Found Footage: VMWare Fusion To Bring 3D Hardware Acceleration
We've all been waiting patiently for Parallels to deliver on their promise to add hardware accelerated 3D graphics support in their Intel Mac virtualization solution, Parallels Desktop. Apparently, however, competitor VMware already has some working code. The above video, featuring 3D accelerated gaming, appeared recently on Youtube, and now it seems that a VMware employee is confirming that for some time VMware has contained a "semi-hidden switch" for activating 3D support on the Linux and Windows versions. Since VMware's still beta Mac product, VMware Fusion, is built on the same codebase as VMware Workstation 6, it too will support Direct X 8.1 (as demonstrated in the video). They are apparently working towards an internal goal of supporting Direct X 9 and thus Vista's Aero. As much as I like Parallels Desktop, this just confirms it: competition is good! Now get back to work Parallels!
Thanks Mark!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-10-2007 @ 11:31AM
Tom said...
Awesome! I am way excited to see that there is some headway being made in this area. Hopefully VMWare and parallels will keep going with 3D hardware acceleration so I can play Team Fortress 2 on my mac this summer... hehe.
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2-10-2007 @ 11:51AM
jeff said...
I guess we have a winner and it's not parallels as much as I love the software.
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2-10-2007 @ 11:52AM
GPessia said...
:) good
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2-10-2007 @ 2:34PM
Peter Krantz said...
Nice! This will make gaming on the Mac a much better experience (users can buy the regular PC version of a game). I wonder how it will affect game developers that have made a living converting games to the mac? I guess that business is doomed...
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http://www.peterkrantz.com/
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2-10-2007 @ 3:56PM
Dan Spielman said...
im looking forward to vaporware rendering for Duke Nukem Forever!
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2-10-2007 @ 4:26PM
Adam said...
Fantastic news! Being able to play my PC games on my lovely new iMac is great. No more can people say “yeah, the mac looks nice, but you can’t run games on it”. Now I can play my old games using ScummVM, and now my new ones with VMWare or Parallels! Why go back to a PC now?
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http://wilcosworld.co.uk/
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2-11-2007 @ 3:59AM
Mark D. said...
I remember altering a config file to enable 3d accel in VMWare for windows two years back, good to see that was kept in and carried over (and hopefully improved some, as a 9500Pro came in barely at the speed of a Gf3 ti200 at the time when running in a VM with ample resources.)
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