Parallels Desktop For Mac Vs. VMware 195
neilticktin writes "MacTech performed an exhaustive set of benchmarks comparing Parallels Desktop 4 to VMWare Fusion 2 to run Windows on a Mac. To tackle this problem, MacTech undertook a huge benchmarking project starting in December — over 2500 tests by stopwatch. The goal was to see how the recent versions of VMWare Fusion and Parallels Desktop performed on different levels of Mac hardware, using XP, Vista, 64-bit, multi-procs, games, etc. ... As usual, results vary by what's important to you."
Apparently the final benchmark is still underway (Score:5, Funny)
Slashdotted already? Bummer. I have a feeling I know what the conclusion page says... "Do NOT host a web server with IIS on a Macbook running Windows in VMware Fusion"
Re:Apparently the final benchmark is still underwa (Score:5, Insightful)
Gee, who would have thought that spreading your article across TEN BLOODY PAGES would increase the load on your servers? Idiots and their ad impressions...
Re: (Score:2)
Just get the result spreadsheet from ftp://ftp.mactech.com/src/mactech/volume25_2009/25.04-VM_Benchmarks-Best_Results.zip [mactech.com]
Re:Apparently the final benchmark is still underwa (Score:3, Informative)
Slashdotted after 3 comments (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, apparently they shouldn't run their server in virtualization software.
Either way, I like Parallels better because it's so much better integrated (albeit more expensive) and easier to use. It also has better support for DirectX and OpenGL than VMWare which is something I needed (OpenGL).
Re:Slashdotted after 3 comments (Score:5, Informative)
Personally, I prefer VirtualBox [virtualbox.org]. It has all the features you expect of a professional VM (rootless desktop, 3D acceleration, drive passthrough, etc.) but is available for the low-low price of $0.
The situation looks a bit different if you're going to use it for business purposes, but for home use there is no better option than VirtualBox.
Re: (Score:2)
Does VirtualBox allow you to run your BootCamp partition in a virtual machine? Last time I check it didn't. Otherwise, it is a fine product.
I must the admit that the number of times I actually boot into windows has diminished drastically (As well as using windows period), but it is nice to be able to have Windows run natively when you have to play a Windows only game and still be able to bring it up on within a virtual machine when you need to use Windows to run some old piece of software.
Re:Slashdotted after 3 comments (Score:5, Interesting)
As far as I know, this has not changed. However, it is possible to extract the Bootcamp partition into a VDMK which VirtualBox can read. I've never done it before, so try it at your own risk.
What's this "windows" you speak of? I use VirtualBox for alternative operating systems! :-P
Actually, I did setup one Windows 7 VM so my wife could use an educational CD she needs. Other than that, I haven't found a lot of reason to use Windows on my Mac. I imagine I would have a few more if I didn't have an older Windows XP desktop hanging around, but even that tends to run cross-platform software. (Even Microsoft Office has been successfully replaced with OpenOffice!)
All told, the age of Windows lock-in is fading rapidly. Just about all native software these days either has a Mac version or a good Mac alternative available. Interestingly, FireFox shows markedly better graphics performance on the Mac over the PC. I haven't figured that one out yet. :-/
Re: (Score:2)
Virtualbox (Score:2)
Virtual Box rocks, cross platform and I swear it is faster running Windows on my home box versus the ESX server I run stuff on at work.
I was leaning towards using Virtualbox if I install Ubuntu on my Mac. However I'm not clear whether it can run another OS installed on a dualboot computer in a VM. If not then I'll need either VMWare or Parallels as they can both do that.
Falcon
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Virtualbox is very nice, but it really needs to improve the "snapshot" backup functionality. It's a bit unintuitive: I've read numerous posts by people who lost backups by irreversibly deleting snapshots by accident. The GUI gives no warning when you choose to perform some irreversible action like discarding a snapshot.
Backups really need to improve in VB before it becomes competetive with VMware.
Personally, I prefer VirtualBox (Score:2)
When I setup my Mac to dualboot as I'm leaning towards it I may use VirtualBox [virtualbox.org] myself. It would have been nice if Mactech had included it.
Falcon
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Uhhh, it does? (Score:5, Informative)
That's from nearly two years ago. There's now support for hardware accelerated 3D. From section 4.8 of the user manual:
Games? (Score:2)
Does that mean we can play PC games?
Re:Games? (Score:5, Interesting)
It works really well too. I mean REALLY well.
Basically any game that runs under Wine currently will run under Virtual Boxes 3D hardware implementation (they used a lot of WINEs implementations for the graphics functions).
The performance is about what you'd get running under WINE in Linux natively.
For home use i wouldn't bother with anything other than VitualBox. No other Virtual Machine out there approaches its 3D hardware virtualisation.
Re: (Score:2)
Well the software is free to try. I mean don't trust to ''It does 3d'' comments and remove your bootcamp partition like some did. It supports OpenGL only and the developers who were wise to code in OpenGL mostly have native OS X apps.
For true 3d on Windows, you need at least dx 9 supporting hardware with at least 128MB RAM. Virtual or real, these are the real specs for Windows games.
D3D (Score:2)
At this point in time there is no Direct3D support, but its on its way. I believe the focus is on WineD3D, but I have not been able to use it yet to run GoogleEarth in DIrect 3D - I am using this as a simple capability test.
Most importantly, it depends on which Windows (Score:5, Interesting)
Both products fail miserably at running anything older than XP. VMWare still wins here, since at least it manages to install and run 98SE successfully, while Parallels install suffers from endless crashes. But even a trivial DX game like "Lose your marbles" results in a blank screen, while it works perfectly fine in VPC for Mac on 5 year old hardware. There are many older applications and games that do not run on XP. Just how hard would it be to emulate an S3 video card and SB16 so that we can run whatever we fill like in the VM?
Re: (Score:2)
. Just how hard would it be to emulate an S3 video card and SB16 so that we can run whatever we fill like in the VM?
Well, DOSBox [dosbox.com] does a decent job. But that's a self-supported donationware project. To include that sort of functionality in a commercial product, you have to hire people not only to do the development and tweaking, but to support customers who use the feature. Just not worth it for companies like Parallels and VMware to go to all that trouble for a few customers that want to play abandonware games.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, how about abandon-ware business applications?
I simply don't think VMWare and Parallels have thought this through. Most home MacOSX users who want windows emulation and are savvy enough to set it up have been using computers for at least a decade. Its highly likely that they have a favorite game or app that would influence them to choose the product that supports it. On the other hand, businesses are notorious for not upgrading even apps written when MS-DOS just came out.
It would be much easier to have
Re: (Score:2)
Well, how about abandon-ware business applications?
Yeah, that's a huge market. And it's full of customers with deep pockets!
I simply don't think VMWare and Parallels have thought this through.
Uh, have you ever worked for a company that actually makes and sells software? I have, and support costs are big factor in all our business decisions. Trust me, we think these things through. Our jobs depend on it!
Most home MacOSX users who want windows emulation and are savvy enough to set it up have been using computers for at least a decade. Its highly likely that they have a favorite game or app that would influence them to choose the product that supports it.
If they don't need support, why spend money on Parallels or VMware? DOSBox and xVM VirtualBox are free.
It would be much easier to have a general purpose product that can be used with any OS of user's choice than to try to quantify every possible use case.
Yeah, because coping with the quirks of 16-bit Windows is so easy...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, that's a huge market. And it's full of customers with deep pockets!
What makes you so sure it's not? I bet it's pretty common for a company to have an in-house app that was custom-written for them back in the day, which works fine for them. Ten years later, they still want to run that app, but they can no longer easily find hardware that supports the OS the app was written for. So now their choice is either re-write the app from scratch (an expensive and risky project; the people who wrote the origi
This violates VMware's EULA (Score:5, Interesting)
VMware states that you can not post benchmarks. This is why there are no benchmarks out there comparing it.
Prepare to have your page deactivated.
Re:This violates VMware's EULA (Score:4, Informative)
From Fusion EULA:
You may use the Software to conduct internal performance testing and benchmarking studies, the results of which you (and not unauthorized third parties) may publish or publicly disseminate; provided that VMware has reviewed and approved of the methodology, assumptions and other parameters of the study. Please contact VMware at benchmark@vmware.com to request such review.
Re:This violates VMware's EULA (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong! VMware only wants to review the methodology and approve it. You do not have to get the results approved.
From register.vmware.com/content/eula.html
"you (and not unauthorized third parties) may publish or publicly disseminate; provided that VMware has reviewed and approved of the methodology, assumptions and other parameters of the study. Please contact VMware at benchmark@vmware.com to request such review."
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. Basically if the #s are horrible they want to be able to look at them and say "you're an idiot for not clicking the little box for hardware acceleration before running your benchmark."
Re: (Score:2)
sounds just as bad
Re: (Score:2)
"you (and not unauthorized third parties) may publish or publicly disseminate; provided that VMware has reviewed and approved of the methodology, assumptions and other parameters of the study. Please contact VMware at benchmark@vmware.com to request such review."
Would posting: "We did benchmarks tests and found that VMWare performance sucks - though we can't post them, so we may be lying" be okay ;)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting, I didn't know that VMWare was one of those companies that was afraid to have their product compared to those of others. Do they have something to hide?
I wasn't a VMWare user already, but hearing this kind of thing, if true, makes me even less inclined to try their product. If they're going to tell me I can't talk about a product I've paid for, well, I'm not going to pay for it.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Think about it.
Re: (Score:2)
They do that because its performance is not that good compared to the other solutions. It is good, but no where near worth the money good.
You don't pay VMWare for performance, you pay them for manageability.
Sun virtualbox (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Also, a big chunk of Virtualbox code is free (as in freedom) that's anything thing to appreciate.
Re:Sun virtualbox (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
A guy with integrity and experience would see what customer actually wants and his profile. If guy is only interested in couple of devices having only windows support and basic (non 3d) gaming or office? Sun Virtualbox.
The Parallels and VMWare guys support way more advanced uses.
Re: (Score:2)
I have tested all three of these products. I like Sun Virtualbox not just for price (free) but for performance.
But Virtualbox doesn't work with another OS already installed on a multiboot computer. I may install Ubuntu on my Mac and if so then I'll also want to setup VMs to run Ubuntu when I bootup Leopard, and Leopard when I bootup Ubuntu.
Falcon
Re: (Score:2)
VirtualBox supports OpenGL acceleration on Windows hosts. It's USB support is, indeed more limited. It also may, depending on your configuration, interfere with other virtual machines (you can turn on and off hardware-assisted virtualization, and in software-only mode it doesn't conflict).
But it's free and definitely acceptable performance for casual use, thus should always be the first thing you try, IMHO.
Re: (Score:2)
You haven't either, did you?
VMware and VirtualBox aren't noticeably different on recent hardware and OSes. I've tried both, and granted VMware works better with Win98, but that's uncommon.
VirtualBox has 3d support. I clocked in an OpenGL test at within 10% native speed. DirectX is coming ASAP.
Literally yesterday I tried to start two VT-x virtual macines and it bitched at me. Granted, the error wasn't very friendly, but it was obvious what I had done wrong.
I use Windows XP as a guest and sync my iPhone to it
Always funny to me... (Score:2, Insightful)
I always laugh. Like now.
Re:Always funny to me... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Always funny to me... (Score:5, Informative)
It sucks that I am sometimes forced to use it, but I lose a sale if I don't.
That's my reasoning for needing a Windows instance, and I bet my situation is not that uncommon.
What are the alternatives? (Score:2)
Off topic, but what are the alternatives?
Re: (Score:2)
OmegaT is completely free, opensource and quite stable. I currently use Heartsome Translation Studio (not free, but opensource).
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I just wish I could get OS X Leopard running in VMWare PLayer on XP. I installed OS X Server 10.5 using VMWare Fusion, and got it booting under VMWare Player, but it's running in to problems before logon (looping with mds and ATSServer crashing). Would much rather have the desktop OS working though as we develop cross platform software for Mac and Windows, but we're a Windows shop first and foremost. I just need somewhere to compile, debug and unit test the Mac code, and don't currently have budget for a
Re: (Score:2)
...we develop cross platform software for Mac and Windows... ...and don't currently have budget for a Mac to do this with using BootCamp.
You have multiple employee but can't afford $500 for a last generation Mac-mini? Sounds like whoever is allocating your budget is an idiot.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, that's just least of the issues, and probably shouldn't have mentioned it. I have perfectly good Dell M6300, why would I want another machine? Especially as the Mac stuff is only part-time for me. I do Blu-ray work, and that machine has a built-in BD drive, and is more suited to playing back HD movies with BD-J applications. Using a Mac would require hauling around a BD drive in an enclosure (which I used to do a couple of years ago, and that was a pain). Also, BootCamp partitions are 32GB, a
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I have perfectly good Dell M6300, why would I want another machine?
So you can legally run OS X and do your dev work, was my assumption.
Also, BootCamp partitions are 32GB...
I don't use Bootcamp, but I thought 32Gb was the maximum size for old versions of Windows XP to install on a FAT partition. As far as I know, bootcamp partitions can be any size you want and can fit a Windows install in.
Finally, I'm on the road a lot (I currently don't even have an apartment back home) and am already hauling around three laptops...
I hauled around multiple laptops and messed with dual booting for a while. Now I just carry a MacBook and run Windows, Linux, and Solaris in VMs on top of OS X. Saves me a lot of hassle and migrating them all to a new system
Re: (Score:2)
Well, I have access to OS install DVD through an ADC subscription. Perhaps running under VMWare is another issue though.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I did just this. At the time, Apple's Mac Pro was cheaper than an equivalently configured D
Re: (Score:2)
Windows
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You probably have not used Linux in a long time. You don't have to edit config files as you describe anymore. There are many GUI tools available, depending on your distribution.
Also, everyth
Re: (Score:2)
When people by a Mac and then run Windows on it.
People want to be able to run Windows apps even when they're using Macs. I'm typing this on a Mac and I may install Ubuntu on it.
Falcon
An interesting read (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Funny you should say that, I had the exact opposite experience. Some vmware scripts and devices are still present on my system, even after vmware fusion is since long gone :(
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Makes you wonder why Apple doesn't insist on proper uninstallers, like Windows apps.
installers (Score:2)
Makes you wonder why Apple doesn't insist on proper uninstallers, like Windows apps.
Installers for Windows can be just as bad if not worse. Those who release software need to make sure there is a good installer/uninstaller.
Falcon
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You can move VMs from Fusion to Workstation to ESX to Fusion too, with Converter or by copying files (depending). It's handy and I do it regularly. Often it's more convenient for me to build VMs on Fusion and then move them to ESX, even when I'm intending to use the VM only on ESX.
Disclaimer: I work for VMware.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Not for me. VMWare Fusion crashes all the time. If I boot Windows and leave it, it's fine. If I boot it and open a web page in IE and leave it, it will freeze in under 10 minutes. I've had a support incident open for six weeks, and I'm getting frustrated with them asking to send the logs again, asking me to try things repeatedly as if they've forgotten they'd already asked me. Now they've gone silent on me. The worst bit is I have to reboot the Mac or I can't restart the VM that froze, only the Mac ha
Re: (Score:2)
I won't open the can of worms of addressing your case (although I wish I could), but I am using Fusion every time I open my MacBook Pro, and I don't see that kind of instability. I run a mixture of Windows and Linux and "other" VMs simultaneously, and I haven't had the sort of problem you describe since, oh, I stopped doing exciting stuff like running daily builds. I haven't experienced a guest OS crash or freeze in anything resembling recent history.
That's not to say it isn't possible to have an environmen
Re: (Score:2)
It happens with my BootCamp/Vista partition, as well as WinXP and Win Server 2003 VMs. I noticed it first last year with VMWare Fusion 1, but didn't do anything about it because I was living in China (didn't really have time to think about it) and didn't really need Fusion too much at the time. A couple of months ago I upgraded to Fusion 2 and also started to need to use it more seriously, but found the problems still exist and that it's all but unusable. Customer support is beginning to drive me nuts.
slashdotted but anyone buying/using parallels 4 (Score:4, Interesting)
Trying a third now (Score:2)
Parallels is to problematic in my experience. VMWare seems to work alright but bogs down and locks up occasionally, though it does work a bit better since McAfee was removed. I'm messing with Virtual Box now, so far it's promising but I need to mess with it more. I've run out of reasons to boot Windows, and to chain myself to my desk recently so I haven't been testing it as much as I could.
Graphs do not correspond... (Score:2, Interesting)
In the majority of overall averages of our tests, Parallels Desktop is the clear winner running 14-20% faster than VMware Fusion. The one exception is for those that need to run Windows XP, 32-bit on 2 virtual processors, VMware Fusion runs about 10% faster than Parallels Desktop.
The exact opposite appears to be the case, according to the legend at the bottom of the graph.
Chiming in with Parallels being a mess (Score:2)
I never even bought it (thank gods) and it caused me problems. I demo'd it for a while, and found it not as good as VMWare Fusion at the time, so I uninstalled it. My Mac Pro took an impressive dive in stability after that, and IIRC, I couldn't even do a software shutdown due to a kernel extension Parallels had left behind. I had to go on the web to find out what files it left behind, and how to remove them, and sure enough, my computer worked fine after that.
I'm not a huge fan of VMWare Fusion nowadays eit
USB booting... (Score:2)
I just can't believe I can't boot a VM from either product off a USB drive.
KeS
Desktop Comparison (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
The idea is to compare virtualization solutions running on Mac OSX. VMWare ESX does NOT run on OSX.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Citrix? (Score:4, Informative)
'Fusion' ne 'ESX' (Score:5, Insightful)
That would be 99.99% of home users. It's hard to conceive of an application for ESX[i] at "home," given Fusion and Workstation. ESX is heavyweight and particular in its hardware requirements, nontrivial to manage (especially with the free license), and just generally not the right thing if you don't have a spare tower server or DC handy, a full license, and someone else to pay your power bill. Although, in those circumstances, it's pretty cool.
(A bunch of the remaining .01% are going to explain why I'm wrong now.)
Disclaimer: I work for VMware. (And I would run ESX at home if there was a reason to.)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd use ESX at home if I had the hardware sitting around ... but ... even though SC1430s (for example) are fairly cheap, I don't want to pay to keep them running (or deal with power cycling).
But, agreed, IF you are one of that tiny number of people who can afford or justify HW/license/electricity, then it can be very useful at home.
ESX[i] will run on a variety of unsupported hardware (don't ask me, we don't even keep a list around here because no one really knows), so it is possible to run it on cheap, low-
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
My biggest gripe is the removal of anything Linux'y, as with white box hardware it becomes harder to use cheaper gear as none of it plug's in to ESX. eg Cheap UPS's and Raid Cards (ie the HP/Adaptec 2610SA). Aside from that, Tyan Board and Raid Card -> 20mins to fully installed VMware ESXi environment.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Citrix? (Score:5, Funny)
They are both tiny, and only adequate for virtual applications.
Re: (Score:2)
And they don't get nearly as much use as all the other alternatives out there.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If you want to play DirectX games, you are probably best using Boot Camp, or finding a native version of the game. Neither Parallels nor VMWare will reliably support anything later than DirectX 8, most recent games, certainly anything where performance is an issue, requires DirectX 9.
I use Parallels to run MS Access and Visio - there is no native versions of either of these for Mac, and a few accounting programs that are Windows only.
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NzAyNA [phoronix.com]
Basically they use a WINE wrapper that runs in your Virtual Machine. It'll run DirectX games at pretty much the same level of performance and compatibility as Wine runs natively.
It's not perfect but it beats the pants off any of the commercial solutions.
Re:free? (Score:5, Informative)
I would have liked to see Sun's VirtualBox [virtualbox.org]thrown into the mix. I use Fusion and "love" it (as much as one can love having to use Windows), but a free alternative would be nice.
That being said, I also use Crossover (WINE) for quite a few things (IE6, RegexBuddy) so I don't have to launch a full VM image.
The article is loading (slowly) through Coral cache [nyud.net]
Re:free? (Score:5, Informative)
VirtualBox got off to a slow start. There were some issues for a long while that prevented it from running FreeBSD in guests, but they were fixed with the 2.1.2 release. Now it works very well, and I didn't have to pay anything to go from the old release to the one that actually works (or for the original release, for that matter). The latest version apparently supports 3D on Windows guests, but I don't have a Windows install set up at the moment so I haven't been able to test this.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I also couldn't run Parallels more than 15 minutes on my Mac Pro without it causing a kernel panic. I'm glad to hear someone else had the same problem.
I switched to VMWare Fusion and haven't looked back.
Re: (Score:2)
I've used VMWare fusion extensively. It has for the most part worked great. I recently tried Parallels to play some windows game. It's terrible. I tried using Parallels in my day to day work and it constantly messes up in random ways. I just switched back to Fusion today and will uninstall Parallels when I get a change later today.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the general consensus from everyone I know who uses their VM product for more than the never-switched-on safety net of a stale Windows install:
Parallels gets you there faster if it manages to get you there at all. Fusion just works. I had largely the same experience. If I wanted it to be as fast as possible, I'd bother to BootCamp it. Speed is always secondary to reliability for me.
Virtualbox (Score:2)
I switched from Parallels Desktop to VirtualBox and it has one feature which I really like; the ability to run for over a week without causing a kernel panic.
There is one feature both Parallels and VMWare has that Virtualbox does not have yet, the ability to run an OS than is installed on a dualboot computer. I may install Ubuntu on my Mac and if so then I will want to run Ubuntu in a VM when I bootup Leopard, as well as the other way around, but Virtualbox doesn't do that.
Falcon
Re: (Score:2)
One other thing (Score:3, Interesting)
I switched from Parallels Desktop to VirtualBox and it has one feature which I really like;
Another thing Virtual Box has going for it is that it doesn't need a network interface driver external to the VM.
Re: (Score:2)
Then why do you like VirtualBox?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If you REALLY like to punish your Mac... you can also get Gentoo for OSX [gentoo.org]. Of course, to some Gentoo is punishing yourself, too... but personally I love having the prefixed Gentoo environment for all my Linux-style tools, while still being able to run my Mac tools in the same terminal window.
I'm not quite ready to have that as my default shell environment though... but I do have a shortcut to start up "startprefix.sh" in a terminal window :)
Note that if there's BSD or Linux type software you just HAVE to hav
WINE on Macs and beyond (Score:2)
I agree that for many things WINE is a good solution, with a lot less overhead. And, theoretically, much lower cost (no Windows license required - though Crossover isn't free).
Actually, I wonder why more folks don't use WINE or WINELIB to port Windows stuff to the Mac. I think WINELIB needs higher visibility in general.
Also, with a new generation of ARM-based netbooks on the horizon, I'm wondering whether there's a decent open source X86 emulator that could be paired with WINE to run Windows apps under Li
Re: (Score:2)
though Crossover isn't free
'Twas for me, they had a one day giveaway that I was awake for. Suits my needs perfectly, even playing some games.
Maybe they'll have another giveaway. Worked for me as marketing, now I'm an advocate to my clients who worry about losing their windows apps when they switch.
Re:Stopwatch != accurate (Score:5, Insightful)
When you're comparing performance of compressing an 8GB folder with 1000 files, or total time to encode a 2-hour movie, it's perfectly acceptable to use a stopwatch, and have your margin of error be +/- 1 second.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, for one thing, they timed some things that can't be measured easily without a stopwatch, like OS and app start times. Also, some GUI programs don't take command-line options (most proprietary media encoders, for instance), so your only two choices are either a stopwatch, or trusting that the app timed itself correctly.
Re: (Score:2)
When you're comparing performance of compressing an 8GB folder with 1000 files, or total time to encode a 2-hour movie, it's perfectly acceptable to use a stopwatch, and have your margin of error be +/- 1 second.
However, it is *not* acceptable to use a calendar. ;)
KeS