I have tried several games and so far none have worked properly

  • Counter Strike – unplayable at 5-10 fps even at 1024×768. Runs great at 1440×900 in Boot Camp.
  • Star Trek: Bridge Commander – Starts and I can hear menu music and mouse-over sounds, but no picture
  • Company of Heroes – Won’t start, get a DirectX error
  • FlatOut2 – Get a white screen and no audio

According to Counter Strike the DirectX hardware level being emulated by Parallels Desktop 3.0 is only 8.1, which comes as no surprise considering the lack of Vista Aero support (requiring DX9).

So for the moment I am disappointed. It would appear that I am not alone after reading the Parallels forums. For those who took up the $39.95 upgrade offer that ended BEFORE they could try out the new version (when it was released the price was bumped up to $49.95), got a pretty raw deal in my opinion.

I think I will just update to Boot Camp 1.3 and stick with that for games until some updates to PD3 come out. Boot Camp 1.3 adds support for the MacBook Pro keyboard backlight and updated graphics drivers for those interested.

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