Don't programs in general tend to run slower if you use an emulator?
That might explain the speed test. But the graphics are so much faster, even in the emulator. If I were to boot native XP (with the ATI Drivers) it would be even faster.
Is there a difference in RAM usage.
If there isn't much of a difference, I am guessing its the way windows does their hyper-threading, thus rendering the %usage inaccurate.
I didn't note a difference in memory usage. All of the sprites, etc. are loaded into memory uncompressed ready for drawing.
I don't think VMWare passes through any hyper threading etc. It was only set for 1 CPU I think. Also, the runtime is not inherently threaded.