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Recently, I tested Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac against VMware Fusion 5 and VirtualBox 4.2 to assess their ability to run a graphically demanding molecular modeling program, Yasara, in both a Windows 7 and Linux (CentoOS 6.3, Linux Mint Debian 201204, and Linux Mint 13) Guests. Parallels was able to open and run Yasara quite well, whereas Fusion could only open but not run the program, and VirtualBox was not even able to open the program.

I then tested Parallels Workstation 6, VMware Workstation 9, and VirtualBox 4.2 on a PC running Linux Mint 13. Again, I used Windows 7 and Linux guests. None of the workstation products could run the Yasara test program.

Thus, I found that Parallels Desktop 8 for Mac has excellent video support for Windows or linux guests, but the Parallels Workstation product does not. I hope that Parallels will soon upgrade its workstation program so that its graphics capabilities are as good as they are in their Mac product.