Parallels 5 video, sound issues

S

Shaddam IV

Forum Maven
Hi,

I upgraded from Parallels 4 to Parallels 5 yesterday and migrated a Windows 7 virtual machine. Things went pretty much without a hitch, and P5 works as advertised - I'm extremely impressed.

However, I have two (smallish) issues:

Video: I'm running Parallels in Full Screen mode. I've set Parallels to switch the host's (my Mac's) screen resolution to match that of the virtual machine, so that I can play e.g. a game in 800 x 600 in full screen. In Parallels 4, the screen resolution would switch back to my Mac's native resolution when I closed the game. This does not happen in Parallels 5 - when I close the game, resolution stays at 800 x 600. I have to switch over to the Mac, change the screen resolution there, and then switch back to Windows. While this isn't a killer, it's kind of annoying. What am I doing wrong?

Sound: Sound is stuttering somewhat. When I'm streaming sound in Windows Media player ("Radio"), it is often choppy (not terribly so but noticeable). When in a game (and an old game at that: Icewind Dale), it's also often choppy. Even the built-in Windows 7 sounds are sometimes stuttering. Again, what have I done wrong?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
 
I've noticed the same. With windows 7 and parallels 5 I get constant sound glitching when running a flight simulation. It looks like graphics are at about 50 fps all the time but sound and physics glitch.
 
I managed to solve my sound problem by installing a different sound driver. I used a Realtek AC'97 driver (look for it on Google or get it directly from Realtek - I understand that that's the driver used by Apple for BootCamp). The driver package comes with an installer, so I used that (I ignored the warning that Windows 7 gave me). Since the restart yesterday evening I've been a very happy Parallels 5 camper. No more sound glitches in games (tested on Warhammer 40,000, Icewind Dale, and Battle for Middle-Earth) or anywhere else, and an overall snappier performance (the Windows performance index went from 2.0 to 2.9 on my MB Air - no idea whether that's related though).
 
Unfortunately, this did not work for me. I installed the Realtek AC'97 driver like you did but I still have glitchy sound!!

I don't understand why someone from the Parallels team has not weighed in on this thread??? This seems like such a basic issue and I'm not the only one with it. I can't even play a simple WAV file without the sound chopping periodically (probably at least 3 - 4 times every 8 seconds).

There MUST be a way to fix this. Can someone please help with this?

Jace
 
There is a post on this forum that sound problems arose after the 10.6.2 update on OSX. Is this consistent with anyone here having sound problems?
 
what version of the driver did you use?

I also did a number of other things that speeded up the VM and are preventing glitches:
-Set the VM's memory to 768 MB (I only have 2.0 GB on my MB Air, and 256 of that are video memory of the 9400 M nVidia graphics card)
-Use a fixed size hard disk (32 GB)
-Run the VM in full screen
-Deinstalled (and then removed) the Stardock application
-Turned off SmartMouse (I don't need that for full screen)

Hope that helps...
 
sound issues

Count me in with the same problem. The issue for me is very choppy sound on any streaming media such as napster or internet radio. Playback of mp3 files on my computer is great...the only issue is streaming media. Tried the Realtek driver but no improvement. Come on Parallels Support...let's weigh in on this!
 
Help me!!! Fps gaming issue!! ( video )

After I upgrade to parallel desktop 5 i can play most of the 3D games and im impressed.
However, I realize that fps on games ( warcraft3, angel love online, sudden attack or whatever game it is) not smooth.
It looks lag a LITTLE ( like 0.2 sec delay???). As a result, hard for me to click or command in games like warcraft3.
When i move my mouse faster than normal it jump one place to another.
Any solve??? Last parallel desktop ( version 3 and 4) wasnt like that.
I have already tried with changing screen resolution on both game and windows, checked the "Enable 3D acceleration"
changing Ram and video memory. Still cannot solve. Please help.
Video card on mac is ATI radeon X1600
 
I found (after having re-installed Parallels Tools for unrelated reasons) that switching Windows sound from 48 kHz (DVD quality) to 44.1 kHz (CD quality) in Windows' sound control drastically reduces crackling and choppy sound.
 
Reducing the sample rate to 11.025 kHz (in Windows) makes crackles pretty much disappear in even the most demanding applications (games). However, that's only 11 kHz - sound isn't exactly CD quality...
 
Parallels: please wake up!

Same problem for me, sound is really unpleasant when I watch videos (e.g. from Apple website, AdobeTV, etc.). It happens no matter reader used: Quicktime, Windows Media Player.

I sent a report to Parallels (ID: 5820616) asking them to fix that and no answer at all.
With time, not having any Parallels feedback became as irritating than the problem itself.

FYI I installed last Parallels Tools including fix for Shared folders (see FAQ, Article ID 8296). I hoped maybe it would fix audio problem at the same time. No luck!
I tried to uninstall Intel audio driver and reinstall it. Still no luck.

My configuration: MBP running Snow Leopard 10.6.3 + Windows 7 32-bit VM thru PD5 built 9344 (no Boot Camp partition).
 
I've found that a good balance between VM and Mac memory is quite important for smooth operation, including sound. The less memory your VM has, the less the chance that the Mac will have to swap its memory out to (Mac) virtual memory. Swapping to and from memory always causes a huge performance hit. For example, I'm running a VM on a 2 GB MBAir - I can't really give my VM more than 832 MB, and that's pushing it. If you have 4 or more MB, I suggest you give your VM no more than 2 GB of RAM max.
 
Graphics card not being recognised

I have just installed Paralles Desktop 5 and am running Windows 7 on my Macbook Air. I am unfortunately not able to use my webcam. When I try doing that (eg via Skype) I get a message saying "....could not find webcam"

I am not sure if this is a driver issue or some other issue. Anyone face similar issues? Any suggestions/solutions?
 
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