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Parallels 3.0 Announced, 3D Graphics Included
99BottlesOfBeerInMyF writes "For some time Mac users have been waiting to see who would bring 3D graphics to a Windows emulation/virtualization solution under OS X. It looks like Parallels is going to be the winner. They have announced an RC of Parallels 3.0, with the final to be available 'in a few weeks.' For anyone else tired of Bootcamp or rebooting to play a Windows game, it look like the solution is finally here; I'm not counting out VMWare entirely. Obviously it will depend on how soon they can catch up, but there is some serious first-mover advantage here for Parallels."
The second release of VMWare Fusion had D3D8 acceleration under XP and it was released a few months ago. It's not like Parallels is first to this party.
If they are able to get performance within 10 or 15% of native, I'd be impressed and happy. Sometimes you just want to play a casual game and don't plan on playing for an extended period which makes rebooting a pain. Since Parallels allows you to boot off of your bootcamp partition in a VM, it'll be nice to be able to do both.
Why?
Of all the elements in the system, the graphics interface once shouldn't run slower.
Its just mainly copying data around rather than executable assembly instruction translation/manipulation.
A block of allocated memory can be passed directly to the card without any messing.
Virtualisation is difficult because you are trying to act as middleman between two different operating systems with different ways to do things. However for the graphics, both those operating systems need to already speak the same language to talk with a graphics card, the memory is laid out the same, the commands are the same and the way of talking to it is the same.
liqbase
I see Quake 4 supposedly running at full steam (no specs or framerates though, but I'll give the guy the benefit of the doubt), but how are DX games running on that? Since Q4 is using an OGL engine, I can see why it would be able to perform so well. But it is my understanding that DX games greatly outnumber OGL ones.
Great work otherwise.
I currently run Windows under Parallels, but Linux under VMware Fusion due to the lack of Linux guest tools. The Parallels 3.0 announcement said Linux guest tools were provided, and that was a major reason why I've put down the cash for the pre-order.
Cheers,
Ian
Connectix used to do this (in v3 or so) for the mac. Emulating an x86 CPU on PPC. Basically, they just provided a pass-through OpenGL driver that hit the native driver & hardware.
For native CPU & a pass-through OpenGL stack, it should be pretty close to native speed. Only concerns are:
1. Direct3D/DirectX (what's it called these days?) -- emulating that or converting it to the native graphics driver isn't trivial. Or even a direct mapping.
2. Feature differences between implementations of drivers between the mac & windows. My guess is that most of the big boys use common code in between (especially now) with build setups & wrappers for each platform. But, who knows.
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If you're going to play games you would obviously want the most speed you can get.
Not really. If I can get 30 FPS in the games I want to play, I'll be happy. A few extra FPS that are ultimately irrelevant aren't worth a reboot, especially into Windows.
why in the world would anyone run emulation when they can run Windows natively with bootcamp. If you're going to play games you would obviously want the most speed you can get. I bought a mac, but I'm 98% in the windows. I only use mac to test web based apps in safari. For people like me or for gamers, I don't see why you would ever use paralells emulation. The speed cost is just too high.
For you, Boot Camp makes sense. Me, I'm in the opposite situation -- I do almost all my work in OS X, but write apps which occasionally have to be tested with Windows. So Parallels is the perfect solution. I'm not really concerned about squeezing every ounce of speed out of Windows because I don't spend much time in it; I just want to drop into it every few days to make sure that what I'm doing works, preferably without having to reboot my machine.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
As you said, for people like you or gamers, Boot Camp is the way to go. "You and gamers" are not the majority of computer users, thus that is why "the rest of us" who need it will use Parallels.
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First, it is virtualization, not emulation. I run Parallels because I need to use both Windows and OS X native applications to get my daily work. Rebooting 30 or 40 times a day would be less than productive. Also, maybe you're not understanding the workflow of many mac users. I don't shutdown my computer and I don't reboot. I rarely ever shutdown about 5 major applications. I am a casual gamer. I used to go to LAN parties with my laptop and play Warcraft 3 and amaze all the Windows users by not bothering to shut down Photoshop, InDesign, Firefox, and all the rest of my applications, because OS X's multitasking was up to it. I'm sure not going to shut down all my applications and close all my files and reboot my machine, just to play some game. That would be a huge pain in the ass. I will, however, boot up a Windows session in a window and play it there.
Most gamers are casual gamers, like me. We don't care if it is running 50fps instead of 40fps. We don't care if the textures are all at the highest settings. We just want to play a few games and have fun without a hassle. If Parallels will let me do that, I'd shell out for it. I can afford it. I'm a computer geek; we tend to be well paid. I say I would pay for it because, likely, my company will be buying my upgrade for me anyway.
I bought a mac, but I'm 98% in the windows. I only use mac to test web based apps in safari.The advantages of using OS X as the host OS are numerous, if you're the kind of person willing to learn new ways of doing things. It is an added level of security, and running OS X apps natively allows for more interaction between apps and more customization of features for all apps.
For people like me or for gamers, I don't see why you would ever use paralells emulation. The speed cost is just too high.For games that don't use 3D acceleration, I don't even normally notice any speed difference at all between parallels and bootcamp. The limiting factor in all cases is memory, so running Parallels is like having .5G less memory. With the notice graphics card support, I doubt the speed difference will bug me at all. Like I said, I (like most gamers) am a casual gamer. In any case, claiming the speed cost is too high is a bit premature until it is actually tested, don't you think?
I'm afraid you might be confusing emulation with virtualization. In theory virtualization should add little to zero overhead. Virtualizing certain aspects such as memory access or CPU usage will have some overhead but virtualizing GPU usage should be negligible. We'll see how well they did when it is released but I would be it will run most software at near direct boot performance. Remember virtualization is Native, it will still be using the same Native machine calls that would be used with direct booting.
At work I sometimes use Parallels to test web pages with MSIE. Type up some seemingly totally standards-compliant CSS or javascript in SubEthaEdit, save, mouse over to the memory-sucking Parallels window, click reload, stare in amazement at the unanticipated behavior, curse and snarl, pull out some hair, email the boss to ask if things really are required to work with MSIE 6, pull out some more hair, etc... all w/out rebooting.
About the only bad thing I can say about Parallels, is that it isn't curing baldness.
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1. You don't know what the speed cost is. It could be minimal, or it could be significant. You have no evidence either way; if it manages to pass most instructions through to the host OS it could be very fast. Wine, for example, is quite fast, but there's a good deal more overhead in Parallels.
2. You're not the target market for this app. You only use OS X for Safari. Most Mac users aren't like you; we primarily use OS X, and are "forced" to use Windows occassionally for one app or game. This covers most switchers too; how do I know? We just switched our company, and everyone has the choice of OS X or XP. Guess what? OS X has won out on every user, and no one uses boot camp. Just Parallels.
3. Most people are willing to exchange some speed for security. Staying in OS X means you know that your computer will always work; no worrying about viruses and the like.
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Virtualization presents no overhead when chips with that technology built in and enabled. Lots of machines do not come with this turned on by default, so naturally they're going to suffer a massive performance hit. We had this problem constantly at the HP repair depot - we'd get commercial line laptops back with complaints of "Virtualization is too slow/does not work on this machine." Quick check in the BIOS - oh, look, it's been disabled. Eventually it happened so often that HP support had to tell them to check their BIOS settings when they called in - saved us lots of wasted time replacing the entire logic board when all it took was a BIOS setting to change. It also made many top-dog IT managers very unhappy that it was something so trivial. I bet lots of people lost their jobs over such a simple oversight.
Most people aren't even aware there's an option for that in the BIOS if the chip supports it. If you run it on a chip that doesn't come with virtualization extensions, you WILL suffer quite a performance hit.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Parallels and Bootcamp don't exist for die hard Macintosh users. As you say, for decades you haven't cared.
You're missing the point of these tools entirely - they exist for people like me: die hard Windows/Linux users that have always been disdainful of the Mac for various reasons (for me it was gaming and learning curve, for others it was legacy application support, for others it was hatred of a one button mouse, etc).
Now there's a way I and the zillions of others who are now jaded with Microsoft can buy a sweet Apple computer that are all the rage now - all the kids are using them and they're all over the TV, so they must be good, right!? - with the confident knowledge that I can still boot to Windows if I need to, or use Parallels to run my games, or whatever.
I've been a die hard PC user since XT days but now the Macintosh is appealing to me specifically because of these features. I'm a lot closer to spending my $$$ on a Macintosh now than ever before, and many of my PC using friends have already made the switch.
You and the rest of the Mac guys don't have to pay any attention to it and can smugly assume superiority, but you might as well wait until everyone like me has already switched over!