CPUs and Memory

CPU's options range from 1 to 8. Memory options range from 4MB to 16GB.

How do I go about choosing CPU's and Memory?

 

What kind of performance do you need? What applications do you want to run? Obviously, the more cores and memory you allocate to a VM, the better performance you will get, though you will limit the resources available to Mac OS X.

Steve

 

The most graphic intensive and power hungry program I'll be running is RealFlight 7, which is an RC flight simulator. These are my computer specs:



I understand that I want to achieve a "happy medium" between allocating enough resources to run this simulator well via Parallels without bogging down the Mac OSX. I currently allocated 2 CPU's and 4 GB Memory. I chose those values as a wild guess. The simulator seems to be working well, and the Mac OSX shows no signs of slowing down. So, the answer to these two questions may get me started:

1) How do I gauge whether I've allocated enough CPU's and Memory to Parallels?

2) How do I tell the difference between allocating CPU's vs Memory?

 

You have my new machine's big brother (I'm at 2.3 GHz)!

If your settings are working fine for you, you don't need to change anything.

Check the hardware requirements for any software you want to use. Take the memory requirement and add a GB or two at least for the operating system. That is usually sufficient. There's no exact science for selecting the number of cores to use. Again, if it's working for you, then you're good. If framerate is bad, add another core or increase the amount of video RAM (video hardware options in the VM's configuration).

Steve

 

Thank you for your help.