Rise of the Tomb Raider in Parallels

[vkd]

I just found that RoTR requires Directx11 and that Parallels 11 supports only Directx10. Parallels 12 has full support for Windows 10 so by interpolation most likely for Directx11 and probably Directx12; it will only run on MacOS 10.10 (Yosemite) and above. I am running 10.9 Mavericks and have no intention of upgrading at the moment.

Therefore I wonder if anyone else out there may be able to confirm whether this will work, ie. on a Mac running macOS 10.10 or above and Parallels Desktop 12, is it possible to run Rise of the Tomb Raider?

 

[Cougarcat]

Parallels still doesn't support DX 11/12. Your only option is to use Bootcamp. https://forum.parallels.com/threads/parallels-desktop-11-and-directx-11.329342/page-3

 

[imacken]

I just found that RoTR requires Directx11 and that Parallels 11 supports only Directx10. Parallels 12 has full support for Windows 10 so by interpolation most likely for Directx11 and probably Directx12; it will only run on MacOS 10.10 (Yosemite) and above. I am running 10.9 Mavericks and have no intention of upgrading at the moment.

Therefore I wonder if anyone else out there may be able to confirm whether this will work, ie. on a Mac running macOS 10.10 or above and Parallels Desktop 12, is it possible to run Rise of the Tomb Raider?

Parallels engineers are 'aware of this issue' and are 'working on a solution'.
They have been for years! See some of my other threads on that forum. Parallels has become a total joke. Useless updates and no DX11 or DX12 support.

 

[wubsylol]

Even if Parallels did support DX11/12, it would be so horrendously slow you wouldn't be able to play it anyway.

 

[vkd]

Even if Parallels did support DX11/12, it would be so horrendously slow you wouldn't be able to play it anyway.

That's a bit of a strong statement.

Not necessarily, I myself have played loads of quite recent games even on my mid-2011 27" with Radeon HD 6770M, one limiting factor I've found being the emulator's (lack of) support for OpenGL instructions, in this case their lack of support for DirectX. Parallels is usually found to be incrementally in front of Fusion in this matter but there is not much in it, one version of a graphics extension, like that.

 

[wubsylol]

What games are you playing? I can run older games like Skyrim (not the remaster), Mass Effect 2/3 on my 2013 iMac relatively well (native res), but these are games which were built with last-gen consoles in mind, so they're still relatively light on resources. You can't compare these games to a current-gen DX11 title from the past year.

Parallels still has a huge amount of CPU overhead just translating to D3D calls into OGL. VRAM speeds are also well below what you would see running natively.

There's a lot more standing in the way of getting RotTR running than no DX11/12 support.

 

[RedTomato]

Buy a cheap SSD, whatever's on top at Amazon, put it in a USB3 enclosure and throw Bootcamp / Windows on it and use it for games.

 

[vkd]

Buy a cheap SSD, whatever's on top at Amazon, put it in a USB3 enclosure and throw Bootcamp / Windows on it and use it for games.

Sounds cool, but my mid-2011 iMac does not have USB3, only USB2. :/

 

[RedTomato]

Sounds cool, but my mid-2011 iMac does not have USB3, only USB2. :/

You still have choices. You can fork out for a Thunderbolt to USB3 adaptor or dock. I'm not sure if OSX or Windows will boot from a drive plugged into a dock, you will need to check that very carefully.

Or you can get a Firewire 800 2.5" enclosure which is reasonably cheap and put a SSD in it. I'm pretty sure both OSX and Windows will boot from that, but again, you need to check. You won't get the max 600MBs that SDDs can do, but practically speaking, the difference is almost unnoticeable in real usage. The big benefit of the SSD will be in delivering small files up to 100x faster than HDDs which slow to a crawl with small random files (which is more or less what's happening almost every time you see a beach ball of doom).

 

[imacken]

Buy a cheap SSD, whatever's on top at Amazon, put it in a USB3 enclosure and throw Bootcamp / Windows on it and use it for games.

I might be wrong, but I don't recall it being as simple as 'throw Windows' at an external drive. Pretty sure it's quite a complex procedure.

 

[RedTomato]

I might be wrong, but I don't recall it being as simple as 'throw Windows' at an external drive. Pretty sure it's quite a complex procedure.

Ulp, yes you're right.

Last year I went through installing Windows 10 on either a SD card or a mini USB3 flash drive, I can't remember which, on a 2013 MacBook Air. I succeeded but it was a painful experience. Windows worked fine albeit the drive got very hot when I was running Skyrim on it.

Anyway I recall that the guides were much simpler for installing Windows on an external SSD, obviously not quite as easy as falling off a pier.

 

[vkd]

Or you can get a Firewire 800 2.5" enclosure which is reasonably cheap and put a SSD in it. I'm pretty sure both OSX and Windows will boot from that, but again, you need to check. You won't get the max 600MBs that SDDs can do, but practically speaking, the difference is almost unnoticeable in real usage. The big benefit of the SSD will be in delivering small files up to 100x faster than HDDs which slow to a crawl with small random files (which is more or less what's happening almost every time you see a beach ball of doom).

No Firewire unfortunately. My only options are USB2 and Thunderbolt v1.

 

[imacken]

vkd, if you do get round to playing ROTTR, you are in for a treat. I played it in Bootcamp, and it was even better than TR 2013 which I thought was excellent.

 

[vkd]

vkd, if you do get round to playing ROTTR, you are in for a treat. I played it in Bootcamp, and it was even better than TR 2013 which I thought was excellent.

Yes, I finally got round to booting Win10 on an external USB2 drive and running RotTR there, albeit my mid-2011 iMac's graphics card is only Radeon HD 6770 and not the minimum specified for the game of HD 7770. Quite pleased about that though, had to turn the graphic quality to low but it is still very good. Obviously we are not rushing through at 85 FPS, but for what it is it is quite an achievement I think.