Despite hardware limits, Parallels supports running Windows on MacBook Neo
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No, just ran a very small Windows install and minimized the swap size. 6GB of RAM and 4 CPU ran like a champ and didn't tank the Mac either. Optimize it as much as you can by disabling all of the shiny effects, dump the bloat, and disable services you're not using like OneDrive and Teams. There are scripts you can run to help you with decluttering Windows.
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There's a Mac version of Matlab, IIRC there's some toolboxes that are Windows-only but confusing for the article to just generically say "Matlab" without further elaboration.
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Macbook Neo is simply not the product for you. If all you have is $600, a hard requirement of 16GB on a macbook just is not feasible - you have to compromise somewhere to get down to this price bracket. Either pick a different 16GB macbook (if you're sticking with new, that doubles the price for a macbook air), or the mac mini is a great $600 option with the compromise of not being a laptop in the first place. Finally, you can get a $600 laptop with 16GB if you're willing to run Windows (or worse: ChromeOS) and make a whole other set of compromises.
Or you can wait for memory prices to come down to earth and eventually apple will refresh the Neo – possibly by this time, 16GB will be insufficient for your hardline requirements.
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The A18 Pro is basically at the level of an M1 (better in single-core, worse in multi-core), of course it would run. I ran Windows 11 on my M1 8GB MacBook Air in like 2022, there are no reasons it wouldn't on the Neo (yeah yeah, it's a mobile chip, it's still based on the exact same architecture as the M series, so compatibility should be identical).
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It’s amazing in how many people want to run something in a machine clearly not intended for it, and then complain when it doesn’t run well. Parallels is about as intense as you can get on this machine while still allowing reasonable work to get done. But the word “reasonable” is the key. Why anyone would want to run professional software on a machine intended for students in high school and below as well as casual computer users is beyond me.
If you do, look for a used Macbook. You can get some good bargains if you know where to look. Look at Apple refurbished if you’re willing to pay a bit more but want a full warrantee with a really clean machine.
If Apple follows its convention of upgrading its popular products every year, and this is one of them, we will see the 12Gb RAM A19 Pro in this machine. That’s very noticeably more powerful, and 12GB RAM will be plenty sufficient for most of what people will run on this. It’s interesting that all of this runs on 8GB, so 12 should be really interesting.
If you do, look for a used Macbook. You can get some good bargains if you know where to look. Look at Apple refurbished if you’re willing to pay a bit more but want a full warrantee with a really clean machine.
If Apple follows its convention of upgrading its popular products every year, and this is one of them, we will see the 12Gb RAM A19 Pro in this machine. That’s very noticeably more powerful, and 12GB RAM will be plenty sufficient for most of what people will run on this. It’s interesting that all of this runs on 8GB, so 12 should be really interesting.
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Arm windows would probably be faster if all the windows library calls in x86 applications redirect to the native arm libraries.
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I used Parallels a few years back until I learned it originated in Russia. I'm security-conscious.
Then I used VMWare Fusion until VMWare moved that development team to China.
After that, I ran VirtualBox.
I ran Windows 7, then Window 10 with AutoCAD and ArcGIS open at the same time - no problems on any of them. This was an Intel machine I used until I changed jobs.
Then I used VMWare Fusion until VMWare moved that development team to China.
After that, I ran VirtualBox.
I ran Windows 7, then Window 10 with AutoCAD and ArcGIS open at the same time - no problems on any of them. This was an Intel machine I used until I changed jobs.
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All of the discussions of the Neo mention that's it's good for "light weight computing" or words to that effect, but I think it's worth mentioning that while so called light weight computing has remain relatively fixed over the last 10-15 years (web browsing, streaming content, email, office productivity apps, a little audio or video editing, photo editing and management, etc) computational power has skyrocketed (particularly on the Mac). Which is to say, for the vast majority of things that most people do with a laptop, the Neo isn't compromised at all. Not, "accept compromises to spend less", not "OK till it's really really not", but not ever. The chip and memory in the Neo outperform top of the line machines from just a few years ago, and the fact is in that few years the needs of the average user really haven't changed. It's not like everyone has taken to doing a lot of 4k video editing and running simulations and manipulating billion polygon 3D models-- they're still just doing the list of things above. Saying "its good if you just need to do x but if you also need to do y you should consider stepping up" is true of every computer made save the top 1%, and in the Neo's case x is pretty much everything that most people do.
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Generally true, I generally agree. However I think the applications people are running to access those things (e.g. web browsers), and the content themselves (e.g. the websites) have gotten fatter, and more demanding of clients.
That is, the websites aren't just pages with formatting anymore. Nowadays they're virtually applications themselves, with tons of JS, all sorts of libraries, and badly compressed media.
If nothing else, I know my iPhone 5s (which astoundingly did receive an update back in January) struggles (or outright fails) on sites it used to not -- due the combination of ancient browser, small amount of RAM (1GB?), and vintage CPU.
Anyway, I'm sure the Neo will be fine. 8GB is sufficient at present, and the AS GPU doesn't portion out dedicated memory so the Neo gets more control over it.
I hope so. I imagine 9/10 people are just going to complain their computer is slow and they need a new one.
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Pfft, you young-ins don't know how good you have it with 8GB of RAM for virtualization + host. I ran Windows XP using VirtualPC on an 867MHz 12" PowerBook G4 with 640MB of RAM back in 2004. And we had to walk up-hill in snowstorms, both ways. And we liked it. Okay maybe we didn't enjoy it, but after disabling every graphic feature in Windows to the point it looked more like NT 4.0, you could do what you needed to at least.
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I get it, people are strapped for cash especially with inflation WAY higher than the official numbers, if you don't believe me, go grocery shopping. We're spending $150/month more on groceries versus last January.
$600 for a Mac Neo is a pretty good basic system. It will manage web browsing just fine. Any course work that is largely web based will be just fine. I know because I used my M1 8GB for almost 2 years of college work. It was fine. It still is fine 5 years later for hobby programming, office work, etc. Anyone that tells you that 8GB not fine for even just web browsing is blowing smoke. 4 tabs open in Firefox/Librewolf on that Mac and it's not touching swap including 2 GB of file cache according to Activity Monitor with still 1 GB of RAM free. More tabs aren't going to appreciably move the needle unless you hit a memory leak bug. Mac's RAM compression works fine (and so does Linux's zswap for that matter). You're not going to tax the RAM with normal Office utilization, either. Chrome shouldn't be using any more than Firefox does for the same use cases (while I don't personally use Chrome, my partner does use it on Windows with Facebook, and it's perfectly fine on an 8GB Windows PC.) I'm so tired of the BS "Eight GB is not enough even for web browsing!!!!!111" because the evidence says the opposite. Average Joe doesn't need more than 8GB (yet). The only reason Apple doubled RAM on the Air and Pro is because of how much Apple "Intelligence" abuses RAM resources. (Also most people don't understand how virtual memory even works so they seem to meltdown when they see any paged out use - this is normal behavior for long lived processes that are inactive for whatever reason for most OSes).
But, once you start adding virtual machines* into the mix, that's no longer the case since you have to dedicate system RAM for TWO OSes (macOS and Windows), plus the hypervisor, and whatever programs you have open in both OSes. If you MUST have Windows, and you only have $600 to spend, you're better off getting a used Thinkpad with Windows on it. VMs are RAM hungry things. You're really not going to be happy with running two modern OSes plus notoriously cranky Windows-only course-ware in a VM. Addendum: Especially since that cranky course-ware is almost certain to assume you're running on a bare metal x86 system! There's no telling what kernel level nonsense it's pulling or going to pull in the future in the name of preventing cheating.
This quandry is why a lot of universities use web-based course ware that's effectively OS neutral. They know kids coming up are likely to be using a Chromebook or a Windows system from HS, while some may prefer Macs, and the CS and CS-adjacent students might have a Linux system - especially if they offer courses that involve Linux itself, not merely OS agnostic programming.
My preference is Unix (Linux and Mac) day to day, but you can't really do Windows filesystems at the forensic level without Windows for various reasons.
*or games, any heavy 3D game released since around 2021 (give or take) is going to feel a little constrained with 8GB total between VRAM and system RAM. That's mostly because there's still no substitute for dedicated VRAM when it comes to games (IMO). Wasteland 3 was ok, but I find BG3 comfortable on my gaming PC with 8GB of dedicated VRAM. I believe Larian when they say an M1 8GB system is minimum, but I don't want to try it on my Mac (especially since the game files are well over 100 GB by themselves and my Mac's internal SSD is 512 GB).
$600 for a Mac Neo is a pretty good basic system. It will manage web browsing just fine. Any course work that is largely web based will be just fine. I know because I used my M1 8GB for almost 2 years of college work. It was fine. It still is fine 5 years later for hobby programming, office work, etc. Anyone that tells you that 8GB not fine for even just web browsing is blowing smoke. 4 tabs open in Firefox/Librewolf on that Mac and it's not touching swap including 2 GB of file cache according to Activity Monitor with still 1 GB of RAM free. More tabs aren't going to appreciably move the needle unless you hit a memory leak bug. Mac's RAM compression works fine (and so does Linux's zswap for that matter). You're not going to tax the RAM with normal Office utilization, either. Chrome shouldn't be using any more than Firefox does for the same use cases (while I don't personally use Chrome, my partner does use it on Windows with Facebook, and it's perfectly fine on an 8GB Windows PC.) I'm so tired of the BS "Eight GB is not enough even for web browsing!!!!!111" because the evidence says the opposite. Average Joe doesn't need more than 8GB (yet). The only reason Apple doubled RAM on the Air and Pro is because of how much Apple "Intelligence" abuses RAM resources. (Also most people don't understand how virtual memory even works so they seem to meltdown when they see any paged out use - this is normal behavior for long lived processes that are inactive for whatever reason for most OSes).
But, once you start adding virtual machines* into the mix, that's no longer the case since you have to dedicate system RAM for TWO OSes (macOS and Windows), plus the hypervisor, and whatever programs you have open in both OSes. If you MUST have Windows, and you only have $600 to spend, you're better off getting a used Thinkpad with Windows on it. VMs are RAM hungry things. You're really not going to be happy with running two modern OSes plus notoriously cranky Windows-only course-ware in a VM. Addendum: Especially since that cranky course-ware is almost certain to assume you're running on a bare metal x86 system! There's no telling what kernel level nonsense it's pulling or going to pull in the future in the name of preventing cheating.
This quandry is why a lot of universities use web-based course ware that's effectively OS neutral. They know kids coming up are likely to be using a Chromebook or a Windows system from HS, while some may prefer Macs, and the CS and CS-adjacent students might have a Linux system - especially if they offer courses that involve Linux itself, not merely OS agnostic programming.
My preference is Unix (Linux and Mac) day to day, but you can't really do Windows filesystems at the forensic level without Windows for various reasons.
*or games, any heavy 3D game released since around 2021 (give or take) is going to feel a little constrained with 8GB total between VRAM and system RAM. That's mostly because there's still no substitute for dedicated VRAM when it comes to games (IMO). Wasteland 3 was ok, but I find BG3 comfortable on my gaming PC with 8GB of dedicated VRAM. I believe Larian when they say an M1 8GB system is minimum, but I don't want to try it on my Mac (especially since the game files are well over 100 GB by themselves and my Mac's internal SSD is 512 GB).
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Most people only care about the performance and energy use if run on battery power. This means it isn't a problem then.
I run Windows 11 for ARM in a VM which has 1 vCPU and 2Gb of RAM dedicated to it under Paralells. It's equal to running a Mac application using 2 Gb of RAM.
It works wonderfully and I run two old enterprise applications in there, one being an Ecplised based IDE which certainly do multi-threading and can be disk intensive. It's just that multi-threading and disk intensive software from 2013 isn't really hard for a computer do handle today.
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My folks live in the boondocks and swear by Apple phone support. You schedule an appointment, they call you when they say they will, are patient and helpful, and with your approval can connect to your machine to help work through software problems or do diagnostics. Oh, and if in warranty or Apple care it's free.
The Apple Store is a gold standard when close by, but they do remote support too.
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My Windows 11 for ARM takes up about 37 Gb disk space and that's after about 4 years of usage, including upgrading from Windows 10 to Windows 11 and installing software and having data locally.
I've been running Windows VMs since 2010 on Macs and from 2001-2010 on Windows, so here are some advice on how to this with a machine with little memory.
- DO NOT give the Windows VM a lot of CPU and memory to begin with. VMs on Macs might perform worse by giving them a lot of resources on Macs with only 8 Gb of RAM
- Start with 1 CPU (against recommendation of Paralells) and 2 Gb of RAM
- Install Windows 11 for ARM
- Install the programs you need
- If it doesn't perform well, optimise Windows; see below
- Slowly increase either CPU or Memory until you get the performance you need
- Choose Other so you can specify the RAM yourself and increase by 512Mb each time
- Do not use Coherence mode (may give high CPU/GPU usage)
How to optimise Windows 11:
- Start Task Manager
- Under startup apps disable CoPilot, Teams, Widgets, Xbox (if you see them there and don't need them)
- System-> Advanced System Settings-> Performance
- Adjust for best performance
A lot of recommendations on the Internet, will tell you to give the too much CPU and RAM. You have a Mac with 8Gb of RAM! Don't follow those recommendations.
Start with 1 CPU and 2 Gb of RAM and see how it goes.
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I don't have it installed right now, but I'm sure I had at least 128GB free on the main drive and installed Windows there. I kept the Windows installaion to only the applications I required, which were few.
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Are you implying the Devil (BSD) begat God (macOS)? The Spanish Inquisition wants to have a talk with you.
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Was it x86? I’ve used Linux VMs on my m1 MacBook Air and it was always snappy. (8GB RAM)
ETA: I only did it with Parallels and UTM. Never VMWare.
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Impressive that it runs in a usable state. But it seems somewhat onerous given that the cost of the Parallels & Windows software licenses is ~60% of the cost of the computer.
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Cheap but TOTALLY LEGIT windows license and UTM is how I got around this
Parallels is much nicer. Not $100 CAD per year nicer tho.
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Ubuntu comes with Gnome by default. You can experience painful lagginess when typing into some Gnome apps even without a VM or emulation
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Too bad it's not a pure Java app?
It would run a lot faster on a MacOS arm64 JVM, without all of those extra layers you listed
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Well not enough ram is not enough ram. No going around it, but if you have something that will work with a guest that's given only 2 Gb, that may leave enough for the host OS.
About running windows x86-64 or windows arm in an arm mac os vm, I've tested once for doing occasional native windows visual studio development.
window x86-64 was dog slow, while windows arm was pretty much usable in a pinch. In spite of visual studio being a native x86 application.
I don't think using UTM or Parallels or Fusion will make a difference.
About running windows x86-64 or windows arm in an arm mac os vm, I've tested once for doing occasional native windows visual studio development.
window x86-64 was dog slow, while windows arm was pretty much usable in a pinch. In spite of visual studio being a native x86 application.
I don't think using UTM or Parallels or Fusion will make a difference.
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GreenHills
Smack-Fu Master, in training
The M-Series Macs always run Windows-on-ARM in the VM. The x86 translation is done by Windows.
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From the article:
So, you can do it the other way. It's generally a bad idea, but it's possible. I guess the reason to do it that way is if you had some x86 application that for whatever reason didn't work with Microsoft's x86->ARM translator.
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TheWerewolf
Ars Scholae Palatinae
This feels like a classic case of being able to do something not being the same as being a good idea to do something.
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TheWerewolf
Ars Scholae Palatinae
Yes, but that's because two of those OSes allow you run them on any hardware and one doesn't. It's an artificial scarcity that's not really something to cheer about.
Also, until Apple took it even further when they switched to their own custom ARM-based CPUs - again enforcing the exclusivity of macOS on Apple hardware, you could run macOS on Virtual Box on PCs. It wasn't entirely stable, but entirely usable.
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As there is a Mac-native version of Matlab (which isles of a ram and GPU hog than it used to be), the main reason for needing to run it in windows is the windows-specific packages.
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To run Windows on a modern Mac with Parallels it requires the ARM version of Windows. I don't think you can fully emulate x86 on an Apple silicon Mac to make Windows x86 run - but I never underestimate the hacker mentality to make it work somehow.
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Teguh Aditya
Seniorius Lurkius
Yes, you can. I have been using Parallels on my base model M1 Air (8/256) with the VM stored on my NVME to USB-c enclosure. Not the greatest experience, but it gets the job done for me.
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