Single core or duo?

[rx-sp]

What's the practical difference between enabling two cores for Fusion, when running Windows XP? I note that it defaults to a single core.

In particular, will it mean my MacBook's fans are less likely spin up, because the load is more evenly distributed across two cores?

I tried enabling two cores a while ago but ran into Windows authentication issues (grrr....).

[Andreas_Masur]

This topic has been discussed several times already...a pretty complete overview over the topic can be found here[/url]...

In regards to your activation issues....what version of Windows do you have?

Ciao, Andreas

[Pat_Lee]

On a dual-core only machine, 2-way Virtual SMP you won't see a great deal of performance gains as Mac OS X is running on the same cores as the VM. However, even on a dual core machine, if you have applications that require dual cores it will work great.

If you have a quad core or more Mac, you will see great improvements with 2-way Virtual SMP as found by CNET in their most recently benchmark tests.

Hope that helps.

Pat

[rx-sp]

When I tried enabling two cores a while back, just as an experiment, some Windows Media DRM files I had became invalid and I had to reauthenticate. Luckily this was free of charge (I'm using the BBC iPlayer software).

Nobody actually answered the question, which was whether enabling two cores will make the CPU fans spin less on my MacBook, which is very prone to spinning up the fans.

Well, I've just experimented again, and I would say from the fan point of view, it's about the same. In fact, the fans might spin a little more when two cores are enabled.