Anyone looking for a way to run Windows 10 on a new Mac with Apple Silicon you now have an easy and reliable option. Parallels only released a new version of its virtual desktop tool, Desktop 16.5, which supports Windows 10 a Macs M1.
Parellels carried many of the popular features of the previous Intel-based desktop version, including consistency mode, which allows users to run Windows applications as if they were Mac natives without changing desktops or rebooting the entire system. Users can also share files locally on the Windows 10 virtual machine, customize your MacBook touch toolbar controls for launching Windows applications and do a lot of other things which were included with Desktop 16.
Parallel claims running a Windows 10 on your virtual machine on a Mac M1 connects up to 30% more performance than a Windows 10 virtual machine running on a MacBook Pro with a high-end Intel processor. It also claims that users will see a 60% increase in performance with DirectX 11 applications compared to an Intel-based MacBook Pro with a Radeon Pro 555X GPU.
However, there is a problem. Parallels Desktop 16.5 only supports ARM-based operating systems. There is an ARM version of Windows 10, but it isonly available to those who are enrolled in the Windows Insider program. Everyone can sign up for the program, but Windows 10 for ARM is still a preview version and there are many possibilities to run it in errors or failures.
That doesn’t mean you will have a bad experience running Windows 10 for ARM on an M1-powered Mac, but performance could drop if you want to run native x86 programs made to run on Intel and AMD chips with the emulator that comes with Windows 10 for ARM. Performance is limited to the specifications of any computer running the virtual machine anyway, but emulation on a virtual machine is another layer.
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Depending on the program, it is best to run one macOS x86 application using Apple’s own emulation software, Rosetta 2, without a virtual machine. Software compatibility for Macs M1 is slowly improving, but for some it is the biggest hurdle to upgrading to an Apple Silicon machine.
If you already have a Parallels Desktop 16 for Mac license, you can upgrade to version 16.5 for free and will continue to do so. receive free updates as new releases are released. Those at Parallels Desktop 14 or 15 will have to pay $ 50 update. A new Parallels Desktop 16.5 license starts at $ 80 to obtain a perpetual license or $ 100 one year for a subscription.
In addition, Parallels Desktop 16.5 supports some popular ARM-based Linux distributions: Ubuntu 20.04, Kali Linux 2021.1, Debian 10.7, and Fedora Workstation 33-1.2. Parallels is also working on a virtual machine version of macOS Big Sur that is expected to launch later this year.