OS Neutral Having trouble running certain games in Parallels 7

[Perichep]

I'm trying to run Mass Effect 2 on Parallels but it says the hardware is unsupported. The game simply won't start. Other games such as Mirror's Edge and Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay are unplayable as well.

The surprising thing is that my specs are supposed to be good enough: I have a 2012 iMac with AMD Radeon HD 6770M/512 MB of GDDR5 SDRAM, 4 GB of RAM and 2.7 GHz Core i5 (2500S). I checked a number of websites and it seems I should have no problem running modern games. I can run older games just fine, such as Far Cry 2 for instance.

I'm growing increasingly frustrated by this problem, so anything that could unrustle my jimmies would be much appreciated. 🙂

 

[Janichsan]

Keep in mind that Parallels does not magically punches a hole into OS X so that Windows can use your Mac's hardware without any intermediate layer.

First of all, Parallels brings its own graphic drivers for Windows (which I hope you have installed) which might be reason that the games do not recognise your GPU as the one it is.

Secondly, don't forget that the Windows running in Parallels does have to share resources with OS X. You won't have all the 512 MB VRAM and/or all the 4 GB RAM available under Windows. Also, make sure you have set a sufficient amount in your virtual machine's settings.

Two more things: I would advise upgrading your version of Parallels. The last two releases (8 and 9) both improved game compatibility and performance quite a bit. In addition, Chronicles of Riddick has a native Mac version.

 

[Perichep]

Thank you for this helpful post. I will try what you suggested and get back to you if there are further complications.

regards