I tested these three games using my 2011 15-inch MacBook Pro under OS X: Lord of the Rings Online, EverQuest 2, and Age of Conan. Of the three, Lord of the Rings Online ran the best, Age of Conan ran the worst, and EverQuest 2 ran “just ok.” Parallels 7 still does just Direct X 9, so games like Lord of the Rings that take advantage of Direct X 11 won’t run perfectly.

For benchmarks, I used my current Windows-on-a-Mac gaming setup, which involves both Apple’s own Boot Camp utility (which lets you run Windows natively) and CrossOver (which lets you run Windows apps in OS X without actually installing the Windows OS itself).

The good

The last time I looked at Windows gaming on the Mac, Parallels’s performance noticeably lagged behind the frame rates I got in CrossOver. With Parallels 7, frame rates in both were much closer, getting around 50 FPS in LotRO and 35-40 in EverQuest 2. And since you’re running games in basically a native environment, unlike in CrossOver, you can get games up and running with a minimum of fuss. CrossOver often requires extra configuration and patience to get games running. Also, if you’re close to filling up your Parallels drive, it’s easy to resize it.

I didn’t notice any obvious performance differences between Parallels accessing a Boot Camp partition or Parallels running off its own .pvm file (Parallels’ own native Windows installation container). Both seemed to give me the same frame rates and load times. Even when I put Parallels into a position for it not to succeed, like playing a game while using Handbrake to convert a video file, my MacBook didn’t come to a girding halt. While it was slower, I could still play the game.

The bad

I noticed one consistent issue in playing all the games: right-clicking with the trackpad to look around was uncontrollable. If I plugged in an external mouse, its right button worked just fine. I could get around this problem by adjusting my keybindings in-game to something funky like pressing alt-contol-arrow button, but that’s really a pain to get used to.

Also, you’re going to take a performance hit running in a virtual environment. Running the games in anything other than Full Screen mode (you can still alt-tab or Mission Control back to your OS X apps) in Parallels seemed to cause problems. I had numerous issues loading games past their login screen in Coherence mode; the same problems didn’t crop up nearly as often in Full Screen.

If you play any game or in any situation where reflexes or timing really matter, like a multiplayer shooter or during a raid in an MMO, I can’t recommend a virtualized solution at all. In those cases, you’ll need to be running the game in Boot Camp (or, OS X if you’re lucky and that’s an option).

The ugly

The bane of my computing existence is Windows’ activation process. Given the nature of my freelance work, I’m often blowing my activation limit and need to call Microsoft to get it reset. If you use Boot Camp and create a Parallels virtual from that, you’ll use up two activations.

Also, of all the games I looked at, Age of Conan ran horribly on Parallels, averaging out to about 8 FPS. I was getting 25 in Boot Camp, so it’s not like it’s a stellar performer anyway. I also noticed the avatars in Conan weren’t smooth, as I could see the polygons that made up their shapes under the skinning when running the game in Parallels.

Final thoughts

I’m pretty happy with Parallels 7 for gaming. Having current hardware has a lot to do with it, but Parallels seems to at least come close to the performance I’m used to from CrossOver, without the hassles. After a week or so of testing, I’m going to delete my CrossOver game installs and instead use Parallels for Windows gaming, and Boot Camp when I need to get really serious.

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Fusion 4 ships with Lion-specific features, and the ability to officially run a virtualized OS X machine for the first time, something which was introduced to virtualization rival Parallels with that software’s latest release. You can run either a Lion, Lion Server, Snow Leopard or Snow Leopard server virtualized machine using Fusion 4, which could be very useful if you’ve upgraded to Lion but want to use Snow Leopard to access software or features that you miss from the older version of OS X.

Of course, you can still also install Windows on a Mac using Fusion 4, and VMware has added a bunch of features that make using Windows right inside your OS X desktop even more seamless. For instance, you can add Windows apps to Launchpad, managed them as separate application windows in Mission Control, and also use them in full-screen mode and with OS X gestures.

Other advantages new to the latest version of Fusion include significant performance improvements, with VMware claiming 2.5x faster 3-D graphics on contemporary multicore Macs, as well as general improvements to how virtualized apps perform running side-by-side with native ones. You can check out the full list of changes in VMware Fusion 4 via the official site.

Some people prefer Parellels, and some VMware Fusion, but Fusion 4 offers a significant advantage for existing fans and switchers alike; a much cheaper price tag. Right now, Fusion 4 is available at a promotional price of $49.99, which compares very favorably to the $79.99 that Parallels is charging. Fusion customers who bought version 3 on or after July 20, 2011 are also eligible for a free upgrade.

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Hot on the heels of the release of VMWare Fusion 3, the folks at Parallels have released Parallels Desktop 5, matching the features of VMWare Fusion 3 and adding some new ones to boot. You can get a quick overview of the newest features in the Parallels press release.

Parallels Desktop 5 costs $79.99 for the full package, or $49.99 to upgrade from either Parallels Desktop 3 or 4. Parallels is also offering a free upgrade key for those who bought Parallels 4 after Oct. 1. This is also valid for Parallels 4 purchases up until Dec. 31. Customers must retrieve this before Jan. 15, 2010.

Besides the obvious two features, fully supporting Snow Leopard and Windows 7, some of the awesome new features are best shown in screenshots.

Finally we have the Aero interface! This works in all view modes, not just full screen.

When in fullscreen mode, you can now configure a HotCorner to easily switch back to the OS X side with just your mouse.

The new Crystal View is a modified Coherence view, hiding all icons in the Dock and the OS X Parallels menu bar, moving access to menu items and a newly created folder icon in the Dock containing all your windows shortcuts.

The new MacLook feature automatically installs a custom Windows Theme (similar to those offered by products such as StarDocks’ Window Blinds) giving all your windows applications an OS X look and feel.

If you combine MacLook with Coherence View or Crystal View, the lines between native OS and virtual OS become even more blurred.

More importantly than all of that, its super fast. For me, it’s much much faster than VMWare Fusion 3. For the last few months, I’ve been in the closed beta program for Parallels 5, and the lack of communication and new builds had made us a bit weary. Sure enough, yesterday it released version 5 with none of the testers having a clue, and there are some new features we’d never seen (such as MacLook, multi-gesture support and Crystal view).

When VMWare Fusion 3 was released, I downloaded the trial and was impressed at how easy it was to migrate a copy of my Parallels Windows 7 VM over to Fusion. I wasn’t as impressed, however, at the sluggish performance of VMWare Fusion 3 when the VM loaded up. Running MS Access 2007 and Visual Studio windows became lethargic. The same operations under Parallels 5 just flew along with no issues. It’s important to note that I had the same basic VM configuration across both (1.5GB RAM, 1 CPU allocated), using Windows 7 Professional 64-bit edition. Your mileage may vary, as this was most certainly not a scientific comparison study.

Parallels has also published a video of Parallels Desktop 5 in action.

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VMware Fusion 3 for Mac is now available. That’s right, new virtualization software for your Mac, conveniently timed for the release of Windows 7. Actually, it’s very likely the release of VMware’s latest iteration of its OS virtualization software, Fusion 3, got its release date precisely because of Microsoft’s street date for its latest operating system, because Fusion 3 is specially designed to support Windows 7.

Fusion 3 comes just over a year after VMware released Fusion 2, in September 2008. A year is a long time in the life cycle of a piece of software, and in the case of Fusion, the lapsed time between versions shows in the numerous improvements made to the program that allows you to run another OS on a virtualized machine inside of OS X.

As mentioned above, Fusion 3 goes out of its way to make sure your Windows 7 virtualization experience is as seamless as possible. That includes things like support for Windows Aero, Flip 3D and Windows Aero Peek visualization effects, and the ability to run OpenGL 2.1 and DirectX 9.0c, which should help with some of your gaming needs, especially if you’re into older MMOs that don’t have a native Mac client.

VMware’s sales tactics for Fusion 3 also focus on recent switchers who are having trouble adjusting to their new and unfamiliar environment on a Mac. For example, the improved Migration Assistant helps you copy your entire PC onto a virtual machine on your new Mac hardware quickly and easily using an Ethernet connection. VMware goes as far as to say it works “just like” Apple’s own Migration Assistant for setting up or restoring a Mac-based computer.

There’s also a lot of improvements under the hood, including a new 64-bit native core engine for Macs that can handle it. That means that Snow Leopard users will be getting the most bang for their buck with the latest version. Memory usage on all Vista and Windows 7 machines is also greatly reduced, so in general, you should experience much snappier performance.

Finally, a lot of improvements have been made to VMware Fusion’s Mac Unity mode, which makes the virtualization experience much more integrated than it is in its default, windowed configuration. The list of new features is long, but some highlights include the ability to search for Windows apps like Mac ones, assigning the new always-on Applications menu to a hotkey of your choosing, accessing recently opened documents using Windows apps, full Exposé and Dock Exposé support for all Windows apps, and 3D gaming/1080p video playback while in Unity mode.

Fusion 3 retails for $79.99, but if you’re upgrading from Fusion 1 or 2, you qualify for a special price of $39.99, or $59.99 with a subscription that includes major version upgrades for the next 12 months. Judging by the last upgrade schedule which saw Fusion 3′s release falling one month outside that bubble, that subscription option isn’t looking all that appealing. If you’re picking it up, let us know how you find it.

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In the ever leap-frogging world of desktop virtualization for the Mac, VMware has announced that it will make its next hop (I won’t venture to say who’s ahead at this juncture) by the end of October…or the 27th, if you go by its blog. So in just a few weeks, version 3 of Fusion will be available for mass consumption. Some of the announced features are as follows.

The big news, of course, is Snow Leopard optimization, where Fusion jumps onto the 64-bit bandwagon. This should bring some interesting performance boosts to those who use virtualized environments heavily. As a regular Windows VM user (by necessity) I’m really looking forward to this!

If, on the other hand, you’re a Windows user stuck in a Macintosh machine, you’ll be glad to know that Fusion 3 is the first to support Windows Aero and Flip 3D features found in Windows 7. From my perspective, this is cool, but when I run Windows in a VM, it’s bare bones, and just for the program or two that I require. But I’m sure this capability will make some people quite happy.

There is also greatly improved graphics support. I’m not much of a PC gamer, and as such don’t follow these terms very much, so straight from the release, VMware Fusion 3 is the “first to support DirectX 9 Shader Model 3.0 3D graphics and now adds support for OpenGL 2.1.” Sounds neat.

Presumably taking a cue from the competition, there’s “Switching Made Easy,” so that you can now migrate to OS X by converting your Windows installation to a VMware Fusion image, easier than ever before. (My guess is that someone will make it even easier if we wait a few more months. Rib-bit.)

And there are other optimizations, too, along with a nicely redesigned way of accessing the Windows Start menu without having need for the Task bar onscreen.

All in all, it sounds like a set of updates to an already solid virtualization platform. If you’re in the market for such a product, version 3 of Fusion will cost $79.99. If you’re a current paid user, an upgrade will set you back $39.99. I use both Parallels and Fusion (at work and home, respectively) and like both well enough. I’ve been using the Parallels 5 beta, and it’s pretty nice. But while I haven’t had the chance to toy with Fusion 3 yet, I’m quite intrigued, and will be getting the upgrade. If you’ve already invested in one camp or the other, I can’t say (yet) if jumping ship for the other would be a worthwhile investment. Check back later after I’ve got my hands on the updates, as I’ll try to put some perspective to this topic.

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A Russian business newspaper is reporting today that venture capital firm Almaz Capital Partners acquired a 5 percent stake in popular virtualization software vendor Parallels. The stake was purchased from its previous owners, Insight Venture Partners, for $11 million.

The fund used to finance Almaz’s purchase was seeded in July of last year with $30 million from networking infrastructure vendor Cisco. While there’s no word on what led Almaz to invest specifically in Parallels, reports indicate “plans to invest $100 million in growth stage Russian software and IT companies over the next year.”

Consumer- and enterprise-level virtualization is a hot topic in the tech community these days, with Parallels, VMware Fusion, and Apple’s Boot Camp all vying for the top spot in the hearts of users wanting multiplatform capabilities on their Macs. Though Fusion edged out Parallels in our comparison, Parallels gained ground in a recent major update that includes experimental support for Windows 7 and supports Snow Leopard as primary and guest operating system.

Running QuickBooks for Windows in a virtual machine (VM) on your Mac is often the best way to get all the advanced features of QuickBooks that are only available in the Windows version and still have fun using your Mac the way nature intended, running OS X Leopard. If you choose to go this route, here are a few tips and tricks to help you run QuickBooks smoothly inside a VM.

Clean Installs Are Always Best

I know it’s tempting to just run VMware Converter or Parallels Transporter and just suck the contents of your current PC into a VM. For many of us, we only really need to run one or two critical Windows applications and everything on our old PC is way more than we really need. In that situation, you’ll thank me later for telling you to take the time to set up a clean and lean VM that does exactly what you want it to do, without all the cruft and junk that often creeps into a Windows install. Load Windows, load your anti-virus software, and load QuickBooks.

Always Quit the App

Suspending your VM is a fantastic way to cut down the time it takes to relaunch later. Suspending a VM is a lot like putting your computer to sleep; the current state is saved and the VM is ready to pick up right where you left off. In order to do this for a VM, the contents of RAM for the guest OS are written to a file and then restored when the VM is opened again. The problem is that sometimes restoring the contents of RAM doesn’t work right. In this event, you must restart the VM and whatever you were working on (that hasn’t been saved to disk) is lost.

While I often suspend a VM when I’m done with it, I always quit my running applications so that they have a chance to write their data files to the VM disk file and close them properly. This is especially important with QuickBooks. You really don’t want a problem with restoring a suspended VM to hose your company file. You are always better off to quit QuickBooks so it can close its data file properly and then suspend the VM. If the OS cannot be restored, at least the QuickBooks file in the virtual disk is still good and you have a much better chance of rebooting your VM and finding that all is still perfectly fine with your accounting info.

If you want to access your virtual disk from the Mac side when the VM is not running, then you will probably want to shut down the VM too so you can use VMDK Mounter for VMware Fusion or Parallels Explorer to mount the virtual disk to the Mac desktop.

Use Shared Folders for Backups

Backups of QuickBooks company files are so important that the ability to create them can be automated to run every time you quit the application. I can’t stress enough how important it is to enable this feature and make a backup copy every time you use the application. Here’s my absolute favorite trick for using this feature in a VM: point the backup location to a shared folder that is visible on the Mac side. I usually recommend that you create a folder called “backup” or “quickbooks” in your Documents folder on the Mac side. Configure your virtualization software to allow the guest OS to have read/write access to this folder. Now you can tell QuickBooks to write its backup file to this shared folder every time you run the app. Don’t let Windows have read/write access to your entire Home folder though. A virus may cause Windows to randomly delete or rewrite files and you want to limit the potential damage.

Why do this? Well, now you have a backup of your company file that is accessible to the Mac side of your computer. Because the virtual disk itself appears as a huge monolithic file to the Mac, you may want to exclude it from Time Machine so that you don’t save copies of this 6-8GB file every hour. If you have a copy of your company file in your Documents folder, your Mac will take a snapshot of this file every hour and make another copy on your Time Machine drive. If you have MobileMe, you can configure the included backup application to routinely make a copy of this company file to your iDisk storage. This is a great way to take advantage of all the ways your Mac protects your files for you and apply that to your critical Windows files as well.

Best of Both Worlds

The real key here is to use the benefits of virtualization and avoid the pitfalls. These simple tips and tricks will help you enjoy running QuickBooks for Windows on your Mac and really leverage the advantages of the approach.

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You may remember that in comparing Parallels to VMware Fusion 2.0, we favored the latter fairly decisively. This doesn’t change my own opinion, but developers and others looking specifically to be able to run as many different types of virtual environments as possible might disagree.

The update contains a long list of improvements, of which new OS support is only a small part. Other new features include support for Apple remote disks, a silent start mode for Coherence, and direct dragging of Windows files to Mac apps in the Dock. Parallels also now claims increased battery life on portable Macs, owing to improvements in CPU usage. Finally, a number of speed-oriented improvements were also introduced, including DirextX 9.0 with Shaders Model 2 support, Intel SSE4 support for better media playback, and faster suspend and resume of virtual machines.

Note that VMware Fusion 2.0 does not yet support either Microsoft’s Windows 7 or Apple’s Snow Leopard, which are both still in closed developer beta. Look for support from Fusion soon, though, now that the gauntlet has been thrown by Paralells. Parallels is available for $79.99, or $49.99 if you’re upgrading from an existing version.

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This release also includes support for 64-bit guests on 32-bit host operating systems and experimental 3D acceleration. Networking performance has been boosted and there have been many smaller bug-fixes and enhancements.

VirtualBox has support for a wide range of guest operating systems and there is an extensive number of live, pre-built images (VDIs) that are ready to run.

If you only have occasional need to run Windows, Linux or alternative operating systems but do not want to pay for a full VMware or Parallels license, VirtualBox is a great alternative.

Be sure to check out their Mac-specific forums if you run into any quirks or difficulties. I’ve found the community to be very helpful and responsive and run a few flavors of Linux in VDIs primarily to be able to take them anywhere (VirtualBox is cross-platform). While it does not have as extensive of an integration between the guest and host systems and there is no support for OS X virtualization yet, VirtualBox is a solid product with a promising future.

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Much has been written about VMware in recent months, with the release of Fusion 2.0. The software provides operating system virtualization, allowing you to run your favorite Windows applications and devices on any Intel-based Mac.

Today, until 11:59 PM Pacific Time, the VMware e-store is running a deal for 50% off of VMware Fusion. We recently covered a 25% discount promotion, which pales in comparison to the huge offer today.

To take advantage of the promotion, you need to enter the coupon code “CyberMondayDeal” (without the quotes!), at checkout. The 50% discount is available worldwide, but is a one day only offer — you’ll need to act quickly to take advantage of the deal.

The main two competitors to VMware Fusion are Parallels and Virtual PC, both offering similar functionality. An aggressive push is being made from VMware at present, and for Mac users in the U.S. and Canada, it is interesting to note that this 50% discount can be used in conjunction with a concurrent offer of a $30 rebate for those switching from Parallels or Virtual PC. If you own either of these packages, you’re able to pick up VMware Fusion for a mere $10 (unfortunately, this offer isn’t available for international users).

If you are in the market for a virtualization package, now would be an excellent time to make a purchase. If you’re undecided upon which company to go with, our comparison of VMware Fusion 2 and Parallels Desktop 4 will provide an interesting read.

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