Emulator or virtual machine?

Hi,

Mac newbie here. I have some Windows only software which I plan to use on my Mac. I guess my choices are either using an emulator or a virtual machine.

Is there any difference in the performance or functionality between the two? Will any windows software run normally using an emulator or are they software specific? Are some emulators better than others? Do emulators slow down or inhibit the software in any way?

I'm running Snow Leopard on a unibody Macbook Pro i7.

For what it's worth the software I was planning on using is Solidworks 2010, Mastercam X3, Metastock 10, Premium Data and possibly a few others at a later point in time.

Thanks
Splint

Hi,

I've only had a Mac for a couple of days too, so I'm no expert...

However I have installed Windows 7 using Parallels Desktop 5 on my iMac and have to say I was quite astonished at how easy it was to get going and just how well it integrates into the Mac Operating system. Not really noticed any slowdown on the Mac and the PC side of things runs at the same speed, if not faster, than my old Laptop! It defaulted to something called "Coherence Mode" which means the windows start menu appears in your Mac dock and you get a Windows applications dock too.

Not tried any of the software you mention though - so far I'm just running PaperPort 12 and Money 2005 on it as there just doesn't seem to be any Mac equivalents to these. They both run flawlessly though.

Hope that helps a bit until someone more knowledgeable comes along!

Cheers,

Steve

The programs you mention are pretty hardcore CAD/CAM software. Unless you are doing small things or demos (i.e. -I run small engineering demos) I would recommend actually using bootcamp. Parallels and other virtual machines run fine for small things, web browsing, office, etc - and you can point to your bootcamp partition if you need to get to something - but I know Solidworks performance will bog if you try to run it on anything real within a virtual machine. If you reboot into Windows then Windows will have all the resources of your Mac available. Within a VM you only get some of the resources allocated.

I am not sure what you are referring to for emulation - something like Wine? If that is it - skip that completely for what you want to do.

Splint said:

Hi,

Mac newbie here. I have some Windows only software which I plan to use on my Mac. I guess my choices are either using an emulator or a virtual machine.

Click to expand...

I think that you're a little confused on the terminology. An emulator or virtual machine are the same thing...a way of simulating a Windows computer on a Mac.

I think the comparison you want to make is an emulator like "Parallels or VM Fusion" versus "Bootcamp".

Give these threads a read. This topic has been covered throughly on Mac-Forums.

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/wi...otcamp-save-yourself-possibly-hours-time.html

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/wi...4239-running-windows-mac-switchers-guide.html

HTH,

- Nick

Since we are getting technical - Virtualization and emulation are different - but it usually has to do with the hardware. If your OSes use the same hardware (ie mac,linux,windows now runs on intel) then you can use virtualization and pretty much every solution available for intel macs is a virtualization of hardware.

Emulation is when you try to recreate an architecture on a different type of hardware. That is - something like Virtual PC on the older G4/G5 Mac hardware. It is always much slower/less efficient than virtualization

Here is an article
Virtual Machines: Virtualization vs. Emulation | Strange Loops

I think Nick is right though - what you are probably asking is which is better - dual boot or Virtualization. Besides, Wine is not an Emulator.

tl;dr - My answer still stands for your software you mentioned you want to run bootcamp.

IvanLasston said:

Since we are getting technical - Virtualization and emulation are different - but it usually has to do with the hardware.

I think Nick is right though - what you are probably asking is which is better - dual boot or Virtualization. Besides, Wine is not an Emulator.

Click to expand...

I didn't mean to get super technical. I was trying to keep it uncomplicated for the OP. But you're correct...there's a difference between virtualization & emulation.

I'm guessing the OP wanted to know about the difference between "Boot Camp" & Parallels/VMware Fusion (and other programs)...or like you said...Dual Boot vs. Virtualization.

- Nick

Thanks for your input guys,

Yeah, I was confused regarding the correct terminology, what I was trying to say was software like wine verses vmware. I think dual boot is the best answer for my situation.

Thanks again.