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Parallels Desktop 3 officially released
After teasing us by announcing a release candidate for beta testers (and a sale that is now over) and posting videos of Quake 4 - a very resource-intensive game - running impressively well in Parallels, this powerful new v3.0 of the leading virtualization suite for Mac OS X has been released. Offering significant new features like we already mentioned, such as the highly-anticipated 3D acceleration (XP for now, Vista to come) and SmartSelect for specifying files types to open in apps across virtualized OSes, this could easily be called the most significant release of Parallels since the advent of Coherence Mode. Parallels Desktop 3.0 sells for $79.99 and is ready for download now, with 15-day trial keys are available to those who already used trial keys for previous versions.
Parallels 3.0 handles 3D gaming, adds SmartSelect integration tool
The folks over at Parallels aren't messing around with these updates, as just about four months after unveiling release candidate 2, the harmony-inducing software is just about ready to hit the big three-o. At long last, the new iteration will purportedly support 3D graphics acceleration, giving Mac users the ability to play OpenGL / DirectX-based games in Windows without having to reboot, and it sounds like you'll be seeing improved shared folder performance as well. Moreover, the SmartSelect integration tool allows you to "open up any file from Windows or Mac OS X using an application from either operating system," which should work nicely alongside Coherence, and the Snapshots feature helps you to store Parallels' virtual machine state so you can roll back when needed and "control levels of integration and isolation using the VM Sentry." Apparently, the software isn't quite ready to hit the masses just yet, but early birds can latch onto the $39.99 upgrade price if you act quickly, while customers who bought in after May 1st will be blessed with the upgrade gratis.[Via Macworld]
