Parallels Graphics Acceleration?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Parallels
New Features:
Video output improvement and acceleration
Added multi interfaces USB devices support (including Windows Mobile 2005 devices)
Added isochronous USB devices support (including WebCam devices)
Minor USB fixes
Keyboard support improvement: Eject CD key support, left/right Shift/Ctrl/Alt (Option)/Windows keys difference support
Added virtual disk cache policy option: Mac OS X performance optimized or guest OS performance optimized
Image Tool fixes
Optimized disk cache policy for Suspend/Resume feature
Windows ME Suspend/Resume fix
Shared Folders first time access acceleration
Clipboard synchronization tool fixes (unreadable symbols sometimes added during copy and paste)
Sound playback improvement
Sound recording improvement
Minor Full Screen mode fixes
?Unable to allocate virtual memory? during virtual machine power on fix
Minor GUI fixes and improvements
Solaris doesn?t work with more than one virtual disk fix
New Features:
Video output improvement and acceleration
Added multi interfaces USB devices support (including Windows Mobile 2005 devices)
Added isochronous USB devices support (including WebCam devices)
Minor USB fixes
Keyboard support improvement: Eject CD key support, left/right Shift/Ctrl/Alt (Option)/Windows keys difference support
Added virtual disk cache policy option: Mac OS X performance optimized or guest OS performance optimized
Image Tool fixes
Optimized disk cache policy for Suspend/Resume feature
Windows ME Suspend/Resume fix
Shared Folders first time access acceleration
Clipboard synchronization tool fixes (unreadable symbols sometimes added during copy and paste)
Sound playback improvement
Sound recording improvement
Minor Full Screen mode fixes
?Unable to allocate virtual memory? during virtual machine power on fix
Minor GUI fixes and improvements
Solaris doesn?t work with more than one virtual disk fix
Does this mean anything special for Vista or light gaming?
Source+Download Beta Update: http://parallels.com/en/products/desktop/update_beta/
Comments
It's the whole VPC faq thing again.
A virtualization OS, can not, and I repeat, can not Access HW directly, because another OS is using it(ie, you can't shut down macosx while running parallels).
The exception to that is Intel Core Duo because Intel made it possible phyically on their chips.
It's not just GPU(although most important), but sound, usb, etc, etc, etc. They're all emulated in VPC, parallels, etc, you name it.
Sound, and usb, and there rest gets off easy because they're pretty easy to emulate, and pass on.(Though some crazy sound card is a different story).
The only way to really get around this is to intercept DX api, convert it, and pass it to macosx or the graphics card.
It's very very hard. Not only do parallels not own microsoft code, they don't own ATI/Nivida code.
They'll probably make some things here and there, to give it *some* graphics aceleration and take a lot of performance hit from the shuffling. But no true graphics acceleration will exist, unless they whip a lot of smart programers day and night, til "eureka" happens.
If you notice VMware's beta for graphic acceleration. Probably every approach is going to be like that.
Make their own DX, then give it know support(DX8 *only*) and none of the special stuff of newer cards like pixel shading, etc.
Bascially, take away all the hard stuff, to keep PR happy.
Long story short, it's most likely impossible to just pass stuff to GPU. Not without some new HW.
A virtualization OS, can not, and I repeat, can not Access HW directly, because another OS is using it(ie, you can't shut down macosx while running parallels).
The only way to really get around this is to intercept DX api, convert it, and pass it to macosx or the graphics card.
It's very very hard. Not only do parallels not own microsoft code, they don't own ATI/Nivida code.
Perhaps the only solution is to use a software implementation of the DirectX drivers like this one:
http://www.transgaming.com/index.php...display&ceid=8
I tested it out in Parallels and it works pretty well. I got a decent framerate even on the environment mapped 3D scene on a Macbook.
I reckon it would only be as fast as a pretty low end GPU but it would be suitable for running old PC games and apps with DirectX interfaces that still required Windows.
Perhaps the only solution is to use a software implementation of the DirectX drivers like this one:
http://www.transgaming.com/index.php...display&ceid=8
I tested it out in Parallels and it works pretty well. I got a decent framerate even on the environment mapped 3D scene on a Macbook.
I reckon it would only be as fast as a pretty low end GPU but it would be suitable for running old PC games and apps with DirectX interfaces that still required Windows.
Considering that DX9 and beyond is pretty much monumental rever-engineering to most programers not privy to Microsoft. It's pretty much a dead end in the long term solution.
Transgaming, helps you port code, not pass them. Perhaps a few tricks can be learned, and used, but the basic problem stands.
You have to beg both Microsoft and the GPU vendor to get anywhere near the performance/functions as nativity.
I can only guess they try to use some of WINE's ideals and do a triple bipass so to say. But that's even trickier.