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Parallels 6

S

steedy

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 18, 2010
10
0
So I'm sure this has probably been mentioned beforehand and I'm really sorry if it is and I'm just clogging up the forum, but really I just wanted to know if anybody knows if Parallels Desktop 6 will work *smoothly* with games? I have a Macbook Pro.

I'm thinking about purchasing it but the only real reason I want to is because I want to be able to play the games that come out on Windows-only. Everything else, work etc, I live by Apple.

Just wanted to know if it'll all run smoothly, or is this program known for not working great on some stuff? I can't remember, I thought I heard something a while ago, just wanted to make sure.

Thanks.
-steedy
 
No

I don't have Parallels (or Fusion), but it appears that they do not work adequately for recent, high-performance games (such as first person shooters).

This is the consensus on the message boards (for what that's worth), and is mentioned in several reviews (you should be able to google a review). Also the programs themselves mention this limitation.

The problem seems to be that most Windows games are programmed using Direct X commands that are sent directly to the graphics card (I'm oversimplifying). But in Parallels and Fusion those commands (currently) go thought the CPU, slowing things down by a factor of 10 or 100.
 
Damn. Would you recommend perhaps any alternative? I don't wanna go with Bootcamp unless I have to, but even then it's not vitally important in the end.
 
PatrickCocoa said:
The problem seems to be that most Windows games are programmed using Direct X commands that are sent directly to the graphics card (I'm oversimplifying). But in Parallels and Fusion those commands (currently) go thought the CPU, slowing things down by a factor of 10 or 100.
Click to expand...

Fusion and Parallels both actually use Wine for graphics to translate DirectX to OpenGL and use the GPU... but running a whole OS in a virtual machine, and this layer... it can be quite slow still.

If you really want to game, use something Wine based that doesn't run a whole virtual computer... like Wineskin, or Crossover... *if* the game works, it'll work MUCH MUCH better than Fusion or Parallels can do. If you want the easiest way to play games, and definitely work the best with any game out there, you need to just install Windows using Bootcamp, so you can turn your Mac into a PC... or buy a gaming PC.

steedy said:
Damn. Would you recommend perhaps any alternative? I don't wanna go with Bootcamp unless I have to, but even then it's not vitally important in the end.
Click to expand...

Check out the forums at portingteam.com ... the main focus is on getting Windows games to work on OSX. Wineskin is used there, as well as hacked versions of Crossover in wrapper form, and Cider taken from other officially Cider ported games that can often run several Windows games decently. The good thing about having it all in a wrapper, is that it looks and works like a normal Mac app
 
steedy said:
So I'm sure this has probably been mentioned beforehand and I'm really sorry if it is and I'm just clogging up the forum, but really I just wanted to know if anybody knows if Parallels Desktop 6 will work *smoothly* with games? I have a Macbook Pro.

I'm thinking about purchasing it but the only real reason I want to is because I want to be able to play the games that come out on Windows-only. Everything else, work etc, I live by Apple.

Just wanted to know if it'll all run smoothly, or is this program known for not working great on some stuff? I can't remember, I thought I heard something a while ago, just wanted to make sure.

Thanks.
-steedy
Click to expand...

If you want to play games, bootcamp or don't play games. Parallels will be able to run some games without problems, but not the latest games that comes out and depending on the hardware you have, it could or could not be smooth. There are some games that Parallels supports though, but its fairly limited to those titles.
 
Steedy, I think you might be better off asking this question in the Parallels forums, where Mac gamers can tell you exactly what kind of results they're getting for which games.
 
In my experience all of the games I used worked fine under parallels on my Macbook Pro 2010. However, I was playing strategy games like Civilization IV, or games like Spore, NOT any first player games, so I wouldn't have really had any framerate issues.
 
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