VMware Fusion 2.0 and Parallels 4.0 Beta

[MacRumors]

VMware announced the release of the final version of VMware Fusion 2.0 which is a free upgrade for all VMware Fusion 1.x customers and is said to add over 100 new features. The enhancements are listed as:

- More Seamless with Unity 2.0: Application Sharing, Link Handling, Mirrored Folders, Driverless Printing, True Multiple Display Support, and Custom Keyboard Mapping
- Safer Windows on Mac experience with AutoProtect automated snapshots and a 12-month complimentary subscription to McAfee VirusScan Plus security software for Windows XP and Vista
- More Power with DirectX 9.0c with Shader Model 2 3D graphics, 1080p HD video playback, Multiple Snapshots, 4-way vSMP, and Better Linux Support (Unity & Easy Install)
- More Mac-like, More Mac-friendly with all new Welcome Screen, Virtual Machine Library and Virtual Machine Settings, Cover Flow and Quick Look integration, and Apple Help
- Mac OS X Leopard Server now is supported in a virtual machine on Mac hardware

Fusion 2.0 had been in beta since May.

Meanwhile, the main other competitor in the Mac virtualization space is Parallels who recently seeded a private beta of version 4.0 of their application. Beta 4.0 is said to also incorporate multi-core processing support as well as support for DirectX 9.0 and OpenGL.

Both Fusion and Parallels allow Intel Mac users to run Windows or other PC operating systems on their Mac alongside Mac OS X. Computerworld recently reported that shipments for both applications are up 50% so far this year.

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[Col127]

excellent. will update my vmware when i get home!

[rhett7660]

Looks like the VMWare 2.0 upgrade is free also:

http://www.vmware.com/products/fusion/

http://www.vmware.com/download/fusion/

[DrD]

I want to see benchmarks on real 3D acceleration programs before I grab it.

Hopefully they'll become available soon....

[thecartoonguy]

If you have 1.0 or 1.1, 2.0 is a free upgrade

[thomanjones]

I've been using Fusion 2 for a few days now, and it's a dream. I can arrange my unity windows over multiple monitors now, and everything seems faster. Currently running XP and Ubuntu.

[gguerini]

I've benn using Fusion since the beginning and I really like it. I tried Parallels few times, but in the end, I realize that Fusion has is faster than Parallels. I don't know if still.. Guys that are using Parallels, what are you thinking?? Is it good? Is it better???

Thanks

[thecartoonguy]

Originally Posted by DrD

I want to see benchmarks on real 3D acceleration programs before I grab it.

Hopefully they'll become available soon....

I can say they much better in this version. However, unless you have a tower, Bioshock will not run well. Overall it's pretty solid

[Mr Skills]

What I really want is one where you click the Windows program on the dock, it fires up, and then when you close that program, Parallels/Fusion closes too.

It would make things sooooo much easier for my computer-illiterate parents.

[nacengineer]

Originally Posted by gguerini

I've benn using Fusion since the beginning and I really like it. I tried Parallels few times, but in the end, I realize that Fusion has is faster than Parallels. I don't know if still.. Guys that are using Parallels, what are you thinking?? Is it good? Is it better???

Thanks

I find that parallels while not running your windows apps as fast doesn't kill your OS as much as VM Ware.

So for me Parallels = Slightly slower windows but better OSX

Dave

[thecrackerjack]

Originally Posted by Mr Skills

What I really want is one where you click the Windows program on the dock, it fires up, and then when you close that program, Parallels/Fusion closes too.

It would make things sooooo much easier for my computer-illiterate parents.

Solution: Cross Over For Mac (In most cases)

[Mr Skills]

Originally Posted by thecrackerjack

Solution: Cross Over For Mac (In most cases)

But since the object is to make things as simple as possible (once I've set it up for them of course), I'd rather have something that I absolutely know will run any program. Crossover will work great until one day my dad's office needs xyz program and it's not supported...

[Col127]

wow, that's a really amazing program! i wish i knew about that before i bought vmware & windows xp lol.

Originally Posted by thecrackerjack

Solution: Cross Over For Mac (In most cases)

[ChrisA]

I just installed Fusion 2.0 last night. It works as advertized. I have an iMac, 2.16Ghz with 2GB RAM and I was running both Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux at once, each it it's own window. It ran "fast enough". I had three OSes on thr iMac all at once.

The big new feature for me is that now Fusion can run Windows .EXE files directly. Yes it brings up a VM to run Windows XP but from a user's point of view i simply click on a Windows .exe file in the finder and boom, the EXE file runs just like a Mac Application.

That said. Sun has released a competing product called "Virtual Box". It's advantage over both Fusion and Parallels is that "Virtual Box" is free, open source and zero cost. I think Fusion has pulled ahead but it is hard to argue with "free".
http://www.virtualbox.org/
Even if you don't like Virtual Box it's existance in the market will keep price pressure on both of the other products. How does Sun intend to make money on this? If you want support you have to buy it. It's free to use but support contracts aren't free. This is really a great idea. Most home users never buy the contracts and most bussiness would never buy a product unless there was a way to also buy support. Eveeryone gets what they want and Sun makes money.

[lowbatteries]

Yes, but do either of them play well with Time Machine? Such as moving to a sparsebundle-like virtual drive format instead of giant monolithic files?

[subwarm]

I gave Parallels a whirl about two months ago and was not all that impressed. Seemed to suck down a lot of battery life and the OS felt really 'clunky' when it was in use.

I downloaded the trial version of VMWare Fusion 2.0 and I think I'm going to buy it when the time is up. Installation was smooth, picked up my current Boot Camp installation with ease - which i was initially worried about having to do another Windows installation on the laptop.

There were some minor hiccups getting some of the existing Boot Camp installation's windows drivers up and running - but it wasn't that much of a pain. I couldn't quite get the Unity feature to work at first and then realized it was because you needed to install the companion VMWare Tools to make that happen. Once it works, it works as billed. Apps can run just like your everyday Mac apps. Currently I have HomeSite running on my MacBook right next to iPhoto. This is a breath of fresh air.

What's really impressive to me so far is the speed at which Windows is running. There doesn't seem to be that much of lag and it almost feels like it's running native. Granted, I'm not running any heavy-duty applications at this point but for apps and services like SQL Server 2000, HomeSite, Visual Studio, IIS etc it seems to be doing a pretty decent job.

One downer - and this is probably more a Windows XP issue than a VMWare Fusion one: your copy of Windows may get locked up if it goes into standby mode due to inactivity (keeping VMWare in the background for example). This has happened maybe three times to me so far and a restart of the VMWare software does the trick. But when it works, its snappy and does its job.

Doesn't seem to be all that much of a hit on the battery life either which is nice.

[BigD58]

Oh cool! Looking forward to parallels 4.0 .

[pavelbure]

it runs FFXI ok.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthre...90#post6260990

[CaptSaltyJack]

What? Why is Parallels messing around with DirectX 9 when DX10 is already out? Shouldn't they have been focusing their energy on that, instead?

[jorba]

I'm using the latest Parallels (5608, from June 11, 2008) and the latest Fusion 1.x bits (1.1.3 ?); they interoperate just fine.

I tried the Fusion 2.0 beta early on, and it refused to run alongside Parallels (I think it even terminated my Parallels session).

Has anyone gotten Parallels 3.x to play nice with Fusion 2.0 ?

[kironin]

Maybe vmware 2.0 actually fixes the mysterious sound problems ?

Ever since I upgraded to version 1.3 I have had no sound at all. None of the suggested solutions ever worked and I could never find any problems with
the XP installation. I have been without sound for months and the only possibility was to downgrade or take a chance on the 2 beta.

Frankly, I think the vmware support stinks.

[SolRayz]

^I had a similar problem with Vista. I had to go to device manager and have Vista search for a sound driver, which it did. Not sure why it simply didn't instal through VMware tools.

Ive been using Fusion with my Vista bootcamp partition for some time now. Every update it just gets better and better. I can now run FSX with VMware, albeit not with the greatest framrates, but it does run. Crazy.

[farbeyond]

Has anyone has managed to install OS/X Server yet on OS/X? That's what I'm excited about

[swissmann]

I've tried both and like both. I am really impressed with the graphics support with this new Fusion 2. I was able to play Guitar Hero 3 with only minor glitches that didn't interfere. I was almost able to play Halo 2 - I set all my settings to lowest and smallest and could see what was going on but the frame rate was unplayable - but impressed that I was even able to see what was going on. - I'm on a Mac Pro 4 cores with the Radeon 2600 card.

[nacengineer]

Originally Posted by farbeyond

Has anyone has managed to install OS/X Server yet on OS/X? That's what I'm excited about

I did the Parallels Server Beta... but suffered from sticker shock upon final release... plus it requires you to be running server to run Parallels Server... and then you run into problems with your OS X Server license key seats. Its not the ideal solution. You'd be better off using Parallels or VMWare and duplicating Linux servers