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This is not a "claim". You people need to understand the difference between reality and unreality. There are no versions of reality. You try to mask unreality as opinion and I'm just not buying it.

Parallels is an extremely hacked together program that breaks very easily. This is well known, and not subject to debate here. Every macOS update has a negative impact on the current version of Parallels and never works as well as it did on the previous version. The multitude of examples of "how" are something only users of the actual program would know and understand, because the subtleties of it are vast and impossible to just list.

Heavily degraded performance and numerous bugs does not equal "works fine". Although I know it does for some people who just have to argue that things are fine.
False.
There are lots of other things that break upon new versions. Also it can be looked at from the other angle, maybe it's the MacOS that breaks instead.
 
I like seeing people debating with open minds.

In the end, no one needs to change their opinion or position, but one should always learn from other people’s perspectives.

In the grand scheme of things, nothing is really free (google search, free delivery with Prime (or even Prime video), free refills at the movies). And everyone should think about what is the end goal of any business model (free, trial, monthly recurring, annual subscription, add-on paid features, upfront pricing): to make a profit!

Parallels has chosen to disguise their annual subscription model as one time license payment and it does not seem like a transparent approach. Can you work with an specific license for more than an year? Sure. But given the annual updates on the underlying macOS and updates to windows/Linux distros, it can be upsetting to some license holders.

Hopefully Parallels will change their license model to a monthly or annual subscription, giving more transparency to their upgrade/sw version cycles.
 
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Hopefully Parallels will change their license model to a monthly or annual subscription, giving more transparency to their upgrade/sw version cycles.
Aren’t their current model a subscription model? Any advanced feature needs a sub. For me, I wish I can either 1. Pay for one version as subscription without auto-renew and keep using pro version or 2. Pay for a perpetual license for pro version. Subbing everything is terrible in my life.
 
Parallels has chosen to disguise their annual subscription model as one time license payment and it does not seem like a transparent approach. Can you work with an specific license for more than an year? Sure. But given the annual updates on the underlying macOS and updates to windows/Linux distros, it can be upsetting to some license holders.

(a) As I've said repeatedly, and others have confirmed, the typical Parallels version works for at least 2 MacOS releases. Personally, I've only needed to upgrade to every 2nd or 3rd version.

(b) Not everybody upgrades to every new version of MacOS as soon as it comes out. If you need your Mac to get stuff done, then "if it ain't broke don't fix it" is the golden rule. Parallels is not the only thing, by a long chalk, that sometimes breaks on an OS release (worse case: I've had to junk printers and other hardware).

So, no, having got by with only upgrading Parallels every 2-3 years, I wouldn't prefer an annual subscription unless it was substantially less than the current upgrade price (which, looking at their other subscription prices, is unlikely).

Aren’t their current model a subscription model?

Currently, the standard version (what most people need for running Windows or Linux) is one-off and the "Pro" version (with advanced networking that used to be part of the standard version and extra software testing facilities) is subscription-only.

Then there was/is a "lite" version available on the App store that was initially free but now (from what I read) requires a subscription at a stupid price that suggests that they're trying to kill it.

(Please don't get the impression that Parallels and their sales tactics are my favourite-est people ever - they're not - but ultimately I think its a reasonable price for a complex product and don't expect them to keep it up with MacOS and Windows and Linux versions for free).
 
Same here. The business model of Parallels is to make you buy a new version almost yearly. Initially I was a Parallels user but when I was forced to buy the whole thing the third time I decided to just stop using it.

Take a look at this: https://kb.parallels.com/114381

Virtualbox is not nearly as good as Parallels but for my purposes it's ok enough... The trick with VirutalBox is not to use it's horrendous UI at all but start the machine headlessly and use Microsoft Remote Desktop to connect to the VM which will provide a much improved user experience.
I don‘t think „forced to buy“ is correct. You could probably stick with an older version and still be ahead of VirtualBox in features and performance.
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yup, and every single time it's at least 80% faster. By now, Parallels is faster than light and renders you videos before you can even think about having it do that task.
I don‘t think tasks that rely on pure processing power like rendering videos are a good use case for virtualization.
 
Are you on Catalina or Mojave?

So, here's how it looks under Catalina. I moved the VM to a brand new SSD, so it's definitely now a loading issue. You can see that the RAM is pushed to the max (I allotted 16GB to the VM, and apparently that's only allowable in the trial and Pro - basic Parallels only allows 8GB). As you can see it runs decent when looking at stuff up close, but as soon as you look into the distance or any major action happens on screen, the frame rate goes way down.

And this is with all the settings on lowest possible! By comparison, when I boot directly into Windows, I can run it at a full 60FPS with all settings on Ultra. So it's definitely not the magical thing that Parallels is promising...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/34vxd6kx5ylrryh/Screen Recording 2019-08-17 at 5.11.39 PM.mov?dl=0
 
So I'm four days in from upgrade, and hit fourth critical bug today.

When attempting to quit the PD15 app, it prompts me to shutdown/suspend a VM, that is configured as headless (i.e. should continue to run in the background).

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tried the demo. certainly on a 2017 27" imac im not getting why they are championing it to play fallout 4.

I have fallout NV and 4 on an SSD to use with bootcamp. I installed the demo and created a fresh VM from a windows 10 image. installed steam on that, and linked the steam folder on the SSD.

Fallout NV, well it ran okay. according to steam it was 60fps but it didn't feel as smooth as that. I only played as far as leaving the doctors house and meeting the first person. weirdly also I found shooting to be inaccurate as the first woman gets you to shoot bottles and my aiming was right on the bottle and I was missing it. also every time I pressed F to go from third person to first person it would change magically back again after a few seconds but maybe that's my apple mouse.

Fallout 4, just didn't work. I had graphical problems anyway, I tried more than once and when you choose your characters looks at the start he looked like he'd blackfaced. and then it was so jerky and jumpy even just in the house and I was trying to interact with items and it wasn't working.
 
I ran Valley in Parallels Desktop 15 Pro. I get 2,4 FPS instead of 28.3 FPS in Parallels 11. I contacted customer support and they are working on an update to fix the 3D issue.
 
So, here's how it looks under Catalina. I moved the VM to a brand new SSD, so it's definitely now a loading issue. You can see that the RAM is pushed to the max (I allotted 16GB to the VM, and apparently that's only allowable in the trial and Pro - basic Parallels only allows 8GB). As you can see it runs decent when looking at stuff up close, but as soon as you look into the distance or any major action happens on screen, the frame rate goes way down.

And this is with all the settings on lowest possible! By comparison, when I boot directly into Windows, I can run it at a full 60FPS with all settings on Ultra. So it's definitely not the magical thing that Parallels is promising...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/34vxd6kx5ylrryh/Screen Recording 2019-08-17 at 5.11.39 PM.mov?dl=0

Too bad, I was looking forward towards this feature but it seems it is unusable. Maybe they will improve it overtime.
 
When attempting to quit the PD15 app, it prompts me to shutdown/suspend a VM, that is configured as headless (i.e. should continue to run in the background).
You're trying to quit the app, but you want it to continue running? That doesn't make sense. If you want it to keep running, the app needs to stay open.
 
You're trying to quit the app, but you want it to continue running? That doesn't make sense. If you want it to keep running, the app needs to stay open.
I'm sorry but you clearly have no idea what you're talking about.

This is a feature Parallels has supported for many years - it'd be essentially unusable with Vagrant without it.
 
I installed a RX580 as eGPU, ran Valley on Parallels 15 and got only single-digit of FPS.

It's a downer that they boast dramatic 3D performance boost but it's actually not working out.
I ran Valley in Parallels Desktop 15 Pro. I get 2,4 FPS instead of 28.3 FPS in Parallels 11. I contacted customer support and they are working on an update to fix the 3D issue.
 
I installed a RX580 as eGPU, ran Valley on Parallels 15 and got only single-digit of FPS.

It's a downer that they boast dramatic 3D performance boost but it's actually not working out.
As mentioned above, the current release has bugs. They’re working on it. How it got through QA, don’t ask me.
 
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I was using Parallels 14 and running Heaven benchmark via DirectX 11 and getting good FPS with external GPU (100+ FPS). After updating to Parallels 15 I get about 3 FPS with DirectX 11. Seems Parallels 15 disables DirectX 11 support. DirectX 9 benchmarks are good, though.
 
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