Parallels 3.0 promises improvements; still lack-luster
I must admit, every time a new version of Parallels is released, I’m torn; on one hand, I really do desire a strong, safe, system-light method for running Windows on my Mac. However, to this point, none of those prerequisites have been fulfilled. Today, Parallels released version 3.0, and promises not only security, but also seamless gaming, and even an improved version of the Coherence application; too good to be true? Most likely.
Gaming on a Mac has always been a much-desired amenity; if you weren’t into the odd game of Myst or Starcraft, at times you were just out of luck.
However, the recent surge of Mac usage has pushed developers to begin producing games for both PCs and Macs; most excitingly, they are actually made to run natively in OS X.
For those of you familiar with Parallels, you will know that not only does the program demand much of system resources, it is quite buggy (until this release, apparently), and has many, many security problems…can I just say the focus here is all wrong?
Mac users now can game quite successfully with the implementation of the Intel processors. Secondly, though improvements in Coherence would be nice, the most significant problem with Parallels is its nasty habit of sucking all the resources out of an innocent little Mac.
If Parallels is to be successful, it must not demand so much of a system’s performance. Frankly, I believe that true Mac users would avoid the nasty business all together, and if anything Parallels and Boot Camps are more gimmicks to attract scared and timid PC users who are afraid of change.
If Parallels is your thing, I suppose an upgrade can only help. However, if you’re looking to game; stay native to OS X. If you’re looking to enjoy an operating system, don’t install Parallels. Let the commenting commence.
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June 1st, 2007
Funny you mention Parallels and Boot Camp in the same sentence. You do know they have nothing to share, right?
Anyway, if in games any virtualization should not be your option. If you can’t live but by playing on your Mac a Windows only game then currently you can only go Boot Camp. No virtualization there.
Concerning speed, is not uncommon to have applications on virtualized OSes running faster on a latest MacBook Pro or one of the multi-core Xeon MacPros than any PC we have around. Hands down.
June 1st, 2007
I hate this high-brow “true mac user” crap. I’m a mac user, and I use parallels. Partly for windows only software, but I’d like to use it for some older games. What’s the big deal? You act like I’m committing an act of treason.
“If Parallels is to be successful, it must not demand so much of a system’s performance.” – what are you on? It’s virtualising an OS – how exactly can it do that without sucking up some resources? All it needs is a bit of RAM, and it’ll run fine. I have left Parallels running in the background for hours without realising it was still open, because, well, it wasn’t slowing my computer down.
Mac-fundamentalist crap like this is what gives us mac users a bad name.