VMware Fusion 3 will be released on October 27. Version 3 boasts lots of new features and performance enhancements, including full 64-bit support for Snow Leopard and Aero support for Windows Vista & 7. We were lucky enough to receive a copy of the version 3 beta (build 193526, the latest beta build).

This post will cover overall speed and gaming performance in this new version. We were quite surprised at how much better everything performed compared to VMware Fusion 2.0.6. We will not compare VMware Fusion with Parallels.

We are using Windows 7 Ultimate x64 edition via the Boot Camp (NTFS) partition. We gave the virtual machine 2 CPU cores and 2048MB of RAM. 3D was enabled. The host machine was a 15″ uMBP with a 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo with 4GB DDR3 RAM & the 9600M GT (the 9600M GT was used, not the 9400).

The first thing we’re going to cover is the Windows Experience Index (WEI) scores. Below is what was obtained using native boot (via Boot Camp):

As you can see from that screenshot (taken with Windows 7′s Snipping Tool) that Aero is working. Note the scores for various components. Below is the WEI score after refreshing the score for VMware’s virtual hardware:

We were very surprised to see those scores. Gaming graphics dropped a lot, but everything else just dropped by a few points. Primary hard disk actually went up a little bit which really was a shock…

Performance wise, everything just seems a lot faster. Boot time was blazing fast compared to VMware Fusion 2 (we don’t have the numbers, we just know that it’s a lot faster). Programs open up faster, windows open faster, programs perform better, etc. Now onto gaming performance.

We tested 3 games, and used FRAPS to get its frame rate (FPS). You’ll see that in yellow text in the upper-left hand corner of the screenshots. The 3 games were Counter-Strike 1.6, Counter-Strike: Source, and FlatOut. We played all three at 1440×900 at various graphics settings. Again, we used the 9600M GT instead of the 9400 GPU. The VMware Fusion team posted on their blog that they were able to play Left 4 Dead in VMware Fusion 3. We’re guessing that they got fewer than 15FPS based on out tests below.

First, we’ll start with CS 1.6. Below are the screenshots:

The first image shows the settings that we used. we usually play this game in D3D, because OpenGL just gives me weird graphical glitches. We couldn’t run either in the VM for some odd reason. So, we ran it in Software mode because it was our only choice, and that it should get a better frame rate. We were shocked at the horrible frame rate that we were getting in the game.  It varied between 10FPS and 80FPS. It got maybe 45FPS when just walking around the map, but when there was a gun fight, it got down below 15FPS. We were pretty disappointed…

Next up is FlatOut. Below are the screenshots:

We were quite horrified by the frame rate that this game was getting also. The more objects that were in view, the lower the frame rate. The first screenshot shows the settings this game was played at. We usually play this game at full anisotropy and full antialiasing with triple buffering enabled, and get a locked frame rate of 60FPS. The 3.5 gaming graphics WEI score must really have been true.

Now onto CS:S, the most graphically intense game that we tested:

It averaged out at 33.69FPS. Based off the performance of the other 2 games, we played this one at the lowest possible settings (except for the resolution of course). We used the Video Stress Test to test this game. The frame rate varied from 20FPS to 60FPS. That’s all that we can say about this one.

Gaming performance in a virtual machine will never be like it will when you’re running the OS natively, but VMware Fusion 3 offers better gaming and 3D performance over VMware Fusion 2 and Parallels. These 3 games will probably play better at a lower resolution (maybe 800×600).

One thing we did notice was that the audio was very crackly/choppy.

Instead of playing a game in VMware, you should play it in CrossOver. We tested CS:S and FlatOut (number 2) and received a MUCH MUCH better frame rate than in VMware. Below is a screenshot of CS:S at the same settings as in VMware:

We were shocked at the frame rate differences that we’ve seen. We get almost 4x the frame rate in CrossOver than we did in VMware. Both instances were ran at the same exact settings.

We couldn’t get FlatOut running in CrossOver (we have gotten it to work after writing this post), so we ran FlatOut 2, which is more graphically intense than FlatOut. With anisotropy to the max and AA off with triple buffering/post processing ENABLED, we easily reached 30FPS (texture settings were set to Very High in-game):

So, in conclusion, if you plan on gaming on your Mac, it’s still best (and always has been) to boot into Windows via Boot Camp to play your games. You can also give CrossOver a try, as you’ll be quite pleased with the results. Not only will you get a better frame rate at higher settings, you also won’t have to deal with the odd audio problems. This may be fixed in the final version of VMware Fusion 3, but we’ll have to see in a few weeks.