Most requested Parallels features

Hi All!

I searched once again through all requested features in this forum and prepared the summary list of top 10. Could you vote for your most requested feature from the list please?

PS: Unfortunately poll options are limited to 10 in this forum. I know there were more wishes here.

 

And unfortunately, the poll doesn't support voting for 2 or 3 choices with an order of preference. I voted 3D graphics support, though I actually need 3 items from the list.

1. 3D graphics support

Because I need it for testing some developments using DirectX. Performance does not need to be exceptional. Just decent would be fine. Okay that is not a very scientific measure, but I'm sure you get the idea. I do not need this to play the latests games at their best. Just to run and debug DirectX code before final testing on real PC hardware.

2. Guest SMP support

Because seeing that all Mac computers now have 2 cores or more (Mac Pro have 4 as a starter), at least letting the guest see and use 2 cores (even out of 4) would be beneficial. Huge development tasks in Visual Studio 5 can benefit greatly from this.

3. USB 2.0 support

Useful, again, for development and testing of hardware devices like PDA, barcode scanners, and others. They don't all need USB 2.0 stricto sensu though the current 1.X implementation seems a bit floppy at times with some devices. Upgrading it to USB 2.0 support might help raise the overall quality of the USB connectivity. Okay this the point the less required for me.

 

I guess you already started implementing some of those request, right - some of them exist for a very long time - almost since this forum has been opened - so voting now and picking the most wanted is bit too late.

I think you forgot some requests:
- using physical partitions inside the VM
- different video modes
...

 

I can vote for a "most" useful feature, but would really like to vote for several:

1) TRUE USB passthrough for as many USB devices at a time as I like. This would solve the CD/DVD burning problem if I just plug in a USB burner. USB support is not complete unless the guest has bit level access to the specific USB device the user allows and the guest can't tell it doesn't have hardware level access.

2) Multiple NICs. This should really be a no-brainer. I can have as many NICs in a box as I can fit in it. Why should Parallels be different. Why is this so hard?

3) An OSX utility to read and write NTFS hdd "disks". Others would no doubt like to extend this to other file systems. The utility should allow mounting of the image just like a dmg file.

4) Multi core / processor support. Whatever Apple provides, Parallels should use.

Thanks for asking. I find Parallels useful now, but I still need PCs. Add these things and I don't.

 

In preference order:

1) USB 2.0 support
2) Drag'n'drop support
3) Snapshots support
4) 3D graphics support

 

Ofcourse we will have all requested features implemented in our product. The idea of this poll is to understand which features are most requested and which are less.

What do you mean by different video modes? We already have custom video modes fearure in public release - so you can add any videomode you like (ofcourse it is limited by amount of video memory).

 

-Using physical partitions inside the VM (e.g the BootCamp created partition and OS to be launched also by Parallels when running MacOS X). Not sure if this is "Boot Camp support" option in your list.

-Another one missing from your list that I believe would be rather important: Ability to open VMware created machines with Parallels (esp. now that EMC anounced they are building their version for Mac, if we can open any VMware created machines with Parallels then it will be highly likely existing customers stay with parallels and even more join in due to your better pricing and support... else you may have customers jumping out back to VMware I think..).

 

My number one request would be fast 3D support. I really want to be able to run win-only games and still check mail, etc., in the background.

I'd like to see more serial port options. I wrote the SerialClient app to map the named socket serial ports ot an IOKit port but that's not a very good solution. If Parallels had built in IOKit serial support an app on the VM could change baud rates, send breaks, use the hardware handshake lines, etc. None of this is possible with SerialClient.

I'd also like to be able to use a virtual machine for a test environment. This requires two additions: 1) Parallels should support a journaled disk -- all writes happen to a separate file that can be deleted to revert the disk to its pristine state. 2) Parallels should support booting OSX in a virtual machine.

 

I wonder if Roaster is having the same problems I am with non-Windows OSs. Even with a custom resolution set to 1280x800, I cannot get Linux (in this case CentOS/RedHat ES) to do a full-screen 1280x800 on my MacBook.

I also would've voted for more robust networking. I can never seem to get my VMs to use the wireless, either with bridged or host-based networking.

 

I'd also like to see improved printing support.

I plugged in a USB printer directly, XP found it, installed it and it is listed as default printer, has plenty of choices in how to use it but refuses to print from XP on the MacBook. Sometimes even causes XP to quit and offer to send a 'severe failure report' or something like that.

If it plugs, it should play!

dn.

 

Just to be clear, are we talking about both Direct3D and OpenGL? Or just OpenGL?

(Might change my opinion between boot camp and 3d acceleration)

 

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Works fine for me. If your wireless access point does limit access by MAC addresses, make sure the MAC address of the virtual machine itself is listed among those authorized for access.

 

1/ Garmin USB support

 

I concur 100%!!!

 

I voted for 3D graphics support, but the one I want the most is what i would consider the simplest . . .

support for more than a 2 button wheel mouse while using the parallels mouse driver!

i miss my back and forward button on the Intellimouse Explorer!

 

Full Garmin support, please!

 

First, sorry for my not-so-perfect english.

I have been very interested in parallels workstation, and tested the trial version. It's fast! But I'm not your customer just yet THE feature I miss is good, working 3d support.

I'd like to use linux as my primary OS. I don't like viruses, spyware and other problems of windows xp. However, I like windows because it allows me to play commercial games. BUT, it isn't very practical to close all programs and reboot every time I want to relax with heroesV. So I'm stuck using windows as primary OS.

I think there is a _very_ large target group with similar situation. Parallels would start competing same customers with cedega ,for example. And games are not the only 3d applications..

There aren't too much information about this topic in parallels web page or forums, but I was still very happy to read that some kind of 3d support is planned for future versions. The question remains when we can expect to see this feature, and how good it is, is it possible to play mainstream games like sims2? I understood next mac version of parallels is having this feature. Are the non-mac users out of luck? Latest vmware workstation already has experimental 3d support, I don't know their plans to make it official feature but if they make..then their product sure has one _BIG_ advantage over competitors.

What do you think? It would be nice to have reply from some parallels-guy, but others too

 

#11: isight support

Isight support is top wish for me!

JW