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Parralels vs Boot Camp?

Decided it's time I get windows back on my Macbook Pro, but which is better for 8.1? Parallels or Bootcamp? Have heard that Boot Camp doesn't deal with optimisation and drivers very well but has better performance?

Have a good weekend :smile:

Reply 1

username612415

Parallels has the convenience of letting you run both operating systems simultaneously, but this obviously means splitting your system's resources between both OS (you can tune exactly what amount of the available resources are available to the VM). Boot Camp lets you devote your entire system's power to Windows, but requires booting into it and out again every time you want to switch.

If you just want to quickly jump in and out of Windows to do non-intensive work, VM software like Parallels would be the way I'd do it. If it's for extended periods of work, or for intensive tasks like gaming, I would use Boot Camp.

I've used both methods in the past and never had any issues with performance (when working within the limits of the available resources of course) or drivers, I wouldn't be too concerned about it unless you're doing some sort of specialist tasks with your Mac :yy:

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 2

Ryanx623

Would mostly be for various Autodesk software that runs better on windows (Engineering at uni) so I guess boot camp it is, thanks

Reply 3

Xzerzes

Bootcamp is infinitely faster than Parallels so well.... yeah

Reply 4

Planto

You can load Boot Camp partitions as Parallels VMs.

That means that the only real benefit of using Parallels is the ability to dynamically resize the allocated HDD space on a whim.

But to be fair that is a pretty big benefit.