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Any one game using Parallels?

MacBH928

MacBH928

macrumors G3
Original poster
May 17, 2008
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I want to play Windows games that are mostly retro , 2005 and earlier, stuff like like Quake and Serious Sam. I have an 8Gb RAM and 2.9GHz i5, and Iris Graphics 6100 , this is 2015 MBP. Do you think I can run the games no issues?

I don't want to go through the trouble of buying Parallels for $80 and go through the hellish installation processor of Windows only to have the games run in slow motion and my CPU is running at 101C/214F with fans sounding like they are about to launch a shuttle into space.

Before anyone tell me download the trial of Parallels, I did and due to my laziness the trial expired before I could complete the experiment.
 
You should really just go through Bootcamp. Even if the games will run in Parallels without glitches (in my testing, MANY games had visual glitches in Parallels) the performance difference is considerable.

Why not go with Bootcamp? It just makes sense. Your system will run older titles OK. It'll even run past-gen AAA titles pretty well. I'm thinking up through the Fallout New Vegas / Dragon Age II era games you'll probably be able to get really good performance with relatively high fidelity as well.
 
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panjandrum said:
You should really just go through Bootcamp. Even if the games will run in Parallels without glitches (in my testing, MANY games had visual glitches in Parallels) the performance difference is considerable.

Why not go with Bootcamp? It just makes sense. Your system will run older titles OK. It'll even run past-gen AAA titles pretty well. I'm thinking up through the Fallout New Vegas / Dragon Age II era games you'll probably be able to get really good performance with relatively high fidelity as well.
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SecuritySteve said:
I once tried running the original Mass Effect trilogy through Parallels. The performance was deplorable, bootcamp if you can.
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Yes of course, bootcamp is best but then you have to log out and log in everytime you want to play the game . Plus I am not trying to play those 3D titles, a lot of it just some old early 2000s games not Xbox 360 generation games.

I mean if Bootcamp is not good for running 16 year old games and earlier, what can it run!?
 
MacBH928 said:
Yes of course, bootcamp is best but then you have to log out and log in everytime you want to play the game . Plus I am not trying to play those 3D titles, a lot of it just some old early 2000s games not Xbox 360 generation games.

I mean if Bootcamp is not good for running 16 year old games and earlier, what can it run!?
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I had okay performance in Age of Empires II. That's about the only game I had success running in parallels.
 
You can play older games in Parallels, no problem. You can even run an older version of Windows for compatibility when needed.
 
SuperMatt said:
You can play older games in Parallels, no problem. You can even run an older version of Windows for compatibility when needed.
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do you know if its less heavy on Parallels to use an older version of Windows like Windows XP than Windows 10?
So say I play a game on Windows XP in Parallels will give better performance than Windows 10 with same game?

when you say older games, how old are we talking? Is my Specs fine for that? I have an 8Gb RAM and 2.9GHz i5, and Iris Graphics 6100 , this is 2015 MBP
 
MacBH928 said:
do you know if its less heavy on Parallels to use an older version of Windows like Windows XP than Windows 10?
So say I play a game on Windows XP in Parallels will give better performance than Windows 10 with same game?

when you say older games, how old are we talking? Is my Specs fine for that? I have an 8Gb RAM and 2.9GHz i5, and Iris Graphics 6100 , this is 2015 MBP
Click to expand...
Games 2005 and earlier shouldn’t be a problem. I would recommend Windows XP for such games because they might not even run on Windows 10.

Iris graphics are not very powerful, but the old games you’ve mentioned shouldn’t be a problem.
 
Homy said:
What do you mean? GOG.com is a web store for games. Playonmac is a virtual machine.
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He probably means you can find old games on GOG.com .

So Playonmac is just WINE? Is it any better than Crossover which is a paid WINE version? How is the community on the project, is it active or just one guy writing software in his free time?
 
MacBH928 said:
He probably means you can find old games on GOG.com .

So Playonmac is just WINE? Is it any better than Crossover which is a paid WINE version? How is the community on the project, is it active or just one guy writing software in his free time?
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Yes but I was talking about a totally different thing. I don't use it my myself. It has support for older games. Crossover is better for newer games. I think it's a "team". They added support for DXVK last year. Here is a video:

 
I have an online group that plays Red Alert 2 - Yuris Revenge and I'm too lazy to boot into my windows partition, so I installed it in Parallels. works perfectly in a vm on my iMac 2020
 
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