Should You Buy Parallels 4.0? Download Parallels for Free and See!

By Jim on November 16th, 2008

I have the earlier version of Parallels as well as VMWare on my Macs. Initially I was very pro-Parallels but VMWare has seduced me. The 4.0 version of Parallels is out now though. I haven’t used it so I can’t comment on the performance but it seems like they are moving in the right direction.

Let’s skip straight to the numbers. Parallels Desktop 4.0 now has 50 percent faster performance than the previous version of the software, according to the company. Additionally, the team has improved upon battery life when using Parallels on a notebook, giving users back about 20 percent of their typical battery life while running a virtual machine. We’ll be testing out these claims to see just how true they are in our own review of Desktop 4.0, but for now, we’re optimistic.

In addition to the performance improvements, Parallels has made improvements to the hyervisor engine and memory overcommit features. Version 4.0 of Desktop now has support for four-way SMP, and experimental support for eight-way SMP. As mentioned above (and as we saw in September), the new version has support for DirectX 9 and OpenGL 2.0, but video graphics support has also been upped to 256MB. “This is comfortable for at least casual use of gaming, but neither we nor VMware have nailed it just yet,” Kambhiranond told us. “If you’re a hardcore gamer, you’ll probably still be using a native install.”

Frankly though what I’ve read about it isn’t necessarily enough to get me to buy it. Both VMWare and Parallels stink for 3D gaming. They just do. Trust me, I tried it with a certain popular MMO game and they didn’t come close to performing well enough to enjoy the game. I had to run it via Boot Camp to get any decent performance out of it.

That’s not to say that Parallels doesn’t have value. It surely does. Just not for gaming.

If you are interested in buying Parallels, I’d say try it for free for your Mac or download it for free for your Windows or Linux computer and then see if it works well enough to pay for. They are offering a limited time offer promo upgrade price of $39.99 (regular is $49.99) on Parallel’s site.

It is very good if you need to run Windows on your Mac or Linux box. And it also comes in handy if you need Linux on Windows.