Tested on the premise that VMWare Fusion may not have been given a fair test because it wasn’t running on a true Mac (which could cause issues if it didn’t recognize the video hardware amongst other things for example).

The iMac that I used (7,1) was running the latest version of SL (10.6.2), had a Core2Duo 2.4Ghz processor, 1GB RAM, and an ATI HD2600.

The Fusion VM was given 1 processor, and 512MB of RAM, again with Windows 7 Pro 32-bit. The RAM limitation of the machine unfortunately meant that I’d only able to re-test 2 of the 4 games originally tested (Cities XL requires 1.5GB, and Mass Effect requires at least 1GB).

Running Halo CE was again extremely slow to the point of being unplayable. I can’t say it was any worse, but it certainly wasn’t any better either – still hovering around the 1 FPS mark. Again, there were areas with missing textures that show up as white. (screenshot here – nothing new)

Knights of the Old Republic 2 was a little slower – still playable, but not as good as the first time around. Again, it crashed when attempting to go into the advanced video settings. I took a screenshot of the error message this time around (screenshot here).

In any case, had the issues in the writeup been a result of VMWare not running on a true Mac, I would have expected at least one of the following when running the games on the iMac:
-No graphical anomalies (missing textures) in Halo
-No crash at the Advanced Video Settings in KOTOR2
-Faster gameplay (despite the slower video card) in both games

That simply wasn’t the case. I therefore have to conclude that the hackintosh used is reflective, at least to a large degree, as to what a regular Mac with similar specs would see. There really isn’t any evidence to dictate otherwise.

That said, I will emphasize that the results in the write-up do apply to the specific games mentioned, and that things are obviously subject to change as both Parallels and VMWare release updates as time goes on. There’s certainly a lot of room for improvement in both VM’s as it pertains to gaming.

That said, the “for comparison purposes” was mentioned to give a ball-park area – I wouldn’t want somebody with a regular Macbook, Mac Mini, etc etc to read this and think that they’re going to be running these games on their machines and have a playable experience – they probably won’t.

The driver used is included with Snow Leopard (was current as of 10.6.1). The only change made was adding the 0×94421002 string to the IOPCIMatch section of Info.plist within the standard ATI4800Controller.kext to get the MacOS to recognize the device ID of the card. If VMWare has specific checks for device ID’s (rather than relying on what Snow Leopard reports), this could certainly be an issue.

I’d also like to see others doing their own comparisons. The only reason I’ve done them is because there are so few others that seem interested in comparing game performance. I certainly wouldn’t suggest that anybody make their decision based on my experience alone. Maybe my testing was flawed. Maybe nVidia cards perform differently than ATI cards. Maybe the most recent Apple update (10.6.2) has resulted in these tests being obsolete. Maybe I all out lied and skewed the results for a hidden agenda. I certainly haven’t tried to hide anything, but nobody reading this has any way of knowing this for certain. People should always take what they read with a grain of salt, gather as much information as possible from many sources, and if possible download both the Fusion and Parallels demos and try for themselves (heck, they’re what I used!)

As far as the evga machine, I’d probably suggest the evga snow leopard guide at infinitemac.com as a starter. The machine I used was based on an MSI X58 Pro-E, and the process could be slightly different.

Actually no, it wouldn’t. Who are the video drivers you’re using designed by? VMware works with ATI and NVidia when we find bugs, but it’s only designed to work on Apple hardware. There’s no Mac you can configure with a 4850, the Mac Pro comes with the 4870. We have specific checks for this, so it may be playing a factor in your results. I almost have to invalidate them.
I’m going to test some of this out on my Macbook Pro5,5 with the 9400M and see what what difference I can come up with.

Regarding the term ‘Emulation’… using the term incorrectly only keeps other people using it incorrectly.

Otherwise, well presented, I’d like to see more people doing the same. Now, I just have to figure out how to hackintosh my evga x58-based i7-920

A touch of background: when explaining something like Parallels or VMWare Fusion to people (often not technically inclined), I’ve found it easier in many cases to use the term “emulator” – many have used NES/Genesis/etc emulators, and if you use the same terms, they tend to get what you’re saying right away.

Therefore, I tend to use “emulator” fairly loosely – even if it’s not the proper term when referring to a VM, it’s better understood (similar to how some people won’t understand “limited slip” until you refer to it as “Posi-Traction”, or understand that 2WD is technically 1WD). For many people the technicalities don’t matter, and when they do, you can simply go into the detail.

But just to be clear, even though I’ve used the term emulator a few times throughout the write-up, I’m not in any way trying to imply that Parallels/Fusion are emulators rather than virtual machines (note that I’ve used “VM” most of the time). Whether or not any emulation takes place or not, I’ll admit I don’t know – I would guess that the video end of things is handled by some form of emulator or translator (DX > OGL), but I really don’t know. It doesn’t really matter for this comparison – I’m not looking at how the VM’s go about handling the games, only how well they do it.

That would be fine.

Fantastic review. We’d like to post part of it on the Parallels blog then link to you for the rest. Interested?