Parallels Desktop for Mac Updated With Support for ProMotion Displays and M1 Ultra Chip

[MacBH928]

What the heck, I just bought Version 17 in January to go with my new MBP. Ridiculous. Software doesn't even last a year anymore. What's wrong with updating v17 for at least a couple years before a major version bump?

No worries, you software will continue to work as is you do not have to rebuy. You might be even offered a free upgrade.

I’m running Quicken and a piece of proprietary software, and it’s no slower (and possibly faster) on my M1 MBA than on my Mac Mini 2018 i7.

impreesive

Too tedious to quote various replies to my postings, so I combine my thoughts here in one go:

- M1 runs Parallels Desktop 17 quite well, I regard newer versions boasting "quicker start times" and "improved compatibility" as pure money making marketing. This is understandable from the commercial standpoint, but one does not have to fall for it each consecutive year...

- x86 emulation in Win10 and Win11 for ARM is very impressive and you can just forget about "stuttering" or slow mouse pointer movement. Not an issue (quite the opposite: we run full blown CAD packages here faster than on Windows on a Mac Pro). Anyone who comes up with such questions has clearly not used Windows on a Mac since, umm, VirtualPC on a PowerPC Mac ;-)

- as for what does not run on CrossOver - just visit their compatibility site here and see for yourself. Some programs run well, but clearly not the majority.

Something to note is that with Crossover you do not have to pay for Virtual Machine app, a Windows License, and dedicated resources for it including launching and shutting down the VM. It makes Windows software run as native software on MacOS which is a huge advantage.

Parallels upgrades yearly and pushes the subscription model. I've found a version generally lasts 3 years before there are enough upgrades to warrant thinking about buying a new version. Given how well AS runs Office in Windows ARM that timeline may stretch.


Doesn't make them money every year, hence the push for subscriptions. Buying it outright is just a way to be able to use it beyond a year.

I suspect, if VMWare keeps Fusion free for non-commercial use, Parallels will need to rethink their model or really make their software blow Fusion out of the water. I suspect, for non-game software, that will be hard to do and thus people will switch to Fusion. I just wish VMWare would make it easy to import a Parallel's VM.

-The year upgrades are very tempting like 2x faster and such

-There are free VM software like UTM none the less, Parallels is the best one out there.

Tried a few games under Parallels 18. Why Shadow of the Tomb Raider performs very badly even at medium settings? Lots of lags and graphical glitches.

Also, it installed Windows 11 Home. What if I want Windows 11 Professional?

I do not think you understand the technical marvel that is happening here. A a macos with ARM chip is running windows in a VM, which is running a Triple A game via emulation.... its magic that it even works. Your running a 3D game in an OS that is running inside another OS.

 

[jlc1978]

-The year upgrades are very tempting like 2x faster and such

My experience, having had subscription for while, is the yearly updates generally yielded modest improvements in real world usage, despite any claims by Parallels. I find it more cost effective to be on a 3-3 year upgrade cycle. YMMV

-There are free VM software like UTM none the less, Parallels is the best one out there.

It will be interesting to see how VMWare does. For a long time they were neck in neck, AS and VMWares’ cautious approach gave Parallels a leg up.

 

[MacBH928]

Yes they do but not always easy to know. Parallels Desktop has been updated every year in Aug since version 8 in 2012. Here you can see the version history of Crossover.

i don't get it, why are you mentioning Crossover?

 

[deconstruct60]

It will be interesting to see how VMWare does. For a long time they were neck in neck, AS and VMWares’ cautious approach gave Parallels a leg up.

Not so much a "cautious" approach as Apple taking a huge 'left turn' from where the bulk of VMWare's business is going. Apple changed up the rules so have to use their (hypervisor ) virtual machine foundation and that kernel extension are out. So VMWare to do the same things over all the products is going to be impeded when they can't use their own low level kernel code anymore. The foundation that the virtual machine is sitting on doesn't necessarily work like how VMWare standards work.

Prior to the M-series arrival there was an "optional" path where could use Apple's (at that point) even more immature virtualization foundation. Parallel experimented with the optional path. VMWare didn't ( in part because there was no high synergy with the rest of their multibillion dollar business. Parallels doesn't really have an "big iron" virtualization business. (at one point were coupled to a relatively small company/products that had some overlap with VMWare's main business but not anymore. ) )

Parallels doesn't really have a Windows host virtualization product. Or a server OS product. Or a Tier 1 Hypervisor. There is now a ChromeOS host variant , but that is likely relatively small side business. The Mac desktop virtualization is the core revenue generating product. If Apple chose to 'blow up' their legacy virtualization foundation they don't have a choice. That was more out of necessity than lack of caution.


Going the Fusion of personal use is free route really didn't help either. (relatively vast amount of new software development required and fewer funds to directly pay for that with. Writing a macOS on M-series only features does what to build more synergies with the rest of the VMWare product line that is mostly keeping the lights on. ). Broadcom threatening to buy VMWare will likely be worse still.

Apple is building a broader scoped virtualization framework on top of their hypervisor framework. Increasingly doing things like running Linux is being done by Apple directly ( It is not the exactly same as HyperV situation over on Windows but it is a similar cooperation-and-compete at the same time tensions. ). This may be in part a "eat your own dog food" thing were Linux image deployment to Apple cloud services is something they do internally at scale.

Apple could wake up a year or two down the road and 'Sherlock' these two companies. If there is anything about VMware's steps that is cautious it is more so coming from that potential alternative. There are far better places for VMWare to spend their R&D dollars if Apple is just going to throw them under the macOS bus in a couple of years. (and if Broadcom finalizes the acquisition then even sharper pencils will mark up where R&D dollars go and not go. ). I suspect Apple is just context with a narrow , "free" Linux/Unix tool role as long as the services revenue keeps growing. If things change and they look around as to whose revenue could be snatched easily..... that could change.

 

[MikeDr206]

My experience, having had subscription for while, is the yearly updates generally yielded modest improvements in real world usage, despite any claims by Parallels. I find it more cost effective to be on a 3-3 year upgrade cycle. YMMV

I‘ve subscribed to Parallels since when they offered them. In all that time, I can’t say I’ve ever noticed any performance improvement.

 

[Homy]

i don't get it, why are you mentioning Crossover?

Why not? Because both Crossover and Parallels are used for running Windows apps/games on Mac and both are updated every year. It was an additional information for comparison and for those who are not familiar with Crossover and might be looking for an alternative to Parallels.

 

[tobybrut]

Tried a few games under Parallels 18. Why Shadow of the Tomb Raider performs very badly even at medium settings? Lots of lags and graphical glitches.

Also, it installed Windows 11 Home. What if I want Windows 11 Professional?

When you one-click install Windows 11 under Parallels 18, there's a popup where you can select which version to install. I made the mistake the first time of installing Home before I noticed the popup.

If you did actually install Home, entering your Pro code will prompt Home to install additional software to convert it to Pro. Following a reboot, Home would become Pro.

 

[HDFan]

Choose my number of cores, amount of RAM, dedicated disk space, virtual hard disk file size and location, which virtual interfaces I assign and what gets connected to them. Y'know the crap I've been able to do on a standard VM on VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop on the Intel side of things for eons, now.

No difference with M1 Parallels, same settings are there:

cores and memory:



Disk & location:



and so on.

 

[MacRS4]

It's the MacOS downloaded VMs you can't adjust, not the general VM creation. For example:

 

[MikeDr206]

I don’t think the usage case for Parallels/Windows is ever going to be games.

 

[HDFan]

It's the MacOS downloaded VMs you can't adjust, not the general VM creation.

Ah. So you want to pre-configure VMs so they can be distributed pre-configured?

 

[MacRS4]

I don't want to do anything I was just making the point that if you install MacOS in Parallels 18 you can't adjust the configuration of the VM currently. You can probably do it manually in the package but I've not looked at that.

If you build a standard machine you can of course modify it however you like.

 

[Mac Hammer Fan]

Still no 3D graphics score with Performance test 10.2 from Passmark with Parallels 18 Pro. Mac Studio Max 32 GPU.

 

[chucker23n1]

With the M1 Ultra in the Mac Studio, Parallels Desktop 18 "delivers up to 96% faster Windows 11" performance compared to previous versions of Parallels.

What does this actually mean? Did version 17 hardcode ARM Macs to only support 10 CPU cores, and now they support 20?

(edit) Especially since the actual CPU virtualization is no longer done by Parallels but by macOS. Maybe they massively improved I/O virtualization? But then why would the claim be M1 Ultra-specific?

 

[Mac Hammer Fan]

Novabench disappoints too with Parallels 18 and Windows 11 on a Mac Studio Max 32 GPU.
And Geekbench says the GPU is not supported.

 

[chucker23n1]

I ran Geekbench 5 and Novabench and… no difference. If anything, post-update, the scores were worse. I had freshly rebooted Windows 11 in both cases.

Physical hardware is a 14-inch MBP with a 10-core M1 Pro. Virtual hardware is configured to 12 GiB RAM and four cores.

Windows 11 22H2 22622.575

Parallels 17.1.4
Geekbench scores: 1560 / 5303 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/16611906
Novabench: 787 overall, CPU 142, RAM 321, GPU 0, Disk 324

Parallels 18.0.0
Geekbench scores: 1546 / 5291 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/16611906
Novabench: 766 overall, CPU 142, RAM 320, GPU 0, Disk 304

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

Does Parallels have any offers on throughout the year?

 

[jlc1978]

Does Parallels have any offers on throughout the year?

Yes, typically just before a new version comes out.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

Yes, typically just before a new version comes out.

Thanks