Parallels 15 extremely poor gaming performance

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Parallels User

I've purchased Parallels 15 this week to run Win10 on Catalina. Goal was to get rid of Bootcamp and do some light gaming that is not available to MacOS.

So far I've tried DayZ and Euro Truck Simulator 2 but both games have extremely poor performance (5-10 FPS on lowest settings)

Setup:
  • 2018 21,5" 4K iMac
  • Intel Core i5-7400 3Ghz
  • 8GB RAM
  • Radeon Pro 555 2GB
  • 256GB SSD

Parallels set to Gaming and tried all sorts of CPU/RAM settings for the VM. on higher CPU/RAM settings DayZ doesnt even launch to the menu.
Any suggestions or just bad luck and goodbye money?
 
Still no luck, I've been trying to get my Radion Pro 555 to work under Parallels but it doesn't get detected by AMD drivers, display runs on some virtualised graphics driver that isn't even capable to run Paint smoothly
3D performance sucks balls on Parallels and I'm already regretting I've spent my money on this pile of junk.
Besides this, not a single support tech has taken the effort to respond or help, great job guys!
 
327606893

This is just a general state of the VM, no specific error occur other than a lack of overall performance on any 3D application/game that I try
 
pmconaway said:
I'm wondering if the RAM is the issue. I've found Parallels runs much better when your system has more RAM.
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The VM itself runs fine, but the moment something that involves 3D is started the performance goes down the drain. As if I'm dealing with some cheap on-board graphics. (not that the 555 is the greatest GPU in the world, but it performs fine under MacOS or native Windows under bootcamp)
 
Well think about it this way, you're trying to game on what is basically a Windows system with 4GB RAM. That's not been practical for nearly a decade. Get more ram (16 (gives each system 8), or if you can do 32 (gives each system 8-16, definitely an improvement)), it'll make a difference. GL!
 
Sjaakie said:
Still no luck, I've been trying to get my Radion Pro 555 to work under Parallels but it doesn't get detected by AMD drivers, display runs on some virtualised graphics driver that isn't even capable to run Paint smoothly
3D performance sucks balls on Parallels and I'm already regretting I've spent my money on this pile of junk.
Besides this, not a single support tech has taken the effort to respond or help, great job guys!
Click to expand...

Don't forget, this is virtualized hardware. You don't need to install the AMD drivers, Parallels installs it's own drivers that work in-between your AMD hardware and Apple's Metal, providing what Windows needs. Make sure Parallels Tools are installed properly and you'll be good to go.
 
Thanks for your input!
I agree that RAM is an important factor but I'm talking about really, really bad performance on games that are 5+ years old. (basically stuff that my 2014 Macbook Air could run) I mean, Euro Truck Simulator gives 5-10FPS on the lowest settings on a maxed out VM.
 
Thanks to all for this thread Sjaakie and all ... I'm having similar issues with similar hardware and more RAM and I'm not even trying to game.

HW: iMAC 21.5" Retina 4k 2017; i5 quad-core 3.4; 16Gb RAM; Radeon Pro 560 (4Gb); 1Tb Fusion drive
Host OS: Catalina up to date; Guest OS Winv10 up to date
Parallels Pro 15 settings: Design (selected this one since I do a lot of charting w/ real time data); Hardware Config: 2 processors, 8Gb RAM (tried 12Gb but made no difference) w/ Extended memory limit enabled and Hypervisor set to Parallels/Adaptive

Experience: sluggish startup - the VM takes 5-10 seconds to even show an indication that it has been started. In the VM with 1 app running, I get 2-5 second delay when clicking on a button and waiting for the menu/submenu to display.

Issues began with the Catalina update. iMAC stopped recognizing the 2 DisplayLink USB monitors that previously performed perfectly, performance in the VM went to crap and I have been dealing with a series of issues ever since. That makes about 6 months now. I investigated upgrading RAM and found that this iMac does not allow user upgrade to RAM (Seems the SIMM slots are not accessible without taking apart some things, I've forgotten the details) and was therefore not cost effective (roughly 40% of the new purchase price of the computer to go from 16 to 32 Gb). Sorry for the tangent, the frustration and ridiculous cost:benefit of the situation infuriates me. Then there are the MS Win10 updates and all the crap they load by default (like X-box interface/taskbar, Win phone interface, yada-yada-yada). Too much junk and really hard to get rid of it without crippling the features needed.

I pity all 3rd-party vendors who are trying to remain financially viable when they have to deal with all the ill-conceived decisions Apple and MS make that effect all users.

So Sjaakie, RAM is important, but I think your poor performance experience goes far beyond the physical hardware in your machine. I feel for you!

Just saw in another thread a recommendation to set the VM Resource Optimization to 'No Limit'. Going to try this ... fingers crossed.

Feel free to chime in Parallels people ... any clues and suggestions greatly appreciated.
 
<SOAP BOX>
ROTFL ... give it a break guys .. you are trying to run graphics games with a desire to get 20-60 fps frame rate with virtualized graphics shim between your game's host VM and the real system - the real system then has to drive the graphics card. This is not to even mention the work needed to change OpenGL or DirectX calls to Metal calls on the way and vice-versa. Apple is not and never has been a really viable gaming system - sorry but that's the real world.
</SOAP BOX>
 
Well, I was fine with that a couple of years ago. But Parallels 15 is being heavily marketed for gaming. They actually have multiple videos showing Parallels running some high demanding games in their Youtube channel!

I also posted this thread cuz I saw some ppl online saying that they run games smoothly on parallels, so I assuming that I have a problem that can be fixed.
 
@Sjaakie Have you tried using Parallels 14? With 15, they changed their graphics API to Apple Metal and some of the games that I used to play under Parallels 14 look like garbage or are unplayable under 15. When I went back to 14, they looked and played fine again.
 
zslg01 said:
<SOAP BOX>
ROTFL ... give it a break guys .. you are trying to run graphics games with a desire to get 20-60 fps frame rate with virtualized graphics shim between your game's host VM and the real system - the real system then has to drive the graphics card. This is not to even mention the work needed to change OpenGL or DirectX calls to Metal calls on the way and vice-versa. Apple is not and never has been a really viable gaming system - sorry but that's the real world.
</SOAP BOX>
Click to expand...

Are you trying to tell me that MacBook Pro 16 with Radeon 5300M can't handle Heroes of Might and Magic IV, the game that it almost 20 years old? Because I've been experiencing lags while playing that on Parallels. There's definitely something wrong either with MacOS or with Parallels.
 
Installed Parallels yesterday on my late 2019 MacBook Pro, after first deleting my Windows install on Bootcamp so I could start a fresh install. Parallels downloaded the wrong version of Windows, but a call to Microsoft fixed that. Once I had the right ISO file I was able to register windows inside of the VM fine. Then I installed a few games. One that is 16 years old (Total War Medieval 2) and WOW. I did use the gaming config, and Windows has unlimited CPU and 16 GB of my 32 GB of ram. Yes, WOW lagged with video set to native and default (7) quality. I left the native resolution, but dialed the quality back down to 3 (recommended setting in wow). It still lags, but not much. No, it did not lag at all in bootcamp. Bootcamp has issues of it's own, many. I rather like the Parallels install. Were I trying to run a demanding FPS I might not go with Parallels, but then I'd likely not go with a MacBook Pro either were that the case. But for my needs, and a desire to learn how to use a Mac (I have been on Windows forever, and usually use Razer laptops) I'm rather enjoying my Parallels setup for now. I can always go back to bootcamp, and I suppose since both games work in MacOS native I suppose I could try that too but so far have not.
 
StevenJ3 said:
Installed Parallels yesterday on my late 2019 MacBook Pro, after first deleting my Windows install on Bootcamp so I could start a fresh install. Parallels downloaded the wrong version of Windows, but a call to Microsoft fixed that. Once I had the right ISO file I was able to register windows inside of the VM fine. Then I installed a few games. One that is 16 years old (Total War Medieval 2) and WOW. I did use the gaming config, and Windows has unlimited CPU and 16 GB of my 32 GB of ram. Yes, WOW lagged with video set to native and default (7) quality. I left the native resolution, but dialed the quality back down to 3 (recommended setting in wow). It still lags, but not much. No, it did not lag at all in bootcamp. Bootcamp has issues of it's own, many. I rather like the Parallels install. Were I trying to run a demanding FPS I might not go with Parallels, but then I'd likely not go with a MacBook Pro either were that the case. But for my needs, and a desire to learn how to use a Mac (I have been on Windows forever, and usually use Razer laptops) I'm rather enjoying my Parallels setup for now. I can always go back to bootcamp, and I suppose since both games work in MacOS native I suppose I could try that too but so far have not.
Click to expand...
Hello, thanks a lot for sharing your experience with us and other users.
Please let us know what we can do for you in the future.
 
FWIW, I'm on Parallels 16.
MBP, 64GB RAM, 2TB SSD.

Windows bootcamp has 32GB of ram, tried to run Fortnite for my nephew.. 8 FPS with settings on low.
Boot into windows, 60 FPS.
Runs in windows great for him, but if I'm running via parallels, it's unplayable.

Just thought I'd offer this up - it's not a VM resources allocation issue.
 
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