Parallels Desktop 27 Released with Major OpenGL and AI Performance Boosts
Parallels Desktop 27 has been released, introducing a new Metal-based graphics driver that brings OpenGL 4.3 support to Windows virtual machines. Additionally, it adds support for Scalable Matrix Extension 2 (SME2) instructions on M4 and later Macs to accelerate AI and machine learning workloads. This update significantly improves the performance of professional applications like Blender and ArcGIS Pro, while enabling developers to run local AI tools like Ollama and llama.cpp much faster without relying on cloud resources. It showcases how virtualization software is evolving to leverage the latest Apple Silicon hardware capabilities for both graphics and AI. OpenGL performance sees up to a 160% boost on M3 and later Macs, while SME2 support on M4 Macs accelerates matrix calculations by up to 7x and neural network inference by up to 1.75x. The new Metal-based driver specifically targets professional software including ArcGIS Pro, ZWCAD, and Blender 4.3.
## BACKGROUND
Metal is Apple's proprietary low-level graphics API designed to maximize GPU performance on Apple Silicon. Scalable Matrix Extension 2 (SME2) is an instruction set extension in the Armv9-A architecture designed to accelerate matrix-heavy computations, which are fundamental to artificial intelligence and machine learning workloads.