Over 80% of Parallels Desktop users make use of Coherence mode, which has been improved to provide an even more unified experience when running Windows and Mac apps alongside each other.

Expect a much smoother Windows experience, even when gaming.īetter drag-and-drop: You can now drag and drop text and images between Mac and Windows applications, just as if they were on the same system. 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. 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.

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