Parallels for Gaming on M1 Pro and Max?

[pudcraft]

WORLD OF WARCRAFT TEST:

So I was rather impressed here. I set WoW to 10/MAX settings. I removed the Max Foreground FPS limitation. I set Target FPS to 120 FPS. Max distance, shadow, and other settings all maxed out. I tested this on my alt.

I landed an average of 80 FPS in Stormwind. I was hitting 110 FPS outside of Stormwind where it was less populated. In combat, I saw a drop from 120 FPS to 60-80 FPS depending on the ground effects.

This was all battery ran - not plugged in. This machine is a BEAST. Super impressed with the results of this test so far. I'll do a raid tomorrow on it on the main and some dungeons/mythics.

Fwiw - I was expecting a complete tank in FPS and I'm glad i was surprised

This was ran natively, not using Parallels. I do not see a reason why to play this game on a VM when it is supported on native Apple Silicon.

 

[pudcraft]

Wtf... that's insane... this is through Parallels Desktop or Parallels Desktop Pro? Windows 11?

This was using Parallels latest version using Windows 11 ARM installation

 

[pudcraft]

This was using Parallels latest version using Windows 11 ARM installation

Parallels Desktop 17 for Mac Pro

 

[dev201]

This was using Parallels latest version using Windows 11 ARM installation

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!

 

[dev201]

ROCKET LEAGUE TEST:

Video settings set to Ultra/Max
AA turned on
Average FPS: 100-120FPS

IT RAN LIKE A CHAMP. Literally NO lag, no FPS drops, and I had a blast giving this a test run. It has been at least 4 years since I've played and this test made me miss the game - so thank you for requesting the test run.

Overall, I feel comfortable saying that Rocket League on MBP 16" MAX was a great experience.

WoW is next.

Again, thank you!

If I could trouble you with a final follow up question… At what resolution did you run the game?

 

[pudcraft]

Again, thank you!

If I could trouble you with a final followup question… At what resolution did you run the game?

Here's a screenshot of the settings I ran the game at. At 2560x resolution, I saw no merit in using AA. The game looked and played great. If you do not have V-Sync checked on then you are limited to a low 1200~ resolution - so if you want to play this high res, click on V-Sync. Game runs phenomenally.

 

[dev201]

Seriously, I can’t thank you enough. Please let me know if you have a https://www.buymeacoffee.com/ account.

 

[pudcraft]

Seriously, I can’t thank you enough. Please let me know if you have a https://www.buymeacoffee.com/ account.

so very kind of you! I do have a page there (new for this) for beer change! LOL

Here's the link and I really appreciate the gesture but please do not feel obliged to: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/macgaming

If you have any other games you want me to test, let me know. I'll test everything I can. Buying these laptops are a hell of a financial commitment. It makes me happy to be able to do this and help others make their decision on buying the laptop that best suits them.

 

[randomdude]

Yeah I can give this a shot later tonight.

I was able to make some modifications to my Parallels that gave me a nice boost in FPS performance. I am seeing on average 65-85 FPS in FFXIV (FF14). That being said, the test so far was in less populated areas. I will put it through some tests this evening when it is more populated in the cities. There is still a clear random lag drop but reducing the refresh rate from 120HZ to 60HZ made a difference (accidental).

I tried VMware and that was utter fail. Parallels so far is at least running the game without errors.

Not even kidding -- I registered an account here because of your post.

What settings were you using in FF14 and what modifications helped out with Parallels?

 

[seasurfer]

WORLD OF WARCRAFT TEST:

So I was rather impressed here. I set WoW to 10/MAX settings. I removed the Max Foreground FPS limitation. I set Target FPS to 120 FPS. Max distance, shadow, and other settings all maxed out. I tested this on my alt.

I landed an average of 80 FPS in Stormwind. I was hitting 110 FPS outside of Stormwind where it was less populated. In combat, I saw a drop from 120 FPS to 60-80 FPS depending on the ground effects.

This was all battery ran - not plugged in. This machine is a BEAST. Super impressed with the results of this test so far. I'll do a raid tomorrow on it on the main and some dungeons/mythics.

Fwiw - I was expecting a complete tank in FPS and I'm glad i was surprised

This was ran natively, not using Parallels. I do not see a reason why to play this game on a VM when it is supported on native Apple Silicon.

View attachment 1881384

At what resolution you are running?

 

[pudcraft]

Not even kidding -- I registered an account here because of your post.

What settings were you using in FF14 and what modifications helped out with Parallels?

Very kind of you and welcome to the forums! Glad to hear you signed up to join the community.

If I recall correctly, I had it set to almost the default settings. I did modify the resolution from a low 1200's to an odd 1496x???. I'll need to double check it later and post a screenshot. I have some more tinkering to do with FF14. I want to get the best output and right settings which I am not hitting yet.

Regarding Parallels - there isn't much to customize anymore. I set the profile to GAMING. I ensured that the resolution was set best for Retina and allocated unlimited resource uses to the virtual machine. Everything else is fairly standard.

I did notice a significant performance difference after a few shut downs and reboots of the VM instance. I was super eager to test everything out once the laptop arrived so there's a good chance it was still indexing and pulling cloud data when I ran the first round of tests - hindering performance. I'll post more updates on FF14 tomorrow when I have more time to play with it.

At what resolution you are running?

See the attached screenshot of the settings I used when testing. It was 3456x2234.

Addons installed:
ElvUI
Details! Damage Meters
WindTools
BigWigs Boss Mods
Plater
Prat (high CPU settings)
oPIE

Not that these addons would make a significant impact but its worth noting.

 

[UltimateSyn]

Parallels Desktop 17 for Mac Pro

Sweet, thank you! I'd love to get away with their standard version but I guess the 8GB RAM cap is going to force me to upgrade to the Pro version - I hate subscription-based apps but oh well.

Thanks for trying all of these games!

 

[madisonm]

Very kind of you and welcome to the forums! Glad to hear you signed up to join the community.

If I recall correctly, I had it set to almost the default settings. I did modify the resolution from a low 1200's to an odd 1496x???. I'll need to double check it later and post a screenshot. I have some more tinkering to do with FF14. I want to get the best output and right settings which I am not hitting yet.

Regarding Parallels - there isn't much to customize anymore. I set the profile to GAMING. I ensured that the resolution was set best for Retina and allocated unlimited resource uses to the virtual machine. Everything else is fairly standard.

I did notice a significant performance difference after a few shut downs and reboots of the VM instance. I was super eager to test everything out once the laptop arrived so there's a good chance it was still indexing and pulling cloud data when I ran the first round of tests - hindering performance. I'll post more updates on FF14 tomorrow when I have more time to play with it.



See the attached screenshot of the settings I used when testing. It was 3456x2234.

Addons installed:
ElvUI
Details! Damage Meters
WindTools
BigWigs Boss Mods
Plater
Prat (high CPU settings)
oPIE

Not that these addons would make a significant impact but its worth noting.

I also just wanted to chime in and say thank you for all your input and testing! This is so great to hear

 

[pudcraft]

Sweet, thank you! I'd love to get away with their standard version but I guess the 8GB RAM cap is going to force me to upgrade to the Pro version - I hate subscription-based apps but oh well.

Thanks for trying all of these games!

Yes, the Pro version seems to be a MUST. The 8GB RAM limitation is too low. With the 32GB/64GB configurations you will want to utilize everything it can offer to make the virtual machine + gaming instance run as smooth as possible.

 

[macpot]

Thanks,
Now only if some one as helpful as you had a 14" with M1 Max

Still trying to figure out if the Max will throttle in the 14" while gaming.

 

[seasurfer]

WORLD OF WARCRAFT TEST:

So I was rather impressed here. I set WoW to 10/MAX settings. I removed the Max Foreground FPS limitation. I set Target FPS to 120 FPS. Max distance, shadow, and other settings all maxed out. I tested this on my alt.

I landed an average of 80 FPS in Stormwind. I was hitting 110 FPS outside of Stormwind where it was less populated. In combat, I saw a drop from 120 FPS to 60-80 FPS depending on the ground effects.

This was all battery ran - not plugged in. This machine is a BEAST. Super impressed with the results of this test so far. I'll do a raid tomorrow on it on the main and some dungeons/mythics.

Fwiw - I was expecting a complete tank in FPS and I'm glad i was surprised

This was ran natively, not using Parallels. I do not see a reason why to play this game on a VM when it is supported on native Apple Silicon.

View attachment 1881384

Thank you for sharing this.

I bought the base model 16 inch MBP M1 Pro 16GB too with 512 GB SSD. I only get about 40-50 fps in Stormwind and Oribos when I have everything maxed out to 10 like you. Why is that so?

But when I disable SSAO and set Shadow to fair, I get about 100-120 FPS in Stormwind, 40-50 FPS in Oribos.

Why is mine performing so poorly?

 

[NickYanakiev]

Thanks,
Now only if some one as helpful as you had a 14" with M1 Max

Still trying to figure out if the Max will throttle in the 14" while gaming.

I do. Just bought Parallels Pro as my subscription had expired. Wondering if we need a full blown W11 license or if the Insider Preview will suffice.

Any thoughts @pudcraft

 

[macpot]

Thank you for sharing this.

I bought the base model 16 inch MBP M1 Pro 16GB too with 512 GB SSD. I only get about 40-50 fps in Stormwind and Oribos when I have everything maxed out to 10 like you. Why is that so?

But when I disable SSAO and set Shadow to fair, I get about 100-120 FPS in Stormwind, 40-50 FPS in Oribos.

Why is mine performing so poorly?

He said he has the 16" with M1 Pro Max (I believe he means M1 Max as 64GB ram only comes with Max), yours is the base model so it has half the GPU power,

But your results are still very good IMO.

 

[macpot]

I do. Just bought Parallels Pro as my subscription had expired. Wondering if we need a full blown W11 license or if the Insider Preview will suffice.

Any thoughts @pudcraft

Wow that's awesome, will be watching this topic closely, thank you very much!

Have you tried any heavy games outside Parallels? did it throttle or get too hot after awhile?

Also, as far as I know Microsoft does not sell a license for W11 ARM, you can just download the Insider Preview, no license required.

 

[pudcraft]

Thank you for sharing this.

I bought the base model 16 inch MBP M1 Pro 16GB too with 512 GB SSD. I only get about 40-50 fps in Stormwind and Oribos when I have everything maxed out to 10 like you. Why is that so?

But when I disable SSAO and set Shadow to fair, I get about 100-120 FPS in Stormwind, 40-50 FPS in Oribos.

Why is mine performing so poorly?

My pleasure. Keep in mind that WoW is more CPU intensive instead of GPU. The stronger the CPU the better. Macpot below explained it well on the GPU side but on the CPU and RAM side, the model you run is a little more limited to the resources the game and parallels can use to boost up your FPS.

Regarding the changes you made - SSAO and Shadows are resource hogs. If you are playing on a higher resolution, there really isn't much of a need for SSAO (at least for me, it is not worth the resource use). Shadows are also FPS cripplers. I would personally kill off any AA and play with your resolution/ground clutter/max distance/shadow details a bit until you get the desirable results.

You can run the game at a lower resolution and scale it to help get more FPS out of it.

He said he has the 16" with M1 Pro Max (I believe he means M1 Max as 64GB ram only comes with Max), yours is the base model so it has half the GPU power,

But your results are still very good IMO.

Yep, on point.

 

[NickYanakiev]

Wow that's awesome, will be watching this topic closely, thank you very much!

Have you tried any heavy games outside Parallels? did it throttle or get too hot after awhile?

Also, as far as I know Microsoft does not sell a license for W11 ARM, you can just download the Insider Preview, no license required.

Only tried Divine Divinity 2: Original Sin, which ran like a champ on ultra settings. This was under Mac OS, however.

It is crazy how well it ran, considering that I was not even plugged in :X

I will test the performance on Parallels too.

 

[GumaRodak]

And the fans during gameplay?

 

[pudcraft]

Wow that's awesome, will be watching this topic closely, thank you very much!

Have you tried any heavy games outside Parallels? did it throttle or get too hot after awhile?

Also, as far as I know Microsoft does not sell a license for W11 ARM, you can just download the Insider Preview, no license required.

Thank you and my pleasure! I love testing out this type of stuff.

I will try some more games outside of parallels but in my testing so far with native games, these MBPs thermals are fantastic. I haven't had any fan noise. FWIW - my Alienware X17 fans kick in at a mediocre volume running WoW versus how the MBP MAX 16" doesn't make a sound. This was one of my favorite experiences as I hate fan noise and feeling the heat blasting out of the laptops.

Regarding W11 ARM license - I am also on the Insider Preview of W11 Pro ARM and debating of buying the license. I can't seem to locate my desktop's original license so I need to bite the bullet anyways. Not sure if it will make much of a difference but I do see some display settings that require the license and in turn it may effect performance.

I'll re-run some of these tests after I decide to buy the W11 license.

 

[pudcraft]

And the fans during gameplay?

So far no fans kicked in and everything has remained quiet and great thermals. I need to run some more AAA stressful games to see what it takes to get these fans to kick in.

 

[NickYanakiev]

Thank you and my pleasure! I love testing out this type of stuff.

I will try some more games outside of parallels but in my testing so far with native games, these MBPs thermals are fantastic. I haven't had any fan noise. FWIW - my Alienware X17 fans kick in at a mediocre volume running WoW versus how the MBP MAX 16" doesn't make a sound. This was one of my favorite experiences as I hate fan noise and feeling the heat blasting out of the laptops.

Regarding W11 ARM license - I am also on the Insider Preview of W11 Pro ARM and debating of buying the license. I can't seem to locate my desktop's original license so I need to bite the bullet anyways. Not sure if it will make much of a difference but I do see some display settings that require the license and in turn it may effect performance.

I'll re-run some of these tests after I decide to buy the W11 license.

It is also interesting to know if it will run on Parallels. Their website seems to indicate that the current version of the application is compatible with the Preview version only.

Even though gaming is certainly not a primary use case, given that I have a desktop PC with a RTX 3090.
Still, it is just stunning how good these machines are!