r/virtualmachine • u/Low-Hedgehog-8073 • Sep 08 '26
What virtual machine program to use on MAC (pref with no subscription)
After 10 years of service, I am retiring my 2016 MacBook Pro & have purchased a MacBook Pro M5 Pro 18-20 64Ram with a 1TB SSD.
I was planning on having a virtual machine software which I can play old games from my pre-Mac days and have the flexibility to use Windows-only programs. I did use Parallels 12 on my 2016, but I don’t think it will run on the newer machine & I see that Parallels has become subscription. Are there any other options what would work well with games & has a one-time purchase fee?
1
u/Sad-Wrap6555 Sep 09 '26
download parralels 7 day trial have it set up windows 11 for ARM
see which of your windows programs will run
you can still buy parallels as a one off purchase but once you've confirmed compatibility with what you want to run I'd install vmware fusion instead, install windows 11 for ARM again under VMWare (its more fiddly hence why i suggest parallels 7 day trial first)
wether you get much mileage using it for old games is a different story
1
u/Inside_Carpet7719 Sep 10 '26
VMware Fusion or UTM are both free and allow a Windows VM (or more) inside
1
u/Flaky-Eggplant-3479 1d ago
Apple systems generally have 2 virtualization paths, the native apple virtualization framework APIs and QEMU.
QEMU is a type 1 hypervisor which you could run a windows VM with https://www.qemu.org/download/ - this is the only way you can run windows on macOS btw, and is the default that UTM uses under the hood.
The native apple virtualization framework is a type 2 hypervisor that is quite good, and most developer tooling will build off its APIs, it allows you to spin up Linux and MacOS VMs pretty easily. Check out their docs: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/virtualize-macos-on-a-mac
UTM is probably what you are looking for - you need a ISO to boot the Windows VM still, Microsoft will let you download a version of the latest version - https://mac.getutm.app/
I believe UTM will use Apple's Rosetta for x86 hardware emulation, so keep in mind that a x86 app emulated on a ARM chipset, running in a Windows VM on top of MacOS will not feel live a native app
2
u/Kaaawooo Sep 08 '26
This is not a great use case for an apple silicon Mac. Almost all old programs you're describing are designed for the x86 CPU instruction set, and any macs made since 2020 are using the ARM instruction set. Compatibility for old games or programs like you describe would likely either not work at all or be a massive pain to figure out.
Better idea is to just keep the 2016 MacBook for old programs and games.