Optimizing Vista performance under P5

Dear Folks,

First time posting here and new to Parallels ('though an old hand with emulators/virtualizers). So, if this has been addressed elsewhere, just point me to the right threads.

To start, let me make it clear-- this is NOT a complaint. I'm running P5, latest build, on an i5 quad-core 27" iMac w/4 GB RAM. I virtualized my Vista Boot Camp installation. No problems, and it runs great. I'm just not sure I'm doing everything I can to make it run even greater.

Best as I can benchmark it, virtualized Vista runs at about 1/3-1/2 the performance of Boot Camp Vista. Which is nothing to complain about on a machine like this. But, can I tune it up to perform even better?

Here's the settings I'm using, which is my best guess as to what would optimize Vista performance, especially with graphically-intensive apps:

Time Machine is disabled
All background apps (e.g., SETI@home) are disabled

Parallels memory allocation: automatic

Vista virtual machine configuration:

Processors: 4
Main memory: 1536 MB
"Enable Adaptive Hypervisor" : OFF
"Tune Windows for Speed" : ON
Optimize Performance for: Virtual machine
Power Consumption: Better performance

Full screen mode

Video: 256 MB memory, enabled 3D acceleration, enabled vertical synch


Anything I've missed?


Thanks!

Ctein

 

I don't think you can do much to speed up your vm... but 1/3 to 1/2 the speed of boot camp isn't very good; usually Parallels runs faster than that. How many processors does your VM use, 1 or 2? 2 makes it run somewhat faster again, and the iMac shouldn't shut down cores when it becomes hot.

To eke another (very) few % of speed out of your system, try this: Disable vSync. Disable USB entirely in the VM (Not sure whether this has any effect on speed, though - I think it just frees up a bit of memory in the VM). Prevent the two Parallels services that show up in msconfig to load at startup - they allow coherence and crystal view modes; however, these 2 modes are slowing the VM down. Finally, I run my VM in full-screen only.

 

Dear Shaddam,

Thank you for the reply. As my original post said, this is a quad-core system and I had set the virtual machine
to use all four cores. A spot check with Mac OS's Activity monitor when running 3dmark06 showed at least 3 cores were being utilized by Parallels (CPU utilization above 200%)

I disabled Parallels Coherence Service in msconfig, but I couldn't find a service that seemed associated with the crystal view mode. The only other Parallels service running was the (necessary) Parallel Tools. Do you recall the name of the crystal mode-enabling service(s)?

Unfortunately, disabling vSync and Coherence service had a statistically insignificant effect on my benchmarks. I'm still seeing a 50%+ performance hit vs Boot Camp.


Anyone else got any suggestions?

pax / Ctein
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I suggest you assign no more than 2 cores to the VM, that should also help - in this way, only 2 cores are used by the VM, and 2 are "free" for Mac OS X (which is always involved when you run the VM, handling its communications requirements, the virtual disk, etc).
There is no separate service for Crystal view, as far as I understand it's sort of a different kind of Coherence. Good luck!

 

Dear Shaddam,

I tried that experiment and it produced no statistically significant change in the 3dmark06 benchmarks except for the CPU benchmarks, which dropped by a full third. A useful datum: there is a significant performance advantage to assigning more than two cores to Parallels running Vista on a quad core system being devoted "exclusively" to Vista.

No doubt performance would plummet if I were running simultaneous VM and Mac OS applications, but as the settings I've previously listed make apparent, this is an attempt to maximize Windows performance, not overall system performance when running multiple applications.

If anyone else has some ideas, to trot them out. I'm always happy to run experiments (that don't involve major installation/de-installations [ lazy smile ]).

In the meantime, let me reiterate what I said at the beginning of this thread; Parallels has given me no trouble and I am not at all unhappy with the performance I'm getting, I'm only trying to find out if I can make it even better.


~ pax \ Ctein
[ Please excuse any word-salad. MacSpeech in training! ]
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-- Ctein's Online Gallery http://ctein.com*
-- Digital Restorations http://photo-repair.com*
======================================

 

I just learned from another thread that putting the VM on an external (USB) disk really makes a difference on my paltry MBAir since the Mac and the VM don't have to fight for the hard disk. I'm doing that right now and it's great. I have my VM set up to use a separate virtual hard drive for its virtual memory file; I'll try putting just that on the external disk, keeping my main virtual drive on the internal disk, and see how that goes.