Parallels

[Richard Gaskin]

Sarah Reichelt wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 2, 2008 at 8:27 PM, Alex Tweedly <alex at tweedly.net> wrote:
>> Or, to be completely specific, .... does Parallels allow a MacBook Pro to
>> run high-performance graphics games, such as World of Warcraft, or Halo III
>> (IV ?)
> 
> Bootcamp definitely does allow such things. My kids run all their PC
> games on an iMac using Bootcamp with no problems. World of Warcraft is
> a Mac game as well as PC, but my boys run Call of Duty, Halo (II I
> think), Portal, Bioshock etc using Bootcamp.
> 
> I don't think any virtualization software will give the same
> performance, at least not yet.

I'm not sure whether Parallels on an Intel Mac fits the definition of 
"virtualization" per se, given that it provides a shell in which the OS 
makes native calls which for the most part are going straight to the 
processor.

Parallels does provide an additional layer for integration with the host 
OS, to support copy-n-paste, drag-n-drop, folder sharing, etc. between 
multiple OSes running, but my understanding is that it's somewhat 
focused in scope and doesn't have a significant impact on performance of 
most native API calls.

If someone has more complete information on that it would be good to 
learn more about the performance differences between the two.

-- 
  Richard Gaskin
  Managing Editor, revJournal
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