Parallels Standard faster than Pro? Windows gaming on M1 Mac compared: 16 vs 32 GB RAM, 8 vs 10 CPU
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This is a quick test to show the Windows gaming difference between a Windows 11 ARM virtual machine with 4 CPU cores + 8 GB RAM and 5 CPU cores + 16 GB RAM. It's surprising that in some benchmarks the 5 CPU core 16 GB RAM VM performs substantially worse, and in other benchmarks there is barely any difference.
If anyone can help to reproduce the results and help to explain the reasoning I would be grateful, please leave a comment!
Parallels article about Standard vs Pro editions: kb.parallels.com/123296
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► Timestamps:
00:00 What is Parallels?
00:49 How much RAM and CPU for the VM?
02:08 Parallels Standard vs Pro
02:49 Which edition is best for M1?
03:23 Which edition is best for M1 Pro and M1 Max?
03:52 Standard vs Pro cost
04:18 Testing methodology
04:50 Geekbench 5
05:17 GTA V
05:47 Hitman Absolution
06:18 Halo: Reach
06:51 Skyrim
07:13 Explanation: why 5 CPU cores is slower
07:52 Parallels Standard edition is best?
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Пікірлер: 94
Followup video testing 1-10 CPU cores on Parallels using Windows 11 ARM on M1 Mac: kzread.info/dash/bejne/hIWMk9JtgJjOhNo.html
The performance cores are structured like Zen2 where you can make similar observations. Four cores share the same cache and when data is in one of the other four CPU's cache access to RAM is slower with a slight latency increase. GTA5 is a game that uses less than 4 cores and profits from better memory timings while other games may be utilizing the 5th core you gave them or are not as sensitive to the timings. The worst you can do is work with 10 CPU cores within the VM because the OS's scheduler has no idea that 2 of the cores are low performance cores and will schedule tasks on them just like on the other ones.
@Andytizer
2 жыл бұрын
Thanks this is a very interesting insight, it probably explains all of the performance differences. M1 Pro and Max both have 10 cores - 8 performance and 2 high efficiency. I’m surprised that Parallels wouldn’t know which core is a performance core, isn’t this info accessible to the developers?
@nietscherarek
2 жыл бұрын
@@Andytizer It is a Windows problem. Parallels would probably need to write their own scheduler for Windows or Windows would need some way to tell the difference. Parallels does nothing. Worst would be if you can't control what CPUs are passed through and Parallels uses the efficiency cores at random, but I doubt that. I would guess 1-8 are always the performance cores and if you go to 10 they add the efficiency cores. There are tools to set CPU affinity in Windows to test that. kzread.info/dash/bejne/gKeMsbB-n5TPZrg.html You could make a series of benchmarks with Cinebench and core affinity to check, just like in that video.
@tivtag
2 жыл бұрын
@@Andytizer This info is accessible. Windows 11 added support for Intel Alder Lake hybrid cpus, but this I am pretty sure isn’t used by Parallels yet (?!). You could run single core performance checks using core affinity to check the various cores parallels offers.
@18PregnantAndProud
2 жыл бұрын
i guess windows is not ready yet to fully take advantage of the hybrid architecture....
I have actually personally tested my Parallels Pro with maximum cores (8, he doesn’t allow more than that) and almost maximum Ram (54GB) with my M1 Max (10 CPU Cores, 16 NPU Cores, 32 GPU Cores, 64 GB Ram, 8TB SSD) on Ark Survival Evolved and to my surprise, the more the cores (as long as they are a pair number) the better the performance… I would do more tests with more games but unfortunately I am terribly busy and I have no time. Could you please do more tests with maximum preferences with more games? Starting from 8 cores and seeing if 8 cores is better than 6, better than 4,”? I would love it if you could in particular test in this mannermy absolute favorite games of all time: XCOM Bureau Declassified, Ark Survival Evolved, XCOM2… By the way, are you aware how to make XCOM Bureau Declassified and Ark Survival Rvolved work “also” in Crossover? I have followed the instructions of your great video but I could make those two work in Parallels only and I still have the doubt on whether or not they have a better performance with Crossover (where they just hang while booting them)… Thanks! Keep up the good work! It’s very much appreciated from this side :-)
@Andytizer
2 жыл бұрын
I have made a followup video testing 1-10 CPU cores on Parallels using Windows 11 ARM on M1 Mac: kzread.info/dash/bejne/hIWMk9JtgJjOhNo.html
Should’ve ran another test with 6 cores assigned to see how well it goes and if that is the area where we might see a bit more of a noticeable improvement. I plan on testing when I get my Mac an 8 core 48gb ram VM to see. How it goes
@RogueBanana
Жыл бұрын
any updates?
Given your theory regarding odd numbers of CPU cores, it might be interesting to run this test again while maintaining the 16GB of RAM but lowering the CPU cores to 4.
Thank you so much for making this video man. Was imagining this experiment in my head and you did it! very helpful :)
Oh wow! I was about to upgrade my parallels software to take advantage of the Black Friday offer and your video came right on time! Still waiting for my M1 max MBP with 64gb of ram so I guess for now I can’t take advantage of the extra ram! Bummer!
@andrewe868
2 жыл бұрын
Wonder if 64gb or ram would run better. Maybe a custom setting of 4 cores and 32gb or ram?
@smbdcry
2 жыл бұрын
How’s the results?
Thanks man! Super stuff, very nice to be able to save money and optimize performance at the same time. It would be interesting to get a response from Parallels on this 🤔.
These results are quite disappointing since I have an M1 Max 10/32/64 . Do you know if Parallels is aware of this issue and is planning to fix it? Without a fix it doesn’t seem like a pro subscription is worth it.
Would be very interesting to test 4 cores with 8gb vs 16gb vs 32gb and also 6 cores with 8gb vs 16gb vs 32gb. And if 6 cores get better results than 4 cores, you could try 8.
@ElfinHilon10
2 жыл бұрын
I've been using 6 cores with 16Gb (32 max). It's horrendous. I thought it was just me and I was about to return Parallels. I'm trying with 4cores +16GB of RAM right now.
It may already be past the ideal time, but I suggest exploring topics such as CPU scheduling, CPU ready time, and over-allocation. These foundational concepts are integral to virtualization and can greatly enhance your understanding of why increasing the number of cores might sometimes lead to reduced performance rather than improvement.
The reason why 4 cores have a better performance than 5 cores is because Parallels works best with “pairs” of cores… ;) try to test the difference between 9 cores and 10 cores for example
Hi Andrew! It would be interesting assigning 6 cores and 8-10gb of RAM to parallels to see if there is a difference.
Thanks for the video!!! You just solve the problem that confused me for a long time. I'm now clear that the standard version is definitely the one I'm going to get as my laptop is 14 mbp with 8 CPU and 16 GB.
windows 11 runs very bad on my m1 mac. i use the automatic setting of the ram and cpu but windows 11 often hangs up for several minutes or seconds. I only installed 3-4 programs, no games at all, I don't know what the problem is. I also use the latest version.
Easy anti cheat software on Steam and Epic games app prevents you from playing any games through Parallels virtual machine e.g. Apex legends, Rumbleverse, Blood hunt, Warzone etc on the Mac M1 Pro max. The games launch fine followed by this message “Error Unsupported host machine architecture (ARM64). When you attempt to launch the games without Easy anti cheats, the games automatically crash. Try out the Parallels 14 day trail to see if the virtual machine works with your Pc before making a purchase.
Hi, Andrew, could you test out a features in Parallels? Does windows sub android(WSA) works in macbook parallel Or, Just install android emulator is a better way than run WSA?
Thanks for the video. Was wondering if the larger RAM would benefit parallel gaming and this video solved it.
Do you think those beautiful 16 Neural Engine Cores are perfect to finally allow us to download, train and run the GPT-3 artificial intelligence directly from our laptops (now that OpenAI has finally made it “truly” public)? I would love it if you could make a video about that and teach us how to set it up and run it… 💛💚💙
I was hoping you would test the 4 cores but with 16gb ram allocated. Would that drive performance up beyond 5 cores and 16gb ram?
Thanks a million. This answered exactly what I needed. The ram question is what I came for and was nicely segmented!
Is there ANY way to make Star Citizen work on my M1 Max (10 CPU Cores, 16 NPU Cores, 32 GPU Cores, 64 GB Ram, 8TB SSD)? Oh my God I would love you so much if you discover a way to make it run…
great video, i would love to know more about the differnce between running parallels for gaming on mac or running crossover - which gives best performance for pc games? and also would be cool to see you test m2 and m3, both macbook air and pro an real examples of many different steam games.
Thanks for making this video. I got the standard edition because I hate the subscription model but I was wondering If performance was that different between the standard and pro.
Hi I have a question, I’ve installed parallels and I bought it, but I can’t see the Microsoft store (I’d like to download Xbox app) do I need to activate my windows 11 to be able to have Xbox app???? ;((((
thanks for the video ! thinking about running parallels on macbook pro M2 Max with 32 GB - I will only run excel (advanced) and powerpoint - will it work very smoothly ?
If I buy a new MacBook Pro 16" for general use and playing old games like Crysis and StarCraft 2 on a 4K monitor. Should I get the M1 Pro and 16GB or 32GB Ram, or the M1 Max and 32GB Ram?
@tivtag
2 жыл бұрын
M1 Max for gaming imho
Here is an idea to test your odd number theory. Run 2 vs 3 CPU cores benchmark and see which one performs better.
Wondering if this has something to do with the efficiency core. I would be curious which cores are being used in parallels.
@tivtag
2 жыл бұрын
Might be a bug in the current version of Parallels…
@kageofkonoha
2 жыл бұрын
@@tivtag or even windows 11. or both.
Hi Andrew tsai How to uninstall macos monterey Beta to change to the official version of macos monterey
I have a theory. When you assign 5 CPU cores, you’re probably assigning more than half your high performance cores and no high efficiency cores, meaning performance will degrade as the host runs out of cycles. ??
I hate to bug you but is standard edition good for customizing the virtual machine also? I use M1 Mac but i do a lot of customizations generally so im not sure if its better or not for me to get pro or desktop. I did get 16gb RAM mac mini.
@Andytizer
2 жыл бұрын
Standard should be fine for you.
Pretty cool.. did you try 6gb of ram and 3 cores or any lower configs? Also this would be fantastic on the IPad pro M1.. I keep hearing parallels VM may or may not support Ipad in the future? Have you heard anything on this?
Does anybady can help me? The animation software Toonboom Harmony which I work doenst run onParallels , it doest trace using pen or brush! My parallels is standard! Do I need the Pro to Harmony work?
@jrcanimation
2 жыл бұрын
I have Macbook Pro M1
Does anyone know how to download parallels to an external hd? I am trying to play steam games that are windows based but even though I download to the external, it also downloads all gigs of memory to each game onto parallels which is on my Mac M1 hd. Very frustrating. M1 only has 256gig hd vs 2tb external. Please help!!! :)
@Andytizer
2 жыл бұрын
Try this tutorial: kzread.info/dash/bejne/fYFplq-PYLrWldo.html
Please test if Def Jam: Fight for NY runs on the M2 chips. Thanks.
Hi Andrew, do you know if you buy Parrallels, you can install it in 2 different macbook pro with the same license key ???
@Andytizer
2 жыл бұрын
No you have to deactivate one device first before you can install on another.
I wonder if using more ram for virtual machine reduces amount of ram available for GPU? Could this reduce performance of GTA?
Thanks for information, your video is a solution for people who need Windows in M silicon
Can I do a one time purchase of PRO edition or its yearly renewal?
I just ran geekbench with 6 cores and 12 GB of ram and got 1567 single core and 7263 mutliecore Seems more logical to run 6 cores over 5 cores in the end.
Did you try 6 cores or 8 cores. In my Mac Pro I use all cores in the VM
Dude, check out Len's Island. I loved it and for me is an amazing game to play in your m1 macs.
thank you so much for this useful information!
And if you run 4 cores and 16gig ram ? should be best case?
What resolution are you running these tests at? It's fair to say that if it's 1080p or similar, the game isn't going to need additional VRAM and therefore the RAM won't make a difference. I'd bet if you adjusted the resolution higher to something like 1440p or native for the MacBooks you would see a difference there.
why parallels standard price showing 99$ for me?
Will it not use the 4 gb graphics card?
nice insight, thanks for the vid!
great vid thanks
Thanks Andrew you save me money :)
oh man they advertise it as 99$ but at check out it turns out to be 129$ + tax.. false ad sucks
have you tried pcvr?
please make a Fifa 22 video on m1 chip 8gb ram
can I play Valorant on Parallels now on M1 Macbook Pro ??
So basically if windows 11 arm was native , we could see decent gaming performance
Bit daft. It’s clearly because the cpu needs to be in even numbers. You even said you knew this at the end of the video. You should have led with that and had 4 cores 8gb against 4 core 16gb; then we might have learned something.
Interesting… what about 6 cores with 16GB RAM?
@Andytizer
2 жыл бұрын
If you assign more than 50% of your CPU cores performance will degrade, there is no Apple Silicon with more than 10 CPU cores so 5 is the theoretical optimal amount.
@fdrskr
2 жыл бұрын
We want to see it
@tivtag
2 жыл бұрын
@@Andytizer Still curious what will happen, also with professional apps.
@Holochka
2 жыл бұрын
@@Andytizer could you please try to test it anyway?
@FouDeFafa
2 жыл бұрын
@@Andytizer Actually I believe this rule of not going past half the CPU core count applies to CPUs with multi threading. M1s and ARM processors in general don’t support multi threading as they use a different type of hardware scheduler
Anyone know if call of duty Vangurd works on parallel
@goldmastersimulations
2 жыл бұрын
Call of Duty Vanguard needs anti-cheat, and RICOCHET isn't supported on ARM.
@dannycrook598
2 жыл бұрын
@@goldmastersimulations so is that a yes or a no ?
Until Fallout 4 works well enough to play on medium quality, I don't think I'll bother. Some of those frame rates are just awful >:-/
Yes, but can it run minecraft?
@Andytizer
2 жыл бұрын
Yes Minecraft is one of the things M1 runs really well.
CPU performs better if the number of cores is a power of 2.
Day 20 of asking for you to test MSFS2020
@Andytizer
2 жыл бұрын
If I haven’t tested it then it means it doesn’t work!
It’s something ur doing wrong as that’s impossible
You’re measuring your resulted on very dated games, with single threaded engines and minimum ram usage. Why? It’s no wonder you got these results. Why not compare against modern games that are multi threaded and will utilize the additional ram?
@Andytizer
2 жыл бұрын
Can you give some examples of games that are multithreaded and use the RAM and are compatible with Windows 11 ARM?
but can it run genshin? 😭💔
@timjack4650
2 жыл бұрын
The game won't load on Parallels since it is a virtual machine . But there is way to side load the app without needing an iOS device like before : kzread.info/dash/bejne/n5xrktaRp7PRiZc.html
@domdom-hh9tx
2 жыл бұрын
@@timjack4650 i dont want that method 🙄