Recently, I thought of using Windows 10 but without having to switch my loyalty. I tried Apple’s Boot Camp software to install Windows on my Mac. But I didn’t find the software much user-friendly as I had to partition the hard drive to make space for the new operating system. Hence, I thought of giving a chance to an efficient virtual machine like Parallels Desktop 13. Much to my surprise, running Windows 10 on Mac using Parallels Desktop 13 is a lot easier, and you will really like using it!
For those unfamiliar, a virtual machine is basically a virtual simulation of a real machine, which allows you to run a full-fledged operating system on your computer without needing to partition the hard drive. More significantly, you are able to run both the macOS and Windows on your Mac at one go.
Buy Parallels Desktop 16 for Mac. Run Windows, Linux, or Popular Oses on your Mac. Buy New License or Upgrade Now. Parallels Desktop 13 for Mac release build 13.0.0 (42936) includes the following new features: Parallels Desktop® 13 for Mac is the simplest, most powerful solution for running Windows and Windows applications on Mac® without rebooting. For more information, see the Parallels Desktop 13 for Mac documentation. PARALLELS DESKTOP 13 FOR MAC KEY GENERATORDesktop® 12 for Mac is the fastest, easiest, and most powerful solut. Much to my surprise, running Windows 10 on Mac using Parallels Desktop 13 is a lot easier, and you will really like using it! For those unfamiliar, a virtual machine is basically a virtual simulation of a real machine, which allows you to run a full-fledged operating system on your computer without needing to partition the hard drive.
How to Install Windows 10 on Mac Using Parallels Desktop 13
Want to have a go at Parallels Desktop? Great! But before jumping ahead with the process, you need to ensure your Mac meets the requirements. As always, make sure to back up your computer so that you remain on the safer side of the fence in case of any untoward incident.
Your Mac Must…
- Your Mac must have 850 MB of disk space on the boot volume
- It must have an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, Intel Core M or Xeon processor
- It must have minimum 4GB of memory; though 8GB would a preferable option
- It needs to have an additional disk space
- SSD drive would come very handy especially for boosting performance
- Your Mac must be running OS X Yosemite 10.10.5 or later
Ensure your Mac is compatible with Windows 10
- MacBook Pro (2012 and later)
- MacBook Air (2012 and later)
- MacBook (2015 and later)
- iMac (2012 and later)
- iMac Pro (2017 and later)
- Mac mini (2012 and later)
- Mac mini Server (Late 2012)
- Mac Pro (Late 2013)
More About the Software…
- Parallels Desktop comes at $79.99 for a standard license. Its Pro Edition and Business Edition are priced at $99.99 per year
- The company offers a free two-week trial. Hence, I would suggest you to first try out the free version of the software to ensure it ideally meets your needs before upgrading to the premium version
- Make sure you have a copy of Windows 10. If you don’t have Windows 10, you can get its copy from within Parallels Desktop
Once you have checked all the requirements, head over with the process:
Step #1. First off, you have to download Parallels Desktop 13 on your Mac.
After the program has been downloaded, double-click on the ParallelsDesktop.dmg file to open it.
Step #2. Now, double-click on Install in the Parallels Desktop window.
Click Open to confirm that you want to install Parallels Desktop.
Step #3. Next, you need to accept the License Agreement.
Step #4. Next up, enter Administrator Name and Password for your Mac.
After you have successfully installed Parallels Desktop installed, you will be directed to a page where you will get the option to download Windows 10.
Just in case you already have a copy of Windows 10, you have the option to skip the step. Just in case you don’t have it, click Install Windows.
Click Skip, if you have it.
Next, you have to click New from the Parallels Desktop drop-down menu. Then, choose your copy of Windows 10 from the available options.
Step #5. Now, you need to sign into your Parallels Desktop account. You get the option to create one if you don’t have an account. Once you have signed up for Parallels Desktop account, Windows 10 will appear in a new window.
Talking about the functionality, it seems very much like you are using a web browser with a virtual simulation of Windows 10 on top. Go ahead and give it a long spin! And don’t forget to let us know your valuable feedback as well as whether or not you’d like to go for its premium version.
That’s pretty much it, folks!
Wrap up:
Yes, macOS is widely considered to be more secure and efficient than Windows. But the gap between the two most popular operating systems has shrunk thanks to the arrival of several imposing features in Windows 10. What do you think of the competition between the two?
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For a Windows application that does lots of complex or 3D graphics, there are two popular Windows APIs used by the developers of these applications: DirectX or OpenGL. Together with the graphics card in your Mac, these APIs determine the performance of these applications in a Windows VM running in Parallels Desktop® for Mac.
Since so many Windows CAD/CAM applications and Windows games use DirectX or OpenGL, we try to improve support for these two APIs in almost every Parallels Desktop major release. I focused on OpenGL in an earlier blog post, and here I will focus on DirectX.
DirectX
First a little background:
“Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces (APIs) for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay, DirectSound, and so forth. The name DirectX was coined as a shorthand term for all of these APIs (the X standing in for the particular API names) and soon became the name of the collection. …
“Direct3D (the 3D graphics API within DirectX) is widely used in the development of video games for Microsoft Windows and the Xbox line of consoles. Direct3D is also used by other software applications for visualization and graphics tasks such as CAD/CAM engineering. As Direct3D is the most widely publicized component of DirectX, it is common to see the names “DirectX” and “Direct3D” used interchangeably.”
[from Wikipedia]
There is a fascinating book about the behind-the-scenes story of the development of DirectX: “Renegades of the Empire: How Three Software Warriors Started a Revolution Behind the Walls of Fortress Microsoft” (Michael Drummond, Crown Publishers, 1999). DirectX is widely credited with being the single most important reason that Windows became the dominate gaming platform (prior to consoles like Xbox and PlayStation).
DirectX Versions
You might be wondering about DirectX versions. While there have been versions from 1.0 (in 1995) to 12.0 (in 2015), the only versions really in use today are 10, 11, and 12. Typically, DirectX versions are tied to a particular Windows release. DirectX 10 was in Windows Vista (or later), DirectX 11 in Windows 7 (or later), and DirectX 12 in Windows 10. A game written with DirectX 10, for example, will usually run in a version of Windows later than Vista.
Here are some of the games for DirectX 10, Direct X 11, and Direct X 12:
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| DirectX 10 | DirectX 11 | DirectX 12 |
| From Wikipedia | From Wikipedia | From Wikipedia |
Parallels Desktop and DirectX Versions
DirectX 10 is enabled by default in Parallels Desktop 13. (This includes DirectX 9 support, too.) There is a DirectX setting you want to use in the Configuration dialog for your VM, but this is primarily used for troubleshooting. (See figure 1.) As you can see, the DirectX versions supported are 9 and 10. There is no option for DirectX 11.
Figure 1
Why isn’t DirectX 11 supported in Parallels Desktop?
One of the mandatory DX11 features is called “compute shaders.” The name “shaders” usually refers to graphical functions that calculate the appropriate color and brightness for an image, but “compute shaders” are quite different. Compute shaders help the programmer to more easily take full advantage of the many processors on today’s graphics cards, primarily by broadening shader capabilities beyond pure graphics to more general calculations, which can be done on a graphics chip.
Parallels implements DirectX emulation by translating it to the equivalent OpenGL function, since OpenGL is implemented in the macOS®. Unfortunately, the version of OpenGL in the macOS does not have compute shaders. There is nothing for Parallels Desktop to map DirectX shaders to in the OpenGL framework in the macOS.
The macOS does support another style of compute shaders in the OpenCL framework. (Don’t let the similarity in the names “OpenGL” and “OpenCL” make you think they’re similar. They aren’t. In fact, they are competing “standards.”) Unfortunately, however, OpenCL on Mac isn’t as robust and doesn’t cooperate well with OpenGL.
Besides compute shaders, there are other features missing in OpenGL on macOS, which means there are additional “feature parity holes” with DirectX. There’s simply not enough functionality to translate DX11 to in the functions available in the macOS.
Apple® started pushing its own Metal API recently, which is universal for Mac computers. Only time will tell if Metal will give the Parallels Desktop programmers what they need to support DirectX 11. Stay tuned, but don’t get your hopes up for any major change in the near future.
Setting Expectations
I wish I could tell you that Parallels Desktop can magically turn your four-year-old MacBook Air® into a high-end PC gaming rig with a $3000, liquid-cooled graphics card, but that is never going to happen.
Parallels Desktop can enable your Mac to run most Windows applications, some games, and some CAD/CAM applications. But this comes at a cost. The more demanding applications you run in a VM, the more resources (CPUs and memory) that VM should be assigned—and the more powerful your Mac should be. The more graphics performance you expect, the more powerful the graphics card (or graphics processor GPU) in your Mac needs to be. Also keep in mind that graphics in Mac computers are predominantly integrated; only more expensive models sport discreet chips. Overall, Mac GPUs are low to middle range by Windows PC standards.
Success Stories
The hard work of the Parallels engineering team has resulted in a number of successes with Windows applications using DirectX. In particular, the DirectX work included in Parallels Desktop 13 resulted in some new applications running quite well in Parallels Desktop. Here are some videos of these successes, and a list of other DirectX applications that work well with Parallels Desktop 13.
Overwatch, a first-person shooter from Blizzard – Here is a short video of an Overwatch game session playing in Parallels Desktop 13 on a Mac. (See video 1.) There have also been other blog posts here about Overwatch.
Video 1
Batman: Arkham Origins, an action adventure game from WB Games Montréal – Here is a shortened video of a Batman: Arkham Origins game session playing in Parallels Desktop 13 on a Mac. (See video 2.) You can see the entire session at full resolution (1920 x 1080, 954 MB) here.
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Video 2
Crysis 3, a first-person shooter from Crytek – Here is a shortened video of a Crysis 3 game session playing in Parallels Desktop 13 on a Mac. (See video 3.) The fact that Crysis 3 plays so well in Parallels Desktop 13 is a nice surprise, since Crysis 3 requires Direct X 11. Although Parallels Desktop 13 doesn’t support DX11, this particular game works. You can see the entire session at full resolution (1920 x 1080, 1.37 GB) here.
Video 3
Predicting the Performance of a DirectX Application
Unfortunately, there is no easy way to predict whether a particular Windows DirectX game or application will work well in Parallels Desktop. If you are already a Parallels Desktop customer, just try it.
If you are not yet a Parallels Desktop customer, we have a trial version that you can download and install. You can also get Windows 10 installed in Parallels Desktop 13 at no charge. So try out the application or game you are interested in and see if it meets your performance needs. If it does, great! You can then purchase both Parallels Desktop and Windows to use that application. If it does not, you haven’t spent any money.
In addition, we have a forum thread where people add the DirectX applications that they would like to see supported.
I hope this blog post explains the DirectX support in Parallels Desktop 13. Please let us know in the comments about your experiences with the performance of Windows applications in Parallels Desktop 13.
Want to try DirectX applications with Parallels Desktop 13? Download a free 14-day trial!