Where one has the choice (for example Photoshop) of running a Mac version of an application but via Rosetta, or running the Windows version via Parallels, is there any general consensus on which gives the best performance ?
Neither. The best performance will almost certainly come from using BootCamp, since this is: (a) using all your processor cores (b) using the full processor instruction set (c) using full graphics acceleration (d) using all of your RAM I don't think that either Rosetta or Parallels can tick all of those boxes (e.g. ISTR Rosetta only emulates a G4?). I hope people will supply you with some figures, but I suspect it will be a "bit of string" depending on which of the above is the bottleneck for a particular task (e.g. different Photoshop filters make varying use of multicore processors; editing large files will always be constrained by RAM). Of course, there are lots of other issues such as which user interface you prefer, what other software you're using at the same time and whether your employer is going to shell out for CS3 anytime soon or if you're stuck with CS2 for the foreseeable. P.s. I'm not knocking Parallels or Rosetta, which are both fantastic for many applications - but both of them trade performance for convenience.
Well that is obvious, but I'm afraid it's not the question I asked. I didn't spend $2200 on a MacBook to have it running Windows.
Hardware execution of the Intel instruction set in Parallels virtualization has to be way more efficient than a software translation from PPC to Intel such as Rosetta, no matter how efficiently the latter is implemented.
It seems to me that if you are using an application with a wide usage on the Mac platform, and that the vendor has committed to someday producing a universal binary version, then I would stick with the Mac version and look forward to the upgrade.
If you have an Intel-based Mac, and a recent switcher, try the following : 1) Boot Camp partition -for running games that use DirectX or I don't know what "video acceleration" not supported by Parallels. That's FREE and the recent Apple beta is troubleless provided you follow the installlation manual step by step. Most of your games should work (and possibly better if your last PC was quite old). 2) Parallels with the Virtual Machine based on the Boot Camp partition -for Office and other professional applications. That's also easy and troubleless with 3188, just have to follow the installation manual step by step (again). Note about Office for Mac : if you want to work on your Mac and exchange Office documents with Windows, some uncompatibility problems remain (eg. colors in some powerpoint prez using customised models, advanced features of Word like tables and fields...) That's when Parallels is really fine.
I've been trying to run Boot Camp, without success yet, but based on my research on the problem I can say that it's dangerous to describe a beta that has killed quite a few users Macs dead as "troubleless." Probably better to wait a few months until the next OS X release when a finished Boot Camp will be part of the bundle--and, more importantly, screwups due to Boot Camp failures will be covered by the Apple Protection Plan--than risk your machine on a piece of software that's still very much in testing.
Anything that runs on Rosetta, while performance-wise they are about the same or maybe better on OSX (Office, Adobe photoshop/illustrator/etc.), my Macbook (2 GHz, 2Gb RAM) fan ends up going full tilt. Having a hair-blower running while you are trying to do work is a bloody nuisance, and for that, Parallels is a gift of manna from heaven (fan is still on depending on the program, but nowhere near as intense). FWIW Austin
I am a pro photographer who lives in Photoshop. When I got my Mac Pro last October, I put CS2 on a Bootcamp XP, and of course I had CS2 in the Mac on Rosetta. I also tried CS2 in Parallels, but as expected this was not really a contender. Rosetta was MUCH faster than Bootcamp (to my surprise). Part of the problem was RAM. I have 5 Gb in the Mac, but Bootcamp could only use 2Gb for the whole XP OS. Maybe this has changed since then. I didn't pursue Bootcamp because there were other problems to do with my X1900 card and dual display. Anyway, if you have a MacPro and speed is important, this is all history...you have to have CS3.
