Anyone looking for a way to run Windows 10 on a new Mac with Apple Silicon it now has an easy and reliable option. Parallels only has released a new version of its virtual desktop tool, Desktop 16.5, which supports Windows 10 on M1 Macs.
The couple brought many of popular features in its earlier desktop version, based on Intel, including Consistency Mode, which allows users to run Windows-like applications native to the Mac without switching between desktops or restarting the entire system. Users can also easily share files locally on the Windows 10 virtual machine, customize your MacBook touch toolbars to launch Windows and applications he does a lot of other things which were included with Desktop 16.
Parallel claims running a Windows 10 on its virtual machine on a Mac M1 computer provides up to a 30% increase in performance over a Windows 10 virtual machine running on a MacBook Pro with a high-end Intel processor. It also claims that users will see an increase of up to 60% in performance with DirectX 11 applications compared to an Intel-based MacBook Pro with a Radeon Pro 555X GPU.
However, there is a catch. Parallels Desktop 16.5 only supports ARM-based operating systems. There is an ARM version of Windows 10, but it isare only available to those who are enrolled in Windows Insider program. Anyone can sign up for the program, but Windows 10 for ARM is still a preview version and there’s a good chance you’ll run in bugs or errors.
That doesn’t mean you will you have a bad experience running Windows 10 for ARM on an M1-powered Mac, but performance may drop if you want to run native x86 programs created to run on Intel and AMD chips with 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 a completely different layer.
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Depending on the program, it is better to run one macOS x86 application via Apple’s own emulation software, Rosetta 2, without a virtual machine. Software compatibility for M1 Macs is slowly improving, but for some it is the biggest obstacle to switching to an Apple Silicon car.
If you already have a Parallels Desktop 16 for Mac license, you can upgrade to 16.5 for free and continue receive free updates as new releases are released. Those on Parallels Desktop 14 or 15 will have to pay $ 50 to update. A new Parallels Desktop 16.5 license starts at $ 80 for a perpetual license or $ 100 one year for a subscription.
In addition, Parallels Desktop 16.5 supports several popular ARM-based Linux distributions: Ubuntu 20.04, Kali Linux 2021.1, Debian 10.7, and the Fedora 33-1.2 workstation. Parallels is also working on a virtual machine version of macOS Big Sur that it hopes to launch later this year.