Parallels has released version 16.5 of its virtualization software with full native support for Apple’s M1 chip.
The company says that Parallels Desktop 16.5 will run much faster and more efficiently on Apple Silicon machines. Parallels says the platform uses up to 250% less energy, sports up to 30% better virtual machine performance for Windows and up to 60% better DirectX 11 performance.
The company says that many of its best features have been reengineered for the M1, including Coherence Mode, Shared Profiles, Touch Bar controls, and Mac keyboard layouts.
There is a caveat — users can only run a virtual machine with an ARM-based operating system. While there are plenty of ARM-based Linux distributions, there currently isn’t a retail ARM version of Windows. Instead, users will need to get the Windows 10 ARM Insider preview.
Read more at AppleInsider.com