OS X Leopard

[The General]

yeah i guess you're right

 

[Qiranworms]

parallels will run windows apps way slower than if darwine worked as good as wine

Actually, not really. Parallels uses virtualization, which, unlike emulation, means you get full access to things like 3D acceleration. It's much faster than emulation. Fast enough to play many games. The thing you lose is RAM, because you have two operating systems loaded at a time.

The reason we couldn't use virtualization before is because you had to emulate a CPU architecture. Your emulating a CPU process.

VMWare has been using virtualization to run Windows within Linux or Linux within Windows for a long time. Parallels is also virtualization. VirtualPC was emulation.

 

[The General]

Lets get a few things straight here:

Emulate and virtualize may or may not have different definitions. Whether or not they do is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that parallels/vmware creates make-believe hardware. Wine/Darwine creates a make-believe operating system, that uses the real hardware of the computer its running on natively. You CAN NOT install and use the nVidia drivers in VMware (or the ATI drivers in Parallels). Just as you CAN NOT use the Creative drivers for your Audigy 2 ZS Platinum. The reason for this is because the operating system you are running in Parallels/VMware is NOT using that hardware. It's using the make-believe hardware that Parallels/VMware are creating. Therefore things like games will NOT be running as fast as Wine/Darwine.

Now I'll explain why Wine and Darwine are a better solution:

Firstly, Wine Is Not an Emulator. Wine and Darwine are an opensource implementation of the Windows API. The application takes hold of the already existing hardware, and drivers from the operating system (Windows or Linux for VMware, MacOSX for Parallels, er actually isn't there a windows/linux version of Parallels?) For instance, if you want to play doom 3 in VMware, you can't because Doom 3 doesn't support the make-believe video card. But if you want to play it in Wine, you can because Wine can use the existing REAL video card and drivers. If you want to play Quake 3 in VMware, you can, but it performs TERRIBLY compared to running it in Wine (Yes, I know there is a Linux version of it, this is just an example.)

Check out the Wine HQ "Myths" page for more details about Wine.
http://www.winehq.com/site/myths

In the end, if Parellels and VMware CAN in fact use the hardware, to where I can use the nVidia drivers to controll my 7800gt and play games in full speed, then thats awesome. They CANNOT do that now, which is why Wine and Darwine are better solutions.


Keep in mind the fact that Darwine is still in development and is unstable and runs slow, I'm stating all of the above as if Darwine worked as good as Wine.


I'm currently installing Windows in VMware so I can run some benchmarks. So I'll get back to this a while. I'll do SuperPi and Quake 3 (Wine/Linux/VMware)

 

[Qiranworms]

Lets get a few things straight here:

Emulate and virtualize may or may not have different definitions. Whether or not they do is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that parallels/vmware create make-believe hardware. Wine/Darwine create a make-believe operating system, that uses the real hardware of the computer its running on natively. You CAN NOT install and use the nVidia drivers in VMware (or the ATI drivers in Parallels). Just as you CAN NOT use the Creative drivers for your Audigy 2 ZS Platinum. The reason for this is because the operating system you are running in Parallels/VMware is NOT using that hardware. It's using the make-believe hardware that Parallels/VMware are creating. Therefore things like games will NOT be running as fast as Wine/Darwine.

Actually, that's not true.

Everything you're describing is emulation. Virtualization is where the operating system IS using the real hardware of the operating system. Using a "make believe hardware environment" is what emulating is. Anyway, the reason it'll probably get lower benchmarks anyway is because of the system resources it requires to run two operating systems at the same time. But it's MUCH faster than emulation.


Anyway, I agree with you on some of the reasons WINE is a better ultimate solution. But for the moment, virtualization has the enormous advantage of having no limitations in the software it can run.

 

[The General]

Actually, that's not true.

Everything you're describing is emulation. Virtualization is where the operating system IS using the real hardware of the operating system. Using a "make believe hardware environment" is what emulating is. Anyway, the reason it'll probably get lower benchmarks anyway is because of the system resources it requires to run two operating systems at the same time. But it's MUCH faster than emulation.

I take it you've never used VMware or Parallels. Clearly they do create make-believe hardware. Ever done lspci on a Linux-vm-box? I dont see NVIDIA CORP anywhere in there. I see VMware Graphics Controller and the sort.

I think what you may be confused about is this:

The CPU is exactly the same, and the CPU is the only piece of hardware that is "Virtualized" (by your definition).

Everything else is "emulated" (by your definition)



If you do cat /proc/cpuinfo in a Linux-VM-Box, yes, it will be the same as the host's cpuinfo. But as for the northbridge, bios, video card, ethernet adapter, IDE/SCSI controllers, USB, and sound card are all emulated, and they are not at all compatible with the Windows drivers that you need for your actual hardware.


As for MS Virtual PC, yes everything is emulated there. Until they come out with an Intel version of it, which I really dont think they'll do.

 

[cornell4life]

I disagree, in Parallels (virtualization) the guest OS uses the host computers hardware. it does not emulatate it...it USES it. it's true, it does not support heavy 3D graphics, but hopefully will in the future. I think the portability of VMs that Parallels gives you is well worth it.

 

[The General]

Oh, okay.... I never thought of it that way....

 

[Qiranworms]

Wait...what did he say that I didn't that convinced you of the point?

 

[The General]

Haha, I was being sarcastic. I just dont feel like going on, obviously no one is going to believe me

 

[cornell4life]

don't get me wrong general, I totally understand/believe you. I guess everyone just has different views depending on what they use virtualization/emulation for. for me, parallels virtualization solution is plenty fast and makes my work effiecient. if that's not the case for you, that's cool too.