Question About RAM In Parallel

I have 8GB of RAM, just installed Parallels and gave it permission to use 4GB for Windows. I'm just wondering, has this now reduced OS X to having 4GB RAM even when the virtual machine isn't running or can it make use of the full 8GB?

the virtual machine only uses the RAM when it is running. after you close the vm, it becomes available for osx again.

Great, thanks for the quick response.

thats okay.

I am also getting 8 GB ram on my iMac and plan to run Parallels, if the above is true can I just assign all 8 to Parallels

ndwgolf said:

I am also getting 8 GB ram on my iMac and plan to run Parallels, if the above is true can I just assign all 8 to Parallels

Click to expand...

No because Snow Leopard needs RAM to run properly. without enough RAM, your machine will become sluggish. you could probably get away with about 6GB, if you werent doing anything on SL.

If you want to run Windows fast I reccomend doing a 64 bit installation on Bootcamp (so that Windows can adress all the RAM, 64 bit is crucial) and booting the Boot camp partition with parallels when you need both operating systems.

note - virtualisation is not a very good gaming solution.

of course if you are getting an additional 8GB (so your overall system memory is 12GB+ or something), you can assign this to parrallels.

I have 12GB on my iMac right now and I gave only 2GB to Parallels for Win XP to feed on...then again Win XP will only recognize up to 3GB of RAM anyway, so no big loss. OSX still runs like a champ!

Amount of Ram

Hey guys, i just got a mac TODAY! I already have parallels installed in it, but I want to use a 64-bit Video editing windows software. Is it possible to change the amount of RAM used by parallels after installed? And what would be the best config for parallels regarding 64-bit video editing?

I'm sorry about the very basic questions...

here goes the computer config..


MacBook Pro 500GB
Intel Core i7
2.66 GHz
Memory:8 GB

Yes you can dynamically alter the memory config for a VM after it's created. Just shut the VM down and alter as needed..

You will, however, also need to have already installed 64-bit Windows to make sure of >4GB of memory..

Regards

Thank you!

Thanks for replying so fast. Do you think that 3GB is enough?

PatrickOrelha said:

Thanks for replying so fast. Do you think that 3GB is enough?

Click to expand...

If you want sheer performance, a VM isnt gonna cut it. I would go with a native Boot Camp install.

64 bit pretty much means that it is capable of using more than 4GB of RAM. if you give it 3GB, you are wasting that option. It will probably be enough though, yes. It wont be as fast as Boot Camp.

I use a Linux installation inside VirtualBox and have given it 4GB of memory and 4 CPUs and it works great for me..

Regards

Thanks guys!

I hate using parallels, it's hindering me from learning about Mac, but i really need to run Corel Draw, the program is not good, but I'm very comfortable with it, I'm installing the adobe suite on the mac but it will take me forever to get comfortable with inDesign