my friends did back in the nineties when they were happily "tuning" their PCs, fooling with drivers and stuff, while I just had a few System 7 extensions to move in and out of the Extensions folder... I love this kinda stuff!
 
JoachimH said:
Go into options (configuration of virtual machine / bootcamp virtual machine), general and underneath the OS Name (or virtual machine name) choose the operating system type.

Let me know what effect this has for you.

I hope I got the names right correct above, I have Parallels Desktop in German.
Click to expand...

Thanks Joachim, I'm also running Parallels auf Deutsch :-) I didn't find that pull-down at first as it is cleverly invisible until you hover over the OS name and icon - weird usability choice, that. I see a Windows Server 2008 option here, do you mean that? I'll try it right now, thanks!
 
JoachimH said:
Go into options (configuration of virtual machine / bootcamp virtual machine), general and underneath the OS Name (or virtual machine name) choose the operating system type.

Let me know what effect this has for you.

I hope I got the names right correct above, I have Parallels Desktop in German.
Click to expand...

Well it feels snappier when I choose Windows Server 2008 as the OS type, but that may be just wishful thinking. The Windows Performance Index's CPU index has increased by 0.1 points when compared to running that index when the OS type is Windows 7. I'll try a game now :-)

Sound... well I still get the occasional crackle, mostly when the poor machine is really busy. Music is mostly fine (haven't tried Rhapsody, only radio streams). I guess this happens when the VM is busy AND when the Mac is doing something (that something may well be Parallels related, of course). Not sure what I can do about that, I'm now hunting for background processes that I can safely prevent from loading.

I'll keep you posted.
 
It's not the rhapsody software that is causing it. When I boot into bootcamp directly it runs flawlessly. The crackles coincide with mouse and keyboard movements.
 
Unfortunately none of these suggestions are working for me. I'm going to have to open a ticket. This isn't even passable performance.

One tip for all: A lot of the suggestions above are only available when you are not in the VM. A lot of people seem to be asking why they can't see / find a setting mentioned. Shut down the VM and then configure it.





Shaddam IV said:
Well it feels snappier when I choose Windows Server 2008 as the OS type, but that may be just wishful thinking. The Windows Performance Index's CPU index has increased by 0.1 points when compared to running that index when the OS type is Windows 7. I'll try a game now :-)

Sound... well I still get the occasional crackle, mostly when the poor machine is really busy. Music is mostly fine (haven't tried Rhapsody, only radio streams). I guess this happens when the VM is busy AND when the Mac is doing something (that something may well be Parallels related, of course). Not sure what I can do about that, I'm now hunting for background processes that I can safely prevent from loading.

I'll keep you posted.
Click to expand...
 
Hm... tellling the VM that the OS type is Windows Server 2008 didn't really do anything for me, speed-wise. Performance hasn't really significantly changed.
 
Update on sound crackling...

Well after trying all of the great suggestions here and still having trouble I braved the tech support call.
It turns out that my performance was greatly improved by turning off the Smartmount and Mouse gesturing. I have also turned off a lot of other things but these 2 seemed to have the most noticeable effect.

On the crackling issue:

The gentleman on the phone had to go through a ton of standard stuff that he is directed to go through. I am not the most patient person when it comes to technical stuff and didn't protest to most of it unless it got really ridiculous (like deleting the 6 document links in my recent file folder - I did mention I had a sound problem right?).

He was VERY patient with me and we were able to figure out that my problems are directly related to USB. I was using a sound card off of USB instead of the internal Macbook soundcard. Silly me, I figured offline sound processing would actually help the situation not hurt it. But in fact the USB part of the equation was the main cause of 98% of my crackling.

Besides his super human patience he also gets high marks for asking me to try the pad on the laptop instead of using my mouse and voilla no sound pops. So lesson learned - external sound card and the VM are not a good idea.

I still have some work to do so I can use a USB mouse and keyboard all day without annoying sound pops and I'm not sure how much of my performance problems were due to the USB problems but for now performance is quite good. I am now going to re-enable all of the features one by one to see if I can start using some of the great new features in 5.0. I will cope with a slight audio pop here or there when the disk is busy, but I do have to get to the bottom of the USB problems. For now it is workable and I am much happier with this new product. I am no longer freezing up and the audio quality is adequate.

I said this earlier - A lot of people can't find config options mentioned in this forum topic because they are running the VM. When you shut it off the view is slightly different.
 
Thanks toonms for those tips, I am going to try disabling all those USB devices except the mouse and keyboard. I need those. In my case I did use the internal sound card though. I'm the only one when turning off smart mouse has no effect on the problem. I wish I had the same quality, it's not just the occasional pop, it's not so enjoyable to enjoy my music like this :D.

I still got a few new things to try out though, thanks to your suggestion, I'll be back :D
 
New Sounds Drivers now available.

Just to let you guys know, there are new sound drivers available for the Realtek HD driver. I will be trying these today and I will be posting my results later.
 
Correction: No new drivers.

Well silly me, those drivers are not the A97 version that Parallel Desktop requires. These drivers will work for the boot camp partition too but only when booted directly in it, so my suggestion is not to use them with PD, because they won't install and the driver will remain yellow. There has been no update to the AC 97 drivers for a while.
 
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