The biggest advantage of Windows over MacIntosh for market share isn't business applications, it is games. My wife loves old style arcade games. She subscribes to a service that allows her to try out games and buy one per month. When she got her Mac, she quit this for a while but didn't find a Mac replacement she liked. Some of the games won't install, requiring Active-X. But a lot of games install but either don't run or are very flaky in her Parallels virtual XP. (One seems to run OK, except her visible cursor isn't where the game thinks her cursor is). What can I tell her about being patient and waiting for Parallels upgrades for her games?
. The last word was "later this year". Hopefully she doesn't put intimacy clauses on delivery for you. .
Howard, Could I ask you to list here some of the old games which failed in Parallels? We will take a look.
I asked my wife, and she's not sure which games that have failed are those which appear obviously to be a Parallels problem. Except for one game, which is downloadable with trial versions from several sources - that is "Feeding Frenzy". She subscribes to RealArcade, and that's where she got her version. In that game, it runs, but the visible cursor is not where the logical cursor is, making it unplayable.
I don't have a version of Windows that I can use with Boot Camp. Apparently we need a non-upgrade version of XP with service pack 2 or better to install. With Parallels, I could use my upgrade version of XP by showing Windows my non-upgrade copy of Windows 98. If this changes, I will try to find out the best way to move my Windows applications over, having BootCamp available on occasion (using Parallels normally).
I've got a list of games that don't work I am a Parallels Partner and my client, who loves playing games, is frustrated because EVERY game that he just bought does not work. Here they are: USA Bass Championship (valusoft.com) Rapala Pro Fishing (Activision) In-Fishmerman (Bold Games - www.in-fisherman.com) Cabela's Outdoor Adventures (Activision) Silent Hunter III (Ubisoft) Pacific Fighters (Ubisoft) (may work?) My client has a MacPro 2 x 3 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon with 5GB of RAM. (Not too shabby). I would like to know Andrew response. Please feel free to email me directly when a post is made - [email protected].
macximize, Thank you for sharing this information. We will try to find and check these games. Which version of Parallels does he use?
Couple more games to add to the list... Hi, I'm running Parallels v3.x on a MacBook Pro. I'd like to add Stronghold 2 [(Firefly Studios). The software installs from the CD, but won't run from the "play" CD. Doesn't recognize it as an original disk, even though it is. I also tried to use the "play" CD as both .dmg and .iso disk images. I worked with Firefly Studio's tech support until they told me that the diagnostics said the graphics "Parallels Driver" was the problem. Since that's not working, I haven't loaded Stronghold Legends which I bought at the same time. The earlier Stronghold Crusader works fine. Thanks.
I'm always amazed how some people can throw incredible amounts of money in hardware just to **play**. In this specific case, with such a HW beast, I hardly understand why the client doesn't boot his machine in Windows native using bootcamp. Or why didn't he/she chose a slightly less powerful Mac for his/her work and bought a dumb little grey box just for gaming... But that is just my 2c and maybe not worth the discussion.
Nobody buys a Mac only to play - Windows machines and boxes hooked to TVs offer better opportunities for playing. But home computers are multi-function tools, so why not use some of its abilities for games? My wife needed Parallels for a business reason, but she also enjoys games. Boot Camp isn't yet an option unless we want to pay for a non-update version of Windows XP service pack 2 or later. Since her business needs are met with Parallels, and since she can run some of her games, Parallels was a good investment. If Boot Camp improves so that we can install our current version of Windows, we will switch to it - and still use Parallels for the convenience for most Windows applications.
Play is important I'm a graphic artist and a university student. My computer wears many hats. I used to have several computer and game systems in my house, but I can't afford to take up all that real estate (nor is it very attractive). I don't like the bootcamp option because I don't like to reboot to switch between systems, especially when I'm programming. Now I have a slim computer I can take with me that's powerful enough to can run multiple systems, so I'm taking advantage of that ability. I'm not having trouble with programming in MS Visual Studio, and I use Mac OS for many of my other work, play and communication tasks (I also work, play and communicate without the aid of a computer!). There are some games I enjoy that are no longer developed for the Mac, and are for Windows, so with Parallels, I may have the opportunity to play with the current versions of these games (Stronghold 2, and Stronghold Legends). The only problem I'm having with Parallels happens to be with these current versions of games, and they report that they can't locate the original disk when it's in the drive. This is not a life or career threatening problem, just an issue I'd like resolved before I spend any more money on games for Windows. Something that I thought had been fixed with the current version of Parallels, which is the main reason I paid to upgrade Parallels. The earlier version was working fine for me. "Want to run the hottest games and graphics applications? Run DirectX and OpenGL applications and games with Parallels Desktop 3.0 Run today’s most popular Windows-only 3D games and applications" is what the advertisement in my inbox says, and I'm disappointed that this isn't the case with these games.
Other games My wife gave me a list of Real Arcade games that won't play on her computer. I'm transcribing what she wrote down on a piece of paper: Spooky Manor - No Direct 3D devices Chocolatier - Vertical lines - Computer goes crazy, she has to shut down computer to stop it Video card does not support it. MysteryVille 2 - Can't init Direct 3D.
