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Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/838
REVIEW | CREATIVITY
You can keep your favorite Windows
programs in your Dock and run them as if
they were Mac native.
An optional display setting that VMWare
refers to as "experimental" gives Fusion
one of its biggest advantages over the
competition. Check this box and Fusion
will activate DirectX 9.0 graphics in
compatible software and video hardware
and represents a significant boost for
gamers. (Fusion 2 beta adds the DirectX
shading engine.)
For our testing, we installed Windows XP
Pro x64, Windows Vista Business, and
Ubuntu Linux on a Mac Pro, and the
results were really impressive in terms of
performance, convenience and stability.
Vista, in fact, felt more responsive and
graphically smooth than a number of PC-
native installations we've tried. For an
informal performance test, we loaded
Microsoft Flight Simulator on our XP
virtual machine, plugged an old Force
Feedback joystick into a USB port and
toured New York in our DC-3. Awesome.
Fusion also lets you import virtual machine
images directly from PCs, an option that's
also getting the attention of enterprise IT.
To test this out, we pulled over a
Windows 2003 Server Standard VM
from a PC. We had to delete a few lock
(.lck) files from the image, but after that it
came right up. (And, of course, we pulled
it right off. There are a number of
licensing issues to work through if you
want to do this in the real world.)
There are a couple of areas were Fusion
falls short of Parallels and even VMWare's
own Workstation product for other
platforms. The 12-page "Getting Started"
guide pales next to Parallel's
comprehensive 240-page manual. And
even though Fusion's networking features
are on a par with Parallels, Fusion
apparently has the same powerful virtual
networking underpinnings as VMWare's
Workstation, but lacks the user interface
tools to access them. Could these be
waiting in the wings for the next release?
When you come right down to it, there
are a lot of reasons why, beyond the smug
pleasure of being able to do it, you would
want or need to run any number of
operating systems on your Mac. If you're
looking for performance, flexibility and
possibly the smoothest way to integrate
your Macs into a Windows shop, VMWare's
Fusion is the way to go.
There are headphones and there are
headphones. Ear buds, ear canal, over-the-
ear, noise canceling – you name it, but for
serious studio work it is hard to beat the
accuracy and functionality of a good
quality pair of closed back dynamic
phones such as the Studiophile Q40 from
M-Audio.
At $179.95, they hit a perfectly dialed-in
ratio of bank to buck, offering a dynamic
range of 10Hz to 20 kHz, excellent
isolation, a comfortable and clever
folding design, an ample cable that is
both detachable and lockable, a carrying
bag, and best of all, they simply sound
great. The wires to the individual ear
cups are a bit finer than I would prefer
(ever snag a wire when grabbing the
phones off a mic stand?). The cable,
which has a " jack, uses a threaded
(rather than universal) ear cup connector,
which is very secure but proprietary.
Of course, the most important feature is
the quality of sound, which is quite good,
and that is what a serious set of phones is
all about. When it comes to studio sound,
you should never skimp on the
headphones and with the Studiophile
Q40, you get a serious piece of studio
gear that sounds great, travels well, and is
available at a reasonable price.
Product VMWare Fusion 1.1.2
Made by VMWare