apple silicon Macbook M3 virtualization and emulation capabilities

[GeorgeB123]

Greetings,

So I'm looking forward to getting a Macbook Air 14" with M3 and 16GB RAM that will be used for various tasks ranging from just watching youtube videos and browsing the web to light gaming (mostly WoW, league and similar not-so-heavy games) and spinning up containers and virtual machines (if they're functional on Apple Silicon).

So AFAIK I can't run x86 VMs natively due to them being ...well... a different instruction-set architecture type. Therefore I would need to emulate them instead which would be terrible performance wise.

I saw that VMWare Fusion virtualized Windows 11 ARM version very well and I've heard that despite it being an arm-based Windows OS, it can actually run x86 apps (via emulation).

So does anyone have experience doing this and would it be better performance wise (especially considering that vmware fusion boasts having guest OS GPU acceleration)?

It would pretty much make running a x86 Windows VM unnecessary in the given setup if everything would run under the ARM Windows 11 version.

 

Additionally I'm going to look into some Linux ARM distros since I might also have to do that at some point.

No idea how spotty the software support might be there but I assume it would be a lesser experience than running an x86 OS...

 

Thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience in advance!

Cheers!

 

 

[igormp]

2 minutes ago, GeorgeB123 said:

spinning up containers

Containers are a no issue, even with x86 images it should be no problem (albeit you'll notice a performance hit and more power consumption).

 

I've run Linux ARM images before through UTM, it was ok. Haven't tried windows tho, nor any other x86 VM.

[Levent]

I have run W7x86 on my M1 Air. Horribly slow. Not useable at all. You can also run W11ARM through UTM, translation layer is a Windows thing so I dont think it relies on the hardware.

[Eigenvektor]

Running x86 Windows on an M1 through emulation is incredibly slow.

 

There's no reason to believe that emulation through Windows on ARM running in a virtual machine would be any faster. Quite the opposite in fact.

 

I have run headless x86 Linux installations through OrbStack, which is usable enough.

[Kilrah]

Running W11 for ARM as a VM with it providing the emulation layer for x86 programs is known to be fine, even for games in some cases - plenty of videos around about that since all the way back when the M1 came out to get a feel for what you can do.

Running x86 Windows, forget it.

[rikitikitavi]

9 hours ago, GeorgeB123 said:

light gaming (mostly WoW, league and similar not-so-heavy games)

Just to make sure, you watched youtube to know what to expect

9 hours ago, GeorgeB123 said:

I saw that VMWare Fusion virtualized Windows 11 ARM version very well and I've heard that despite it being an arm-based Windows OS, it can actually run x86 apps (via emulation).

I use Parallels 18 with Win11 ARM to game oldies like Fallout 1-2 which are x86.

9 hours ago, GeorgeB123 said:

Additionally I'm going to look into some Linux ARM distros since I might also have to do that at some point.

Ubuntu ran smoothly with UTM during my short session

9 hours ago, GeorgeB123 said:

So does anyone have experience doing this and would it be better performance wise (especially considering that vmware fusion boasts having guest OS GPU acceleration)?

Tried only gaming on Parallels 18, not for any requiring significant GPU acceleration.

CrossOver is used solely for gaming afaik - ppl play Cyberpunk.

[atxcyclist]

I have W11 ARM in Parallels on my M2 and it does what I need just fine, which is using light Windows-specific software when necessary. It's not amazing for gaming or anything, performance in OG Skyrim is choppy and even Half-Life 2 isn't fantastic.