i7 iMac + Parallels + Assassins Creed 2 = AMAZING!

[djrod]

Hi there guys,

I've just tried how good is Parallels 5 for gaming.

This is Assassins Creed 2, all details set to maximum, playing windowed at 1024x768.

There are some frame drops because of the HD, I really really miss my old SSD :(

With my former MBP with 9600GT I could barely play Monkey Island Episodes :eek:



Here is the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6TsCAPPqIU

[jjahshik32]

Whoa~ didnt know that parallels can support a demanding game! This makes me want an iMac so much more now!

[OrangeSVTguy]

That's pretty cool! 1024x768 isn't really demanding anyways for a lot of games :D Is it still playable at 1920x1080 either windowed or scaled/fullscreen? Do you have 4gb or 8gb+ and how much is allocated to your VM?

Oh and good to see the lag it takes for dashboard to load :p. I thought it was just my Mini/G5 :p

[Mackilroy]

Doesn't look too bad. I'd rather play under a native installation though. :)

[Dark Elitist]

That's really impressive... Usually applications run a little slow in an emulator. Playing a game in one is something I've never tried. That worked surprisingly good! :)

[TennisandMusic]

That's cool and all but 1024x768 is a VERY low resolution. I don't think anyone at all plays at that res on the PC side.

[All Taken]

Just run it in a bootcamp environment and it will fly.

[waves7]

Yeah, i7 is really nice. Too bad apple waited a year to bring it to their platform. I've had one since dec 2008 and it's been great. I OC'd it to 4ghz and it plays games awesome!!! I also only paid $830 for my pc system, so things have changed much over the years.. :D

[itommyboy]

That does look better than I would have thought. But I can't figure for the life of me why you'd want to game in a VM even if it does work? Are you sneaking in quick sessions at the office and a push of the button has you back to work...is that it? Am I on to you? Am I? :D

[djrod]

Just run it in a bootcamp environment and it will fly.

I know, it really does :D

[aki]

That's really impressive... Usually applications run a little slow in an emulator. Playing a game in one is something I've never tried. That worked surprisingly good! :)

I agree, that it pretty amazing. Parallels has come a looooong way.

One thing though, do remember, these apps, Parallels and Fusion and so on, are not emulators, in the Virtual PC sense anyway; it's hardware virtualization. With emulation the PC hardware is recreated in software. Virtual PC was pretty amazing in its day but obviously emulation is always going to be much slower than real physical hardware. With virtualization, a hypervisor maps the host computer's hardware directly to/on the virtual machine. Ie. it's much faster. Not native, but not emulation either.

This is one reason why you can actually do real gaming under Parallels, in a way that was never possible under PC emulation software.