Heads of Tech
Hey guys in this video we’ll be looking at Parallels 13, which in case you don’t know is a Virtual Machine Manager, allowing you to run Windows on a Mac, Linux on a Mac, a Mac on a Mac. The clever thing about it is you can run those other operating systems side by side with your Mac, without having to restart, unlike other solutions, and it runs pretty fast! Clever stuff.
WHERE TO BUY
https://vtudio.com/a/?parallels
TEST MACHINE
2016 13″ MacBook Pro, 3.3GHz i7, 16GB RAM.
INSTALLATION
Installation takes around 1 minute, you just download the dmg file from the website, install it, shutdown the previous version of Parallels if you have it running and that’s it.
TESTS
Now, we’ll be delving into the performance tests with it’s predecessor Parallels 12. The test unit I’m using is a 2016 MacBook Pro with TouchBar, to keep the test as fair as possible I started the tests with a fresh restart of the Mac, and ensured after the upgrade, all the Virtual Machines we’re fully updated before testing.
Opening Parallels – Parallels 12 was slightly faster
Starting up Windows – Parallels 13 was slightly faster
Starting up Ubuntu – Parallels 13 was slightly faster
Shutting down Windows – Parallels 12 was slightly faster
Pausing VM – Parallels 13 was slightly faster
Resuming VM – Parallels 12 was slightly faster
Opening Chrome – Parallels 12 was slightly faster
Opening Word – Parallels 12 was slightly faster
Opening 3DS Max – Parallels 12 was slightly faster
EFFICIENCY
Performance between the two were neck and neck, however I thought I’d dig deeper to see if any under the hood improvements were made. As you can see when playing a YouTube video, Parallels 13 used slightly less CPU usage and was more energy efficient. When playing in 3DS Max, the CPU usage were neck and neck, but I was getting a 5% better energy read out in Parallels 13. There ya go, you heard this here first.
GAMING
Unfortunately, I couldn’t get my Xbox Wireless controller working in any games through the VM. And, a few of the newer games refused to launch. I did manage to get some games up and running, and surprisingly, they actually were playable. This is Assassin’s Creed liberation running well. Batman Arkham City. Fifa 2013. All within a VM, the audacity.
BEST NEW FEATURES
– Resizing Windows is now smooth
– Higher quality window scaling
– Touchbar support
– Resource Usage slider – best feature
OVERALL
There’s a few more tests I would of loved to share with you, things like how you can run your own Boot Camp installation as a VM. You can run Linux as a VM which is ace for developers. Overall, if you’re on Parallels 12, it’s probably not worth upgrading yet, however the stand out feature for me is the new resource usage slider. I was able to edit this video with Windows running in the background on low resource usage with no problems. Things to improve would be Windows gaming support, out of the games I managed to get running, I was very happy with the performance, so hopefully with future updates Parallels can get more games supported.
FILMING TOOLS
https://vtudio.com/tools
MUSIC
Audionautix – Line of Fire
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