Anyone looking for a way to run Windows 10 on a new Mac with Apple Silicon now has an easy, reliable option Just parallels released a new version of its virtual desktop tool, Desktop 16.5, which supports Windows 10 M1 Macs
Pearls Transferred many of the popular features from the previous Intel version of Desktopincluding Coherence Mode, which allows users to run Windows applications as if they were native to the Mac, without switching desktops or rebooting their entire system. Users can also easily share files locally to Windows 10 virtual machine, adjust MacBook touch bar controls to start Windows apps, and do a lot of other things included with Desktop 16.
Parallels claims running a Windows 10 on its virtual machine on an M1 Mac provides a 30% performance improvement over a Windows 10 virtual machine running on a MacBook Pro with an advanced Intel processor. It also claims that users will see up to 60% performance improvement with DirectX 11 applications compared to an Intel-based MacBook Pro with a Radeon Pro 555X GPU.
There is one caveat, however. Parallels Desktop 16.5 only supports ARM-based operating systems. There is an ARM version of Windows 10, but it ‘s only available to those enrolled in the Windows Insider ProgramAnyone can enroll in the program, but Windows 10 for ARM is still a preview version and chances are you in bugs or glitches.
That doesn’t mean you will have a bad experience running Windows 10 for ARM on an M1 powered Mac, but performance can take a dip 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 ARMPerformance is limited to the specifications within each computer the virtual machine is running on, but emulation on a virtual machine is a very different layer.
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Depending on the program, it may be better to use a x86 macOS 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 hurdle to upgrading to an Apple Silicon machine.
If you already have a license for Parallels Desktop 16 for Mac, you can upgrade to 16.5 for free and keep doing so receive free updates when new versions are released. Those on Parallels Desktop 14 or 15 will have to pay $ 50 upgrade. A new license for Parallels Desktop 16.5 starts at $ 80 for 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 it hopes to release later this year.