Every year something is always 20% faster with Parallels
Oh, noooo!!! Another thousand empty infinite loops deleted from their source code.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Parallels Desktop 16 Brings macOS Big Sur Support, Multi-Touch Gestures, 20% Faster DirectX, and More
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Oh, noooo!!! Another thousand empty infinite loops deleted from their source code.
Yes, it is unfair. A product should be working for atleast a long time. If Parallels only supports Mac OS within 2 years, it is BS.
You're making my point for me. By hiding the true cost of their software, they create an expectation among users that software should be cheap or free.
Since they pivoted into a different area, my guess is they found it hard to make money with that kind of software.
They might some day, but do we really need them to? (And people will complain about sherlocking.)
Every year something is always 20% faster with Parallels
Sure, they only need to be 20% faster once, and then continually compare to that baseline. For example, v1 was slow. v2 was 20% faster than v1. Then the next year v3 comes out, has the same performance, but they can say it was 20% faster, without specifically saying it's the v1 comparison they are making the 20% faster claim to. So really no change between v2 and v3.
NVidia does the same with each driver update... so I pretty much ignore any performance improvements from anyone, and base any purchases on features.
I used to use Parallels but I've come to really prefer VMWare Fusion. Performance seems to be about as good for Windows guests (it's much better for macOS guests, although I guess that's a niche use case), and it has a UI that feels far more Mac-native. Which is funny, since Parallels is Mac-only while VMWare is cross-platform.
Yes, we need them to. VMware wouldn’t care about being sherlocked because Fusion doesn’t make them any money. Apple could buy Parallels for $200 million, which is pocket charge.
So Apple should buy Parallels and have Fusion killed because both apps might disappear anyway? Do I have that right?
Should they also buy Spotify? Adobe? Epic Games?
Shouldn’t we encourage a market of third-party choices?
Sure. You can have Virtual Box. VMware already killed Fusion once before they decided to resurrect it. They really don't need that product.
Apple will have to do something about virtualizing the X86-64 architecture on Apple Silicon, so I believe the Fusion's and Parallels' days are numbered. It would be nice if Apple bought Parallels, though, to reward the owners for the hard work that they have put in all these years.
VMware wouldn't sell Fusion to Apple anyway because a lot of the source code is the same source code used in ESXi, which is their bread and butter. At the same time, I don't see VMware investing any additional development effort into virtualizing X86-64 on Apple Silicon. They have absolutely no reason to do so because it will be a complete waste of money for them.
It's also telling that Apple demoed virtualization of ARM architecture on Apple Silicon during WWDC, using Parallels Desktop. It seems to me that they are in the negotiations over the acquisition by Apple, as that relationship seemed to be way too cozy during WWDC. VMware Fusion is a much more enterprise-centric product when it comes to virtualization on macOS, whereas Parallels seems to be more consumer oriented, so the exclusive ARM virtualization demo being run on Parallels can only mean one thing IMHO.
All of that is a positive development to be sure. Virtualizing X86-64 on Apple Silicon is a core feature required for the new architecture to enjoy wide adoption. Without this feature, Apple will have to switch to AMD after trying a few lower-end Macs with Apple Silicon because there is absolutely no way in hell that most enterprises will be buying Apple Silicon Macs without the X86-64 virtualization capabilities. Most enterprises that buy Macs run a lot of Windows and Linux applications in virtualization. So, either Apple provides X86-64 virtualization in macOS on Apple Silicon or the enterprise-bound Macs would have to use AMD, since Apple seems to be hell-bent on decoupling from Intel at this point - for a good reason.
If Apple is not going to release a hybrid iOS/macOS device, and if Apple is not planning X86-64 architecture virtualization on Apple Silicon, we may witness a regression with the Mac transition to Apple Silicon after all. It's quite possible that after a few years of trying, Apple will adopt AMD CPUs for higher-end enterprise-bound Macs while keeping Apple Silicon for lower-end consumer-centric Macs like MacBook Air, Mac Mini, and perhaps iMac.
Last edited:
I'll stick with the free version of Parallels Desktop Lite, thank you Corel. It works great on Catalina with the latest parallel tools ISO. No way will I pay a subscription for a VM.
They'll pretty much EOL when Apple stops supporting the x86 Intel Mac OS versions.
VMware never killed Fusion. You're probably referring to their layoffs. They may have decreased Fusion's priority, but I don't see anything that suggests that they killed or resurrected it.
Apple isn't going to do anything about that (you probably mean emulation). They already have binary translation to run macOS x86-64 apps. They don't need a virtualizer or emulator beyond that.
Why would Apple showcase Parallels at WWDC if they think Parallels has no future?
Again, there is no "virtualizing" x86-64 on Apple Silicon. VMware already runs on ARM. They only open question is how well Windows's x86-on-ARM emulator runs inside that. And that's mostly Microsoft's task, not VMware's.
Uh, OK? That seems to be a fair amount of tealeaf-reading. Are they also acquiring Docker? They showed that.
Virtualizing x86-64 on Apple Silicon isn't going to happen because that doesn't make any sense.
Huh?
No.
I had 15 installed and it wouldn't work. Attempted install of 16 it didn't work. I then decided to do a full uninstall of Parallels and reinstall. I removed every reference to Parallels anywhere I could find it. I then installed 16 and still received the same blood "You must restart" message over and over. So I took the much more drastic step of wiping the hard drive and re-installing Mac OS Big Sur. Once I was up and running with the fresh install I then installed 16 and it worked.
A lot of work to get something to work. Parallels needs to work on their installer to remove whatever remnant I couldn't find so people do not need to go through with this.
A lot of work to get something to work. Parallels needs to work on their installer to remove whatever remnant I couldn't find so people do not need to go through with this.
Emulating X86-64 macOS apps on Apple Silicon is not the same as virtualizing X86-64 Windows and Linux on Apple Silicon. Both Apple and Parallels have been silent on this topic even though it’s one of the hottest issues about the transition of macOS to Apple Silicon. And before you say your usual “No,” here is my resounding “Yes”.
Apple never promoted 3rd-Party virtualization on macOS, Apple’s solution to running Windows on Macs was Boot Camp. Even though Apple quietly released the hypervisor framework some time ago (long after Parallels and then VMware monetized virtualization on macOS, Apple never did anything with it. Im sure Apple is seriously working on making X86-64 OSes being able to run on Apple Silicon, but they didn’t have the complete solution nailed down by the time WWDC happened, so they were as vague as they could be as to how X86 Windows applications would be able to run on Apple Silicon. Bringing Parallels into the Presentation was to assure the customer base that something would be done about it if not right away then some time later. I’m also sure that if VMware were interested in this project, Apple would rather partner with VMware than Parallels. Having been working with enterprise VMware myself over a decade now, I know for a fact that VMware has never been particularly friendly to the macOS platform. For instance, they never released vSphere client for macOS, so I had to run Windows in virtualization in order to use vSphere client on my Mac to administer ESXi. So, I’m not at all surprised that VMware is not interested in continuing with Fusion on Apple Silicon.
IMHO, Apple will buy Parallels to roll their IP into the native Apple’s X86-64 virtualization tools.
As for running ARM Windows on Apple Silicon, this was never demoed ASAIK. I’m sure it’s possible, but Microsoft has never prioritized ARM Windows over X86 Windows, and their commitment to the ARM platform is inadequate for Apple to rely on as the solution to running Windows apps on Apple Silicon. Without a clear path forward on this issue, Apple will not be able to sell Apple Silicon Macs to most enterprises. Only Apple-centric shops would buy Apple Silicon Macs without being able to run X86 Windows apps on them.
Correct. One is a real thing and the other isn't possible.
You cannot "virtualize" one CPU architecture on another. You can emulate it, you can do ahead-of-time binary translation, you can do just-in-time binary translation, you can do a mix (which is what Rosetta 2 does), etc. But you can't do virtualization.
True.
Yes, and now they seem to be getting more serious about it, in part because it helps make third-party kernel extensions (which are largely deprecated) less necessary. I don't see why they would've bothered documenting improvements to a framework if they only intend to use it internally anyway.
There is simply zero evidence that Hypervisor.framework has anything at all to do with emulation. Could they add x86 emulation for VMs? Yes. Does that seem like something they're interested in? I don't believe so.
Could Microsoft and VMware announce something? That seems more likely.
If so, it had the opposite effect, because they clearly showed ARM running on ARM, and Linux running inside that. If anything, the message was: "if you want to virtualize Linux on Apple Silicon, that's great (and if you want to do anything else, we're not the ones who are going to support that)".
Well, vSphere has mostly moved to the web anyway. The Windows client is rather terrible (and the web client is terrible in different ways). And Fusion does have some limited support for managing ESXi.
I don't think it's anything macOS-hostile; I just think they're generally not interested in maintaining (thin) desktop client apps for ESXi when almost all of that can be done in a web app anyway.
My guess is Apple moving to ARM is closely watched by MS. Depending on how x86 does, it might drive MS to increase investment.
I never said you can "virtualize" one architecture on another. I said you can virtualize X86 Windows (as an OS) on Apple Silicon Macs. That obviously involves X86 architecture emulation and then X86 Windows virtualization inside the emulated X86 environment. As of 2020 WWDC, the X86 Windows virtualization inside the emulated X86 environment was not possible.
Parallels have never been involved with emulating architectures. They are a virtualization company, so they would be the ones working with Apple on making X86 Windows/Linux virtualization possible within the Apple's X86 emulation framework on Apple Silicon.
Assuming that Apple doesn't understand how important it is to be able to run X86 Windows applications on the Apple Silicon Macs (be it within virtualized X86 Windows or directly as containers) is admitting one's lack of familiarity of how Macs are used in most enterprises. I'm not talking about video editing companies that use Mac applications exclusively. I'm talking about 95% of enterprises that use a mixture of Mac and Windows applications running on Macs.
But… you can't. You need an emulation layer somewhere.
OK, but no such "emulated x86 environment" currently exists. Apple doesn't seem interested in providing one, and Parallels and VMware probably have neither the expertise nor the inclination. And if they did, how fast would it be?
Now, virtualizing ARM Windows, OTOH, is probably quite feasible. And that in turn could emulate x86 Windows apps. Which, again, leaves open a lot of questions, including how fast that would be.
You're making a lot of assumptions, including that Apple has such a framework or is interested in developing one. Big Sur does not ship with such a framework. It ships with a binary translator, an approach that can't be made to work for an entire operating system unless, I suppose, you first translate the entire virtual hard drive and all apps in there.
Oh, they understand. They just don't agree.
For those who can't get parallels working (15 and/or 16), there seems to be a conflict with VirtualBox. You probably have it installed or had it at one point. I posted the solution here.
I'm testing it with the latest Parallels Desktop 16 version.
Works for me macOS Mojave and Big Sur beta guests. So far do good.
Can you tell me how i can get the screen actual "full screen"? Right now i am having old fashioned black bars on both sides and the screen itself is almost square like on those old tvs