I have a Mac Pro with 2 video cards, (Intel HD Graphics 530 integrated and an AMD Radeon Pro 450 PCIe) The parallels is able to access one of GPU directly instead of Parallels Display Adapter? There is any solution that would allow Parallels to run graphics intensive games/applications - beyond bootcamp? Thank you!
Hi @GaborK1, Guest OSes in Parallels Desktop have no access to physical graphics cards present in a Mac. Instead, Parallels Display Adapter driver (which is part of Parallels Tools installation) interfaces with virtual hardware and provides 3D acceleration features. The actual acceleration is achieved by translating DirectX commands from the guest to OpenGL API on OS X side. Parallels Desktop is not able to access GPU directly instead of Parallels Display adapter. Switching between integrated and discrete video cards is pretty simple - the main thing is to send appropriate parameters when creating an OpenGL context (and react to switching events by recreating contexts), there is nothing else we do 'manually'. Please note that this technology has no similarities with SLI/Crossfire whatsoever. To switch between the adapters, go to virtual machine configuration window -> Options -> Optimization - Power For integrated graphics (CPU) set 'Longer battery life' For discrete video card set 'Better performance'
I'm sorry I haven't written before, but I have been very busy. I'm very sad. Thank you very much for your answer!
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