OS X to enjoy full-speed Windows gaming emulation
I suppose emulation is the wrong word to use since it’s clearly more complex than that, and the popular term seems to be “virtualisation”, but it at least makes the headline understandable by most. Basically there’s an application for Mac OS X called Parallels which allows you to run Windows within OS X, which is of course preferable to dual booting whenever you want to do something in Windows. It’s a fairly established piece of kit and there’s a lot of hype surrounding it on Digg and whatnot.
The only problem is of course that it’s literally running Windows within the Mac operating system, so there’s inevitable slowdown as a result. Apparently this isn’t destined to always be the case though, as a new post on the official Parallels blog describes:
“Fast 3D graphics support via support for OpenGL and DirectX. You’ll be able to run games at full speed without leaving your OS X desktop!”
Sounds too good to be true really. Game support is pretty much one of the only deal breakers (apart from the overpriced hardware) with Macs for many people, since the application scene has changed dramatically during the past several years and now has provisions for most users out there. Being able to run games within OS X like this would be a massive step forward for the system and it’ll be very interesting if they can stay true to their word.
Pretty cool, but I don’t get what the problem is with just dual-booting. It’s perfectly convenient, since if I plan on playing a game I boot Windows, otherwise I just let OS X boot up for everything else. It’s not like it takes more than a couple of seconds anyway *shrug*
Still would be slick.