So far I haven't done any real testing with it. Originally I wanted to install Windows 2000, because that should be more efficient on QEMU, but that fails with an USB driver error for some reason.įor real legacy software I've installed Windows 98 on DOSBox-X, but it's really slow, because the ARM build is broken for some reason and I had to use the x86-64 build instead. Installing Windows XP using UTM took ages, and booting it takes probably two minutes (I stopped counting after about a minute). I've used PC emulation before (Virtual PC on a PowerMac G5 and the 'Q' frontend to QEMU on a Mac Pro), but I've been somewhat spoilt by the speed of virtualisation on my old Mac Pro. But I'm not sure if there will be a legal way to get an official copy for QEMU to run, unless Microsoft suddenly starts selling retail copies of WOA.īut x86-64 emulation in QEMU is quite slow. I'm somewhat positive that Parallels might strike a deal with Microsoft to bundle a special build of Windows for ARM with their software. I'm actually surprised how early the Windows virtualisation has been tackled.

I haven't tested this yet, but I'm pretty sure that Parallels is better for 3D acceleration if the guest extensions are installed.īoth are in early development, though, so expect some snags.

It's probably a good idea to switch to 'virtio-gpu' in ACVM as explained in the link above.

Since both Parallels and QEMU have to use Apple's hypervisor the basic performance will be quite similar. As both the technical preview of Parallels as well as the insider preview of Windows 10 on ARM are currently available for free (and ACVM/QEMU is free anyway), I would recommend simply trying if ACVM fits your needs or if you need the additional features of Parallels.

Virtualbox alternative for m1 mac