The two big guns in Windows or Linux on Mac virtualisation released their yearly upgrades in the previous month. Parallels Desktop 9 includes support for Thunderbolt and FireWire devices, OS X’s PowerNap feature, the Mountain Lion Dictionary gesture, Windows 8.1, and more, all while boasting 40% better disk performance, 25% faster shutdowns, 20% faster suspending, and 3D graphics that’s 15% faster than in Parallels 8. You can buy/trial it and learn more at Parallels’ Desktop product site.
VMware Fusion 6, meanwhile, adds Dictation in Windows; support for up to 16 vCPUs, 8TB disks, and 64GB of RAM; a new user interface; improved Boot Camp support; multiple display support (in OS X Mavericks); Windows 8.1 support; and the usual host of performance improvements and minor feature additions. You can check out all its new features, and try it out, by visiting the VMware Fusion product page.
Nintendo Wii and Gamecube emulator Dolphin version 4.0 came out today. It’s the first stable release in nine months, bringing 2500 changes from Dolphin 3.5 — including a new look (and swanky new icon), beta support for the Wii official online multiplayer, Wii Balance Board and Gamecube Steering Wheel support, new audio emulation code, Fastmem support on OS X, an OpenGL video backend rewrite, and much more. You can get it from the Dolphin download page, while the announcement post is here.
After a long period (three years) without an official release, Sony PlayStation emulator PCSX-Reloaded has been updated to version 1.9.93 beta. People who’ve been using SpeedofMac/ConsoleEmu’s unofficial builds won’t notice much of a difference, but it’s a huge improvement over 1.9.92. See the release notes here for details.
Continue reading for additional updates, including new versions of Mednafen, Q-emuLator, zxsp, PPSSPP, and more.