Hi! I have a 2020 16 inch mac pook pro with i7 chip and 16gb RAM. I wanted to install parallels so was wondering if I give 4gb ram to the windows side then does my RAM becomes 12gb or does is remain 16 and becomes 12 only when windows is open?
Hello, Parallels VMs will use the amount of memory you assign to them while they are in operation. If you assign 1GB, then that amount of memory will be made available for the VM and will count against your available RAM on the Mac side WHILE THE VM IS RUNNING. Once the VM is shut down, that memory is relinquished and once again becomes available for use by other programs. Also, Parallels needs resources of its own, so whenever the Parallels app is running, it will eat some of your RAM and CPU time as well. It is quite meager in usage though, unless you actually have a VM running. Also for more information about the RAM usage please check this KB article.
