How to allocate Ram between Mac and Windows

Hi there
I'm running Parallels Desktop 6 on my MacBook, mainly so I can run Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11 professional (speech recognition software) on Windows 7.

Currently, RAM is shared 50/50 between Macintosh OS and Windows, ie 2GB to Mac/4GB to Windows 7. However I use Windows 7 most of the time, and as Dragon is RAM hungry software, and working rather sluggishly, I would like to allocate more RAM to Windows 7 (1 GB for Mac/3 GB for Windows 7).
Would appreciate any advice as to how this can be done.

Mac details:
Mac OSX V10.6.8
processor 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
memory 4 GB

Cheers
Sue

 

With only 4 GB of RAM installed, you're probably running into a hardware limitation rather than just a Parallels configuration issue. Dragon Naturally Speaking is quite memory-intensive, and both macOS and Windows 7 need enough RAM to run comfortably.

I wouldn't recommend reducing macOS to only 1 GB. Snow Leopard itself can use close to that, and leaving so little memory for the host OS will likely make the entire system slower, even if Windows has more RAM.

A few suggestions:

• Shut down the Windows virtual machine completely.
  
  
• Open Parallels Desktop > Virtual Machine > Configure > Hardware > CPU & Memory.
  
  
• Increase the Windows memory allocation if Parallels allows it, but try not to leave macOS with less than about 1.5-2 GB.
  
  
• Close unnecessary applications on both macOS and Windows before running Dragon.
  
  
• If possible, increase your MacBook's physical RAM. Many Intel Core 2 Duo MacBooks from that era support 8 GB, and upgrading from 4 GB to 8 GB makes a substantial difference when running Parallels and Dragon together.
  

If your MacBook model supports it, an SSD upgrade also provides a noticeable improvement because both operating systems rely on disk swapping when memory is tight.

Overall, the biggest performance gain is likely to come from adding more physical RAM rather than simply reallocating the existing 4 GB between macOS and Windows.