Edible Apple

Ars Technica has an insanely long and detailed review of Parallels Desktop 6. 10 pages worth! But Ars brings the goods per usual and if you’re looking to run Windows apps on your Mac, you’d be well advised to pore through the entire review. If you’re just casually interested in virtualization, here’s how Ars sums things up.

Parallels has had their eye on Windows 3D gaming from the start and, with this release, they’ve finally converted me. I’ve been a virtualized-gaming skeptic, but the results with this new version are what every delusional Mac gamer was hoping was achievable in the days of VirtualPC on the PowerPC. The graphics can be jacked all the way up, and there’s no laggy latency—that’s pretty incredible, considering that you’d expect lag if it was going through OS X’s Quartz compositor, on top of the Windows 7 window compositor. But there isn’t any lag. The big question is, when will we see DirectX 10 support? DirectX 9c is getting pretty old, and I doubt we’ll see it supported for newer 3D games for much longer. I don’t mean to rain on the parade, but it’s a concern.

The bugs in new releases were the only thing that stopped me from recommending Parallels Desktop in the past, but now that it’s been put through the proper pre-launch bug testing, it’s easier to recommend. You may not need the 3D or gaming features, but this is still a compelling upgrade. Once the iPad app is more feature-complete and polished, it will be a killer combination. VMware certainly has its work cut out for them now, and I’m relieved not to have to bash another buggy Parallels release. Now, I’m off to finish Arkham Asylum.