VMware Fusion Update Supports Leopard And DirectX 9
VMware has announced an update to the company’s virtualization software for Intel-based Macs. VMware Fusion 1.1 adds support for Leopard and a new “VMware Importer,” which allows you to use virtual disks created with rival software Parallels.
Along with the various performance enhancements and Leopard-specific issues addressed, version 1.1 adds experimental support for DirectX 9 3-D graphics, something that’s also been present under the “experimental” moniker in recent versions of Parallels Desktop for Mac.
Other improvements include better support for Boot Camp installs, support for 64-bit Windows XP and improvements to the “Unity” feature which integrates Windows application into the Mac environment. For full details on what’s new, see the release notes.
Perhaps the most interesting of the new features is the ability of import Parallels-created virtual disks. To get the new importer functions you’ll need download a separate package from the VMware site (look under the “Drivers and Tools” tab on the download page).
The importer gives VMware a leg up on rival Mac virtualization software, Parallels, which, at the the time of this writing, must create its own images, though, like Fusion, it can import settings from a Boot Camp installation.
[Update: As Dave points out below, Parallels can in fact import VMware virtual machines (as well as others). The functionality is bundled with another app called Transporter, which is why I overlooked it initially. But in this case it would be VMware catching up to Parallels, rather than having an advantage over it as originally stated. On a related note, total interoperability without the need for importers would be nice, though unlikely.
While I haven’t had a chance to install Windows on the new version of Fusion yet, I downloaded and enabled an Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon image from the VMware site and had no problems getting it up and running on Leopard.
VMware on Leopard seems noticeably faster than my previous experiences in Tiger, though I should note that formerly I was using a Boot Camp install, which, according to posts in the VMware forums, tends to be a bit slower than a traditional Fusion-created virtual machine — YMMV.
VMware Fusion costs $80, but this update is free for registered users.
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