Can the guys or gals at Parallels give us any info on what the new 3D support in Parallels 3.0 will support please ? What version of DirectX is it and does it support Aero in Vista on a Macbook Pro or other? The reason I ask is Fusion by the competitors is in Beta and has 3D support of DirectX version 8.x only so that means only some older games will recognise and install. Without decent information and an offer supposidly from Parallels to get a cheaper upgrade we are rather left in the dark I for one won't upgrade till there is some more info as I am not inclined to be happy with an older version of DirextX I may pass on the Aero in Vista but to me Vista is a total dog under Parallels and mabe on a real PC too I am not sure on that one. So it seems for Vista to run well on Paralllels it really needs some good 3D support for Aero at a guess Thanks As always love the product just want a little more info
OpenGL and Direct X support in XP is what I've seen in the press releases. Many of the marketing guys are out of town at the trade show where all this stuff got announced, and the whole Parallels website seems completely hammered right now. Obviously they have created a lot of buzz.
Just found this on the 3.0 announcement page. "OpenGL and DirectX support Support for graphics hardware Vista Aero coming soon"
OK so no Vista Driver support so no Aero but it is "coming" wonder what that means ?and no info on Versions of DirectX
If Vista Aero, which requires minimum of DX9 hardware, is 'coming soon', then the initial version of Parallels 3.0 is implied to be supporting DX8 or less. Given that VMware Fusion beta supports DX8, Parallels would be pressured to deliver at least an equalizer. So my educated guess is that 3.0 will support DX8.
I hope it is better than that as I have tried Fusion running DirectX 8.x and it is severely limited with such an outdated version of directX
I think the problem of Fusion is that their DirectX support itself isn't so stable. In the case of real hardware, if you have DX8 capable graphics card, you'll still be able to run most games because even the games that were designed upwards to DX9 will fall back to DX8 features and run. DX8 capable cards DO run under DX9, just without DX9-specific features running in hardware acceleration. Therefore, saying that there's going to be DX8 support doesn't automatically imply 'severely limited'. It's Fusion that's 'severely limited'. We have to see how well Parallels has implemented 3D support.
Not too sure if you have tried Fusion or not but what I found that the few Wndows games I had and one Application though they where by no means the latest programs out and where over a year old or more when I went to install them Windows popped up a message telling me that my version of directX was not up to spec so I needed a later version 9.x or above.
That sounds more like the DirectX 9 runtime itself not being installed. In case of real hardware, DirectX 9 runtime can be installed even if you have DX7 hardware. If Windows running under Parallels VM can have DirectX 9 runtime installed, and Parallels could only pass through DirectX 8 level of instructions, that game would likely run.
I'm sure that someone from Parallels posted on this forum to say Direct X 9.0 and Open GL 5.1 is supported. I could be wrong though.
