Parallels, Boot Camp, XP, and 1GB RAM. What do I need for speed?

There are two things I want to do with Parallels: run Visual Studio 2005, and play games (mostly low-impact 2D indie games). A few months ago, I tried build 4128 with Windows XP on my MacBook (2.0GHz, 1GB RAM), using the Boot Camp partition.

The results were disappointing. It took at least three minutes for Windows to boot, during which time the rest of the system ran quite slowly. The desktop worked fine once it came up, but my games didn't--of the four I tried, three failed immediately (Pozzo, Tank Domination, The Jeluvian Project), and one (A Game With A Kitty) ran very slowly and didn't stretch properly when fullscreened. These are all 2D freeware games, and all ran fine on this system through Boot Camp. I didn't even try Visual Studio at the time, knowing how heavyweight it is.

What do I need to change to run Visual Studio and other apps at a good speed? (And my games, if possible.) I've heard that upgrading from 1GB to 2GB RAM makes a big difference; is that accurate? Would moving off the Boot Camp partition have an effect on speed, or just stability? Would the latest build possibly be any better?

Thanks for your help!

 

Going from 1 GB to 2 GB is like swimming in molasses and then moving to water.

Going from 2 GB to 3 GB is like taking off the drag suit and switching to speedos while swimming.

 

Cool! Will it make a difference with the games that crashed outright, do you think, or will I just have to deal with Boot Camp to play those?

 

It all depends on what kind of DirectX they use. The best thing to do is see what happens.

 

Just downloaded a direct X update BTW

Hugh W

 

Extra RAM will certainly smooth things out in Parallels but I'm afraid that, if you want to play games, Boot Camp is still your best bet - Parallels seems to have issues with 2D games (e.g. on my system Total Annihilation runs in black and white...) The DirectX support lets (some) 3D games run but doesn't seem to do much for 2D ones.

 

Just a quick caveat - if you are using Boot Camp then you should be aware that the maximum memory visible to Windows XP under boot camp seems to be 2GB.

I have a Mac Pro with 3GB, but Windows/Boot Camp only reports 1.98 (or thereabouts) GB in the System control panel. This seems to be a separate issue from the various well-documented limitations and workarounds for 32bit Windows with >2GB RAM (e.g. I've tried the /3GB switch in boot.ini).

Don't let that stop you upgrading your Mac to 3GB - OSX will make good use of it and it lets you give 1GB to Windows in Parallels without clobbering OSX too much. Just don't expect all the RAM to show up in Boot Camp.