Last updated on September 25, 2018
Monitor Your Virtual Machine Performance with Parallels Desktop
Parallels Desktop® for Mac is dedicated to ensuring users have a seamless experience with their virtual machine performance. It’s very common for Microsoft Windows applications to use a generous amount of CPU power. These resource-hungry programs can range from anti-virus, to Windows Updates installations, to cloud storage syncs such as OneDrive or Dropbox. In the meanwhile, the user experiences a sluggish and painful performance while in a Windows 10 VM.
We’ve added two features to Parallels Desktop to help users monitor Windows 10 VM performance and get back to work: CPU Usage Indicator and Resource Monitor.
CPU Usage Indicator:
To have a better understanding whether the high CPU usage in Windows is the cause of a performance slow down, we’ve implemented a CPU icon in the VM title bar as seen here:
Note: The user will only see this monitoring user interface in Window and Full Screen view modes.
Quick review from our Parallels Desktop beta user program: “…The CPU usage quick view is AWESOME…”
Resource Monitor:
A virtual machine is a guest to the native macOS®, just like any other application. However, it might use as much resources as some power-hungry Mac® applications due to your workload. To monitor the effect of a VM on Mac resources, we’ve implemented the Resource Monitor.
Note: To access this within Parallels Desktop, use the Control Center menu and go to Window > Show Resource Monitor.
You’ll see a user interface pop up showcasing your Mac and virtual machine. It will look similar to the figure below depending on your VMs. This helpful visualization allows users to understand why they are experiencing a slow performance and micromanage when needed.
Note: Users may notice that an amount of memory consumed by a virtual machine is higher than the amount of memory allocated to this virtual machine on the CPU & Memory tab. This is normal—the resource monitor shows memory consumption of all virtual machine processes.
In Parallels Desktop for Mac Pro Edition and Parallels Desktop for Mac Business Edition, there are additional optimization settings that can be implemented to your virtual machine.
In the Optimization pane, you can limit the VM resource usage.
To open these settings, choose Actions > Configure > Options, then click Optimization.
This is a helpful tip to ensure your VM and the native macOS are running at peak performance. If your Mac lacks the resources for running two or more virtual machines at a time, you can limit the VM resource usage so the machine doing more important work has more resources. Drag the slider between Low, Medium, and No limit points. If you change this setting and you don’t like how Windows 10 is performing, try a different setting.
You can get started with a free 14-day trial of Parallels Desktop and test it out for yourself before you make the choice to buy. Parallels Desktop has been the #1 choice for over 12 years to run Windows on Mac.
