I'm not sure if I can justify .another. $39.95 for a supposed X upgrade. I've been using Parallels since the beginning and paying $39.95 every 7-9 months is not something I plan on continuing since I'm not renting this software.
of course i broke down and bought the upgrade anyway. i'm a sucker for good products...
Personally I've found Fusion to be worse then Parallels in every aspect (speed, networking, intuitiveness, mac integration). But with all these glowing reviews I'm going to give it another go. I'm restoring my .vmdk files as we speak, and downloading the latest build. I just replaced the hard drive on my MBP with a 7200rpm 320gb unit...maybe this will make the difference.
Personally I've found Fusion to be worse then Parallels in every aspect (speed, networking, intuitiveness, mac integration). But with all these glowing reviews I'm going to give it another go. I'm restoring my .vmdk files as we speak, and downloading the latest build. I just replaced the hard drive on my MBP with a 7200rpm 320gb unit...maybe this will make the difference.
hmmm... I may have just wasted $40. So far Fusion IS performing well. Initially I hated that the taskbar disappears in Unity (stays put or autohides in Parallels), but the launcher (which is summoned with cmd-L) does spotlight proud and works very well. The networking is improved too. Like Parallels I can switch on the fly host only networking vs shared networking. I do like the customizable keyboard shortcuts.
That may be the funniest thing I have ever seen. I am sure Al Gore is happy to hear that Parallels has and will reverse Global Warming. Man's Greatest Achievement - Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac
WTH are they thinking?? Plus, who doesn't like a big wanker in an advertisement.
After using Parallels 3.0 for 14 months, I upgraded to 4.0 Tuesday. It proved disastrous! A cascade of failures, first with the upgrade process, then inability to successfully reinstall Parallels 3.0. Finally uninstalled everything and tried to do clean reinstall of Parallels 4.0 (intending to reinstall Windows XP and ALL my apps in a new virtual machine). That failed too. Many regrets I did purchased and did this upgrade..... it's been a HUGE waste of my time. Support has been marginal... I'm sure they're swamped. Fortunately I have a backup Windows machine to continue working until I have time to continue dealing with this over the weekend.
I should have waited on this upgrade, but the marketing was effective in sucking me in with a list of desirable new features. Since I now have a macbook pro with no virtual machine installed, I figured I'd download VM ware and try it ($20 discount offer appeared in my inbox yesterday. Coincidence? Smart move by Smith Micro!). If it gets me up and running and passes my tests, I will become a former Parallels user and demand a refund on the upgrade.
I did the upgrade last week. For me, what made the upgrade difficult was that Windows wanted to re-activate, so Parallels' upgrade thingy just hung at the re-activate prompt. I managed to figure out how to do a "manual" upgrade to skip past the Windows activation prompt, and it upgraded cleanly after that.
The graphics really *are* better. Civilization 4 did not do well under Parallels 3. The 3d graphics ended up being wire frames. Under Parallels 4, it is perfect. I did not, however, notice a significant speed increase. I guess that's marketing for ya, they probably got some benchmark where there's that kind of speed increase but it all looks pretty much the same to me.
So: If you want to run some slow games like Civ4 that use 3d graphics, go for it. Just don't expect your normal Windows operation to be much faster.
Overall, I've always leaned more on the side of Parallels. Not doing any hard 3D, but Parallels 4 and CS 4 is doing surprisingly okay on my Macbook Core Duo 2ghz, 2gb RAM, and my new (it vibrates, I kid you not), WD 7200rpm 2.5" SATA drive.
I did the upgrade last week. For me, what made the upgrade difficult was that Windows wanted to re-activate, so Parallels' upgrade thingy just hung at the re-activate prompt. I managed to figure out how to do a "manual" upgrade to skip past the Windows activation prompt, and it upgraded cleanly after that.
The graphics really *are* better. Civilization 4 did not do well under Parallels 3. The 3d graphics ended up being wire frames. Under Parallels 4, it is perfect. I did not, however, notice a significant speed increase. I guess that's marketing for ya, they probably got some benchmark where there's that kind of speed increase but it all looks pretty much the same to me.
So: If you want to run some slow games like Civ4 that use 3d graphics, go for it. Just don't expect your normal Windows operation to be much faster.
There's definitely speed improvements, and I tried running Dawn Of War (real time strategy game, graphics engine circa 2005-2008)... And it wasn't that bad at bare minimum 1024x768 settings on my GMA950 MacBook.
So, my crappy graphics card aside, there should be some joy for those on new MacBooks, and those on MacBook Pros.
There needs to be significantly more testing, but as it looks Parallels 4 DirectX9 support and speed, is worth trying out... Could PC gaming really be a viable option on a MacBook now? For MMORPGs, I think there's some decent promise now.
I've tried Crossover Games and while that has some benefits, for medium-intensity gamers, Boot Camp may soon be less relevant. For the amount of cash you'd dump into nVidia 9800's to play Crysis and so on, not saying you can play Crysis well (not sure), get a MacBook Pro.
Man, the new MacBook Pros. Sweet!
Sometimes you just want to check some email in between some fragging, or frag in between some emailing when t3h b0ssman is not around.
I own both VMWare and Parallels. For me Parallels runs circles around Fusion. (MBP 3gb ram, 2.33ghz core2 using Windows XP). Last benchmarks I saw, had Parallels running circles around VMWare using XP. I recently tried VMWare's newest Fusion build and it still slower and it's routinely could bring my MBP to a halt. IMHO Parallels's Coherence is MUCH better integrated into dual OS work flow then Fusion's Unity.
For example:
1. In coherence you can use cmd-tab to alternate between Mac and Windows programs
2. In coherence you can drag and drop mac-side files onto Windows Dock icons and open files.
3. Unity has no ability to hide individual windows. Heck, no ability to hide all the windows
4. Unity gives you no easy access to the start menu.
I'm excited to try Parallels 4. Multiple processor awareness will make it faster, but I still think most of the slow downs is with the hard drive.
1. Check
2. Check
3. No joy, but not a deal breaker
4. Check
Another Fusion convert here. Part of my problem with fusion was that I used VMWare converter to create a disk image from my Parallels virtual disk. I used VMWare converter to create a new disk, but uninstalled the parallels tools first (you can't do this later in VMWare). I find that Fusion uses slightly more processor power then Parallels 4, but it's faster. Parallels 4's GUI is definitely 'slicker' then Fusion, but it seems slower then Parallels 3. It's also crashed a few times on me. Upgrading was a little bit of a pain. My 1st attempt corrupted my virtual disk image. During the second attempt I followed the directions and had no issues.
Fusion resumes and shuts down MUCH faster then Parallels. I also really like the launcher in Fusion and the ability to break up the virtual disk into 2gb chunks. This will make frequent back ups easier. I haven't used Fusion on battery yet, but the constant processor use will definitely chew through my battery faster then Parallels.
Comments
I'm not sure if I can justify .another. $39.95 for a supposed X upgrade. I've been using Parallels since the beginning and paying $39.95 every 7-9 months is not something I plan on continuing since I'm not renting this software.
of course i broke down and bought the upgrade anyway. i'm a sucker for good products...
Personally I've found Fusion to be worse then Parallels in every aspect (speed, networking, intuitiveness, mac integration). But with all these glowing reviews I'm going to give it another go. I'm restoring my .vmdk files as we speak, and downloading the latest build. I just replaced the hard drive on my MBP with a 7200rpm 320gb unit...maybe this will make the difference.
hmmm... I may have just wasted $40. So far Fusion IS performing well. Initially I hated that the taskbar disappears in Unity (stays put or autohides in Parallels), but the launcher (which is summoned with cmd-L) does spotlight proud and works very well. The networking is improved too. Like Parallels I can switch on the fly host only networking vs shared networking. I do like the customizable keyboard shortcuts.
The real test will be at work tomorrow.
Has anyone seen the advertising that Paralells is doing for the uprade? It's kind of funny. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPDViilXKhA
That may be the funniest thing I have ever seen. I am sure Al Gore is happy to hear that Parallels has and will reverse Global Warming. Man's Greatest Achievement - Parallels Desktop 4.0 for Mac
WTH are they thinking??
I should have waited on this upgrade, but the marketing was effective in sucking me in with a list of desirable new features. Since I now have a macbook pro with no virtual machine installed, I figured I'd download VM ware and try it ($20 discount offer appeared in my inbox yesterday. Coincidence? Smart move by Smith Micro!). If it gets me up and running and passes my tests, I will become a former Parallels user and demand a refund on the upgrade.
The graphics really *are* better. Civilization 4 did not do well under Parallels 3. The 3d graphics ended up being wire frames. Under Parallels 4, it is perfect. I did not, however, notice a significant speed increase. I guess that's marketing for ya, they probably got some benchmark where there's that kind of speed increase but it all looks pretty much the same to me.
So: If you want to run some slow games like Civ4 that use 3d graphics, go for it. Just don't expect your normal Windows operation to be much faster.
Vista Business, no less.
I did the upgrade last week. For me, what made the upgrade difficult was that Windows wanted to re-activate, so Parallels' upgrade thingy just hung at the re-activate prompt. I managed to figure out how to do a "manual" upgrade to skip past the Windows activation prompt, and it upgraded cleanly after that.
The graphics really *are* better. Civilization 4 did not do well under Parallels 3. The 3d graphics ended up being wire frames. Under Parallels 4, it is perfect. I did not, however, notice a significant speed increase. I guess that's marketing for ya, they probably got some benchmark where there's that kind of speed increase but it all looks pretty much the same to me.
So: If you want to run some slow games like Civ4 that use 3d graphics, go for it. Just don't expect your normal Windows operation to be much faster.
There's definitely speed improvements, and I tried running Dawn Of War (real time strategy game, graphics engine circa 2005-2008)... And it wasn't that bad at bare minimum 1024x768 settings on my GMA950 MacBook.
So, my crappy graphics card aside, there should be some joy for those on new MacBooks, and those on MacBook Pros.
There needs to be significantly more testing, but as it looks Parallels 4 DirectX9 support and speed, is worth trying out... Could PC gaming really be a viable option on a MacBook now? For MMORPGs, I think there's some decent promise now.
I've tried Crossover Games and while that has some benefits, for medium-intensity gamers, Boot Camp may soon be less relevant. For the amount of cash you'd dump into nVidia 9800's to play Crysis and so on, not saying you can play Crysis well (not sure), get a MacBook Pro.
Man, the new MacBook Pros. Sweet!
Sometimes you just want to check some email in between some fragging, or frag in between some emailing when t3h b0ssman is not around.
I own both VMWare and Parallels. For me Parallels runs circles around Fusion. (MBP 3gb ram, 2.33ghz core2 using Windows XP). Last benchmarks I saw, had Parallels running circles around VMWare using XP. I recently tried VMWare's newest Fusion build and it still slower and it's routinely could bring my MBP to a halt. IMHO Parallels's Coherence is MUCH better integrated into dual OS work flow then Fusion's Unity.
For example:
1. In coherence you can use cmd-tab to alternate between Mac and Windows programs
2. In coherence you can drag and drop mac-side files onto Windows Dock icons and open files.
3. Unity has no ability to hide individual windows. Heck, no ability to hide all the windows
4. Unity gives you no easy access to the start menu.
I'm excited to try Parallels 4. Multiple processor awareness will make it faster, but I still think most of the slow downs is with the hard drive.
1. Check
2. Check
3. No joy, but not a deal breaker
4. Check
Another Fusion convert here. Part of my problem with fusion was that I used VMWare converter to create a disk image from my Parallels virtual disk. I used VMWare converter to create a new disk, but uninstalled the parallels tools first (you can't do this later in VMWare). I find that Fusion uses slightly more processor power then Parallels 4, but it's faster. Parallels 4's GUI is definitely 'slicker' then Fusion, but it seems slower then Parallels 3. It's also crashed a few times on me. Upgrading was a little bit of a pain. My 1st attempt corrupted my virtual disk image. During the second attempt I followed the directions and had no issues.
Fusion resumes and shuts down MUCH faster then Parallels. I also really like the launcher in Fusion and the ability to break up the virtual disk into 2gb chunks. This will make frequent back ups easier. I haven't used Fusion on battery yet, but the constant processor use will definitely chew through my battery faster then Parallels.