Parallels’ newest version has some nifty stuff that Fusion doesn’t, most notably hardware-accelerated OpenGL support (they both have DX9), the ability to use removeable media from both OSes simultaneously, and the ability to browse files on/from either platform seamlessly (Fusion lets you browse Mac files on Windows but it’s very slow, and it can browse Windows files from the Mac only when the Windows VM is shut down).Īll this is really nice and enticing. Users who purchased version 3.0 on or after 1 September 2008 are eligible for a free upgrade. Verson 4.0 is available now for USD 79.99, with upgrades USD 39.99. You can also manage your VMs from your iPhone.
Coherence has been updated as well, so that Windows programs are added to the Mac OS X dock when you switch to Coherence mode. The company also did some visual tweaks, such as adding a feature called Modality, which – as far as I understand from Parallels’ website – means you can get an overview of all your virtual machines using Expose. The company claims a 50% performance boost over previous versions. The new Adaptive Hypervisor automatically shifts system resources around between the host and client operating systems to optimise performance, while you may allocate 8GB of RAM and up to an 8-way CPU to Parallels. People using Parallels to virtualise Windows will see a boost in 3D graphics performance thanks to support for DirectX 9.0, DirectX Pixel Shader 2.0 and OpenGL 2.0. Version 4.0 comes packed with new features and improvements. Parallels allows you to run several operating systems ‘on top’ of Mac OS X, similar to VMware, Qemu, and other similar tools.
Yesterday, Parallels unveiled Parallels Desktop 4.0.