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Running Windows Apps on my iMac!

Discussion in 'Formats & External Tools' started by bigkahuna, Oct 12, 2006.

  1. bigkahuna

    bigkahuna

    Joined:
    Apr 30, 2006
    Posts:
    5,434
    I just downloaded the demo version of Parallels Desktop ( http://www.parallels.com/ ) and my immediate impression is "-WOW-, this is very cool".

    Installation was super easy and I'm booting from a "stripped down" version of Windows XP Pro (less than 300 MB) and most things are fairly zippy. The website says that it doesn't support 3D graphics, but as the attached screenshots prove, that "ain't exactly the case"!

    First thing I tried to install, Ultimate Unwrap 3D ( http://www.unwrap3D.cm/ ) worked like a charm! Seems just as fast as it is on my old PC, so if it's running slower than native mode I'll never know ;)

    Next I tried that new terrain creation tool, "Earth Sculptor" and it runs, but it's pretty slow. I've got a ton of PC based utilities I'm dying to try and would make my life on a Mac so much easier.

    Incidently, with a simple key combination, you can flip your PC window to full screen. Ultimate Unwrap 3D runs fine in full screen but Earth Sculptor is pretty sluggish. From what I've seen, I don't think you'll want to run any AAA 3D games on Parallels yet, but simple (but useful) OpenGL utilities seem to work fine.
     

    Attached Files:

  2. Morgan

    Morgan

    Joined:
    May 21, 2006
    Posts:
    1,223
    Neat!

    I think they mean 3D hardware acceleration is not supported. The same was true of Virtual PC emulating x86 on PowerPC... and that didn't stop me from running Windows on a G3 to make maps for Descent 3. Even with textures turned on, software rendering was surprisingly usable.
     
  3. NicholasFrancis

    NicholasFrancis

    Joined:
    Apr 8, 2005
    Posts:
    1,587
    Heck - that would actually be great for photoshop
     
  4. guategeek_legacy

    guategeek_legacy

    Joined:
    Jun 22, 2005
    Posts:
    659
    I wonder how Maya would run, probably slower than through rosetta. I just hope its usable in some way, now I just got to wait 15 days for my Mac Pro. Jeff
     
  5. bigkahuna

    bigkahuna

    Joined:
    Apr 30, 2006
    Posts:
    5,434
    Just an update:

    I wanted to change the icon for a Windows game I created in Unity, so I tried installing the demo version of "Microangelo" ( http://www.microangelo.us/ ) on my iMac. Ran like a champ using Parallels Desktop.

    I've had so much good luck with Parallels that I decided to push it and try running the game also. Son-of-a-gun, it ran! It ran slow as heck, had some graphics issues (the screen text color was inverse), but there it was, a Windows version of my Unity game playing on my iMac.

    What do you know...
     
  6. forestjohnson

    forestjohnson

    Joined:
    Oct 1, 2005
    Posts:
    1,370
    Thats really neat. If 3D worked better on it maybe torque would actually be an actual alternative. Oops, what am I saying?!? :p