@CooperDToo: Call and ask. They will bend and you will get it for free.

jdhuck

I picked up CrossOver when Giz was listing it as free... which it was. I am rather impressed. Although, getting older apps to run can be somewhat of a traumatic experience.

Axilon

@Akiyia: It's VMware for me in the future then.

CooperDToo

@Noobs-R-Us: Parallels and Fusion both leave their stations 150 miles apart. Parallels 4 is traveling 50% faster than parallels 3, but parallels 3 is 4 times the square root of 7 slower than VMware fusion. If both trains run parallel to each other, where will the conductors high-five?

lpranal

well now...i guess i know what im getting this chirstmas... 4 gb of ram and parallells for my macbook :D

syrian_gamer

I stick with Virtualbox for now. Parallels is a good product, but they left a bad taste in my mouth after supporting them with a purchase for windows & linux. They pretty much ditched all of their original customers to make the mac version. Mac version is up to 4.0 and the original version it is based on, is still stuck at 2.2 and has been for several years.

Maybe they feel the windows & linux versions are mature, cheap, and don't need no stinkin upgrades. But I have no reason to use Parallels over Virtualbox 2

helfrez

I won't give Parallels another dollar. They promised DirectX 9.0 for Parallels 3 and never delivered. They also never delivered on the SMP support promised at MWSF '07. Meanwhile, Fusion was a free upgrade to 2.0 for all customers. WTF Parallels?

radeon21

@dustin91: Forgot, it's called CrossOver.

dustin91

@Serolf Divad: I'm finally able to switch back to Mac next month, and want to investigate software from CodeWeavers that lets you run some Windows apps without actually installing Windows.

dustin91

@CooperDToo: See VMware likes it's existing customers. Offering them free upgrades from older versions to new versions. Unlike Parallels....

Akiyia

But will it be better than Fusion? We know that Fusion was much better than Parallels 3.

Noobs-R-Us

@Serolf Divad: Just as much as you need a licensed copy of Windows to run on a PC.

rjp

@Serolf Divad:
Yes, you do, sadly.

xThadd

@homerjay- Smiling politely:
No, although they do roughly the same thing.

xThadd

and I just bought this on August 25th ugh

CooperDToo

But do you need a licensed copy of windows on top of that?

Serolf Divad

not bad at all

jayp0411

I just ordered my first MacBook to replace my old powerbook and MacConnection was giving away Fusion. Is it the same thing as Parallels?

homerjay- Smiling politely

@Kaiser-Machead's Cookie-Powered LEGO Machine: Seriously. If you plan on doing anything processor intensive you really should be boot camping it. Nice thing about parallels is that if you install boot camp first, you can create a visualization in llels.

Virtualization is fine and all when you need to do something quickly in windows or linux but nothing beats boot camp for the serious stuff.

Redstripe8

@Noobs-R-Us: I get VMWare products free through my employer. I installed and ran Fusion 2 and found it okay, but a bit inelegant and unstable. Bought Parallels 3 and found it both more elegant and stable, and thus it has become my chosen virtualization environment. This is perhaps not the norm, I don't know. But for me, the statement that Fusion is "much better" or even "better" doesn't hold water.

That said, I don't think $40 is a reasonable upgrade price for a virtualization product. I've no doubt it'll be better and if I were a gamer I might find the DX stuff compelling, but it doesn't seem to justify the cost. Plus, as one poster mentioned, they did promise DX9 support for Parallels 3...

ptyork

@kuba.la: If you have issues with gaming on a virtual environment, then my suggestion is to just play native on a dual boot.

Kaiser-Machead's Cookie-Powered LEGO Machine

I have Parallels 3, and it disappointed me because when I tried to instal and play any PC game via it it just didnt work. I even tried worms amragedon and it didnt work. Is there any explanation why? And is there any way how to play PC games on mac?

kuba.la

@radeon21: directX 9 and SMP is in 4.0

The Chad

Thats awesome....yayyyy bit torrent

NFLBLitze1

@helfrez: 4.0 is built on brand-new technology that they used in their server software, which is mac and windows/linux. Seems probable that the win/linux versions will be updated soon as well.

The Chad

DX10? They give no game power, I give no money.

hds272

@russdanger: That's quite the metaphor.

shockwaver

@Axilon: I've never successfully run anything in Crossover. I did get Guild Wars working on my wifes mac with Crossover Games.. but nothing on my own machine.

Same with Wine in linux, I might get something to open, but it'd be unusable.

shockwaver

Cool, I'll be upgrading mine tonight!

aussie

@ptyork:

Fusion is a much better product... if you tweak it. OF course as a VMware partner, I'm biased. :)

Gervy

@The Chad:

That's the point - they promised these features in 3.x and never delivered; some of us bought 3.0 because of the promise.

notfred

Parallels - for Mac users who act like fanboi's, shout at the top of their lings about how their Macs are beter than PC's... and then run XP anyhow after they remember that Macs suck for any business productivity.

Gervy

@dustin91: I tried it, its ok but its not exactly zippy and it can't run more hardcore stuff like Visual Studio

hired_geek

@homerjay- Smiling politely: Also VMWare Fusion is a lot better....

hired_geek

@The Chad:

As I said, they were promised for 3.0. I paid for 3.0 and I'm not paying for 4.0 to get the features promised for 3.0.

[web.archive.org]

radeon21

Too little too late...

I had to pay to upgrade to version 3 - now they want more money!

I don't think so, I only used for 2 things:

1. Website testing
2. Flashing my SE phone

mrzippy

Parallels makes my Photoshop move like a pregnant cow climbing a ladder backwards with an anchor chain in it's mouth.

russdanger

@Gervy: Are you for real? I use Fusion 2 and Vista 32 simply because I have one single piece of software that MUST run through Vista. It won't function in Vista 64, or XP 64. Vista/XP 32 ONLY.

I don't see any similar issues with Mac software. 1 binary runs on ALL macs.

But yeah, you're SO right... you Windows guys are so productive. Wow. God I wish I was you. I often dream of being a productive Windows lover and clicking 'Allow' 8 times to run the sys control panel. And awesome little paper clip guy! He was uber-productive when he wasn't infecting systems with viruses!

Yep, no doubt about it... you're productive! And a tool bag to boot!

jriga

@hired_geek: I just need it to things like Access and maybe Ruckus Music. How do those work on CrossOver?

The Parallels 3 I bought has been complete shit and incredibly slow. Waste of $90.

MBPro

I've been beta testing version 4 for the past 2 months, and it's better than 3.
I have a duo-core, 1.83ghz imac with 2gb ram, and it still gives me a bit of trouble switching between windows and leopard.
Really, it's just about 5 seconds of lag when switching environments. Nothing major.

I also use crossover and am now going to try virtualbox 2.

We'll see how it goes.

ottermann

I'm totally over Parallels. Aside from checking Windows browsers for site dev, it has no real purpose for me. When I am working on my Mac I like to stay there. When I am working on my Windows PC I like to stay there as well.

NagChampa

@radeon21:

[digg.com]

radeon21

@Gervy: defensive much?

Ask yourself, "why am I here posting"?

I vote disemvowelment for Gervy.

iomatic

apparently its not ready for prime time, lots of upgrader'rs are having issues - see forums

jupiterfish

I like Fusion better. And the latest version just rocks.

spectator101

Virtual Box bayby!

[www.virtualbox.org]

Why pay for the cow when you can get the milk for free?

thecman

@he who still uses a sony clie, and once called himself rimp...: paralells 4*

he who still uses a sony clie, and once called himself rimplestultskin

@hired_geek: fusion is more resource-friendly, parallels does more.

both of them were made with the idea of running a virtual machine inside of OS X, both of them run on intel macs, both of them are used more often than not for windows XP, but can support other OSes also, and both of them have some way of letting your windows apps (and taskbar) appear directly on your desktop, if having a taskbar and an OS X dock together on one screen is your thing.

parallels 3 is going on my macbook the second i get said macbook. as much as i despise windows, i don't want to leave myself in the dark as far as windows-only apps go.

he who still uses a sony clie, and once called himself rimplestultskin

@russdanger: Why not just use the Mac version of Photoshop?

twilight-arc

@hds272: Why do you need DX10? Most of the best games still only ask for DX9. DX10 never really lived up to its promises.

twilight-arc

@thecman: Yeah, but does it support DirectX and SMP? I doubt it.

JRo

@jriga: 'I don't see any similar issues with Mac software. 1 binary runs on ALL macs.'

It's ok if you are on Leopard, anything older and you have the same issue, although I should really not being a cheap skate and but 10.5!

hired_geek

@MBPro: Office applications tend to be fine, I was hoping it would be a little quicker than DarWINE, but overall it has been a slightly easier yet similar experience.

hired_geek

@he who still uses a sony clie, and once called himself rimp...:
Fusion has had better 3d support. I've been able to play Half Life 2 and run Maya in Fusion for most of this year.

jwrose

mac users want to use windows... Windows users want to use windows..

... makes me wonder

Cyfer911

@ptyork: If you do a search of Parallels vs. Fusion on Google, you'll see that most people who have used both like Fusion better because it's a better product. I don't know if Fusion would be able to keep the victory with the new Par 4.0 though...

Noobs-R-Us

@kuba.la: I played CoD 2 on an iMac running XP using Fusion 2. It supports Direct X 9.0c and does a decent job of it, too. It definitely does not give max performance like a real PC or a boot-camped Mac would, though.

ezman

@Gervy: Thanksfully I don't need to do any "business productivity" on my Mac at home.

scotth0

@syrian_gamer: That's what I already have! I want to get 4.0 just to see if performance will really be better.

CutePuppyz

And still slower than Fusion...

Dave!

@ottermann: Really? Fusion switches almost immediately. I actually run it in it's own Space and then I can switch back and forth with no problems on my 2 GHz Macbook with 2 GB of RAM. I really like Fusion, it works well.

ezman

@Noobs-R-Us: If you search Google you can find out that Adolph Hitler still lives with his male Jewish lover in a cute little pink bunker in the Castro district.

I did my own Googling long ago and came across the same Goopinions that you did. I was excited by this because I got Fusion for free. I did not find the Goopinions to match my own experiences.

If you do your own evaluation you form your own opinions. For me Fusion didn't perform well, losing network connectivity, crashing occasionally and unexpectedly, and not handling sleep/wake cycles well at all. It also didn't seem to me that their incarnation of the "Coherence" concept worked nearly as well or as seamlessly. There were a couple of things I liked better, but for me, Parallels was the better option. That is my opinion based on my actual experience.

To say something is a "better product" implies that you are using metrics to make that determination. By my metrics, I found Parallels to be better. If by your metrics, Fusion is better, then dandy. Certainly it should be coming from a 500 pound gorilla that has so much experience with virtualization across so many platforms.

I'm not a fanboy by any stretch. I'm not spending $40 to upgrade Parallels and I'll certainly switch to Fusion 3 if it is better. But I'm also not a slave to other's opinions.

@Gervy: what "tweaks?"

ptyork

@russdanger: Listen to twilight-arc you should. You can get Photoshop cross-platfrom upgraded from Adobe for *FREE*.

spaceman37

I swapped to Fusion because Parallels kept crashing my mac, as a whole, and screwing with my network settings in unfriendly ways. I will give it a try after they release the first patch.

In terms of patches, I am still waiting for the first one for Fusion 2 . . . it still does not recognize command keys when in Unity mode without a three second delay.

maztec

woohoo free upgrade

jcraig

i also use this for website dev to make sure i have full cross browser, cross platform compatibilty. i like the new version...

i found that virtual box consistently crashed my adobe cs4, didn't try fusion tho.

props_nyc

ha ha they nee to make a parallels that makes windows it self run 50% better

adam-m

@russdanger: Photoshop & Illustrator run fine on my MBP via Parallels, but Captivate & Premiere Elements are crap. They screwed me out of my 3.0 upgrade, too. Boo Parallels!

SF_iris

@hired_geek: Thanks. I'm only using Parallels so I can do some business class stuff on my laptop. I also use it to get around some DRM lol.

MBPro

@jwrose: i wasn't aware of that, thanks.

i've given up on PC gaming and content creation, my computer right now has a bargain basement card with a radeon X300, only because i got it for free. so, for what i use a computer for, i'd rather have parallels. but i guess serious gamers and graphic editors will disagree.

he who still uses a sony clie, and once called himself rimplestultskin

@mrzippy:

2. Flashing my SE phone

Does it scream? Look away? Giggle and point?

Sorry, couldn't help it.

USB_Humping_Dog

Is it just me or does Parallels release versions too often? I mean the Intel transition happened in the beginning of 2006 and less than three years later they're at version 4? Have they charged to upgrade each version or is it a new thing for version 4?

Kaoro

@jdhuck: I tried, they will not.

CooperDToo

@he who still uses a sony clie, and once called himself rimplestultskin: Fusion's VMs are also more portable-- if you have need or desire to, you can pop them off that box and dupe them onto other macs, or run them from Windows or Linux boxes via VMware Workstation, Player or Server, or even VMware ESX Server-- though that might require that you wait until the next version comes out.

KirstynConverse

@russdanger: why would you use photoshop in windows if you have OSX?

b3m87