I know that Quake and Half Life 2 have been used in testing for V3.0, and although I welcome the upgraded features, I don't see the advantage for gamers (other than playing a game that might not be released in OS X). I have Quake 4 on my MBP 2.0 ghz, and it runs sufficiently slow enough (on reduced detail settings) that I don't play it often enough. Surely it won't run any faster on a VM, native graphics card support or not. Any thoughts?
It's not yet known whether performance in Parallels will be worse, better or comparable with that of a ported version, and this will probably vary from game to game. Depending on the way the Mac port was done, some Mac game ports can perform considerably worse than the original Windows version running in Bootcamp on the same hardware, so a Parallels installation may still beat the Mac one. There may also be other reasons than performance for playing the Windows version of a game. Issues with Mac ports include late release of Mac versions of original games or expansions, reduced or non-existent scenario editors, mod compatibility problems, cross-platform network play incompatibility, and often high prices for the Mac version long after the Windows original has been relegated to the bargain bin.
Korean online games are notoriously Windows-only, but at least they have relatively low hardware requirements. I'm just dying to play them without using Bootcamp here.
I'm not a real gamer, but I have been involved with Civilization 3 and 4, and most of the issues I listed have applied to them at various times. I have Civ3 Conquests for both platforms, and it plays very well in Parallels, even though its read-me specifies DirectX 9b hardware support. It is only a 2D game though. I'd say it's at least as fast as the most recent Universal Binary from Aspyr, plus you get a full scenario editor. The only downside I can see is there are a few keyboard shortcuts that don't seem to make it through Parallels and you have to use the menu options. It will be very interesting to see if Civ4 runs in Parallels. I don't have Civ4 for Windows, as I refuse to reboot just to play a game. I'm told the Windows version significantly out-performs the Mac port in Bootcamp on the low-end Intel Macs with integrated graphics. But it does demand very good 3D graphics support, so the jury's out on whether Parallels will support it. If anyone cares to share their Civ4 experience under virtualization I'd be interested to hear it.
I'm pretty sure it actually meant it just needs DirectX 9.0b distributable installed on Windows itself. That way, even in the lack of actual hardware acceleration, DirectX framework would cope with software-based (CPU) fallback.
Ben Rudolph from Parallels team has already posted a Quake IV footage in YouTube. Take a look at it if you haven't done it yet: Quake 4 in Parallels 3
Hi, Alan, I have Civ 3 (just the plain version), and am completely and totally unable to get it to run. When I attempt to start, it attempt to bring up my Visual Studio Debugger. DX 9.0 runtimes are installed. Do you have any thoughts? Thanks, Brian
