Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This is a very good PC emulator. It runs very fast. It uses Intel virtualization so it is able to run at near native speeds. I have run many of the Microsoft Office products as well as Developer Studio on it, it works great. A few things you should keep in mind:
** You Need a Copy of Windows
You will have to have your own copy of Windows to make use of this program. I thought I was going to use an upgrade CD that came with one of my computers that I no longer use. But Windows Genuine Advantage flagged it as an illegal copy of Windows, I guess it was licensed only for my old computer. Anyway, I bought a new copy of XP(an upgrade) and it worked just fine.
** Special Drivers
Parallels comes with some special drivers that they recommend that you install on whatever operating system you are using. This is not required. You can run the operating systems just as you would install them on any other computer. However installing the Parallels drivers increases performance. One really nice feature is the mouse driver. When the mouse driver is installed it allows you to simply drag the mouse over Parallels and click on things. Otherwise, you must click on the window first and switch your focus to the virtual machine.
** Games
I have run into some problems where the game will install just fine, but it will refuse to run saying that you must put the game's CD-ROM in. I assume this is because the virtual CD-ROM driver used by Parallels is not supporting the CD-ROM down to a low enough level to support the game's copy protection. One game that has this issue is the Sim's 2.
Also the 3d graphics are NOT virtualized. So any sort of 3d game will run as if you have no 3d acceleration hardware. Which is slow. Overall, the best way to run a game is "boot camp".
** Versions of Windows
I have used several versions of Windows on Parallels and it works great. I have tested both Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
** Other Operating Systems
I have also used several flavors of Linux. It works very well. It really simulates a virtual computer, and you can install anything on it you like.
** You need RAM
Running this with less than 1gig of RAM can be painful. If you want to run several virtual machines I would suggest up to 2 gigs. However, one gig ran very well.
All in all this is a very good PC emulation and is quite fast. I have uses other emulators, that are just deadly slow. This one is quite usable. If you don't plan to use this for games, you will be very happy with this product. If you do want games its a little more hit and miss. Better to use Boot Camp.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac
Get 38% OFF
Click here for more information about Parallels Desktop 3.0 for Mac
0 comments:
Post a Comment