Pro users may want to use AutoCAD, which is also supported. What this means, of course, is that Windows games are playable on a Mac. DirectX 11 graphics performance on an M1 Mac running ARM Insider Preview gets 28% better. The performance illustrates just how far Parallels has travelled since it first introduced support for Windows on Macs this VM is eminently usable.īetter graphics: OpenGL graphics on a supported Mac are up to six times faster. The speed enhancements are even greater on M1 Macs, but are noticeable on all Macs. More speed: Applications on guest systems running with Parallels are now much faster – expect a 38% speed boost on all Macs, with M1 machines sometimes faster than Windows systems. Parallels remains as strong a system for running virtual operating systems on your Mac as it ever has been, but benefits from significant enhancements in this release: You can also run Mac operating systems back to High Sierra, 10.13.
It is also interesting that Parallels will now run macOS Monterey as a virtual machine, meaning you can run two Macs on one machine, which might be of use, particularly for application testing, or if you need to run Monterey for testing before migrating to the OS on your main Mac. Microsoft has made no announcement concerning its plans, if any, to sell the ARM version of Windows to Mac users for use with Parallels, though the Windows 11 Insider Preview works fine on Apple’s computers, including M1-powered models. The biggest obstacle to Mac users hoping to use Parallels to support Windows 11 on their systems is that Microsoft hasn’t yet officially released the ARM version of Windows for sale. You’ll also find Intel Macs will support a wider range of guest OSes, mainly because ARM support is only available via Windows 10, 11, Monterey, and Linux distros Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian GNU, and Kali. Even if the hardware is fast, the poorly optimised software/emulation will weigh down on performance.One important limitation is that Parallels will work with macOS versions up to High Sierra on Intel Macs, but M1 Macs must run Big Sur or later. That is why I feel that ARM chips on Windows will take a long time to become attractive even with Qualcomm doubling down on making a good SOC to compete with Intel on Windows. But when you start using Windows which is very fragmented, I feel you will lose a lot of performance due to inefficiency/ poor optimisation.
The fast SOC aside, the other factor that makes the M1 based systems fast is because of the tight software integration with the hardware. Only time I struggle is when I use it for work running a virtualised Windows system on it and I can't get some of the usual Windows/ Microsoft Office shortcut keys to work on the Mac keyboard. And after giving the MacBook Air M1 a try, I rarely miss my tablet or Windows computer. I've not used a Mac for 15 years now since the last MacBook Pro I purchased.
There is no point getting a Mac to run Windows primarily.
I would love to see a full review down the road that caters to hardcore PC users.I feel if you go for a Mac, and I feel you should give it a try, running Windows should be secondary. This enables our users to enjoy the best Windows-on-Mac experience available."ĬerianK said:I have not used a Mac for 30 years, but this announcement, combined with the M1's power/performance, seems to remove a major obstacle that had driven me away from Macs. However, virtual machines are an exception and thus Parallels engineers implemented native virtualization support for the Mac with M1 chip.
"Apple's M1 chip is a significant breakthrough for Mac users," said Nick Dobrovolskiy, Parallels Senior Vice President of Engineering and Support. "The transition has been smooth for most Mac applications, thanks to Rosetta technology. Apple M1's integrated GPU appears to be 60% faster than AMD's Radeon Pro 555X discrete graphics processor in DirectX 11 applications when running Windows using the Parallels Desktop 16.5.
Right now, Parallels Desktop for Mac 16.5 is good enough to launch it commercially, according to the company.