VMware has announced the release of VMWare Fusion 3.1, a major update for users of the company’s powerful virtualization software for Mac OS X. The new release focuses on speed. Overall performance has shot up to +35% the speed of its predecessor (Fusion 3.0), while 2D/3D graphics has also been improved. VMware cites up to five times better 3D graphics than Fusion 3.0.
“Take advantage of faster than ever end-to-end performance and improved 3D graphics,” the company begins to enumerate the enhancements. “Greatly improved Windows Aero performance and OpenGL 2.1 support for Windows Vista and Windows 7 delivers up to 5X better 3D graphics performance. Experience faster application launching, more seamless scrolling, quicker resume from suspend, and better overall disk performance.
Additional improvements to make your experience more simple and Mac-like include support for overlapping Unity windows in Exposé and Dock Exposé, as well as the new USB EasyConnect feature to easily assign USB devices to your PC or Mac,” VMware claims.
Talking about the improved overall performance in particular, VMware says that version 3.1 is 35% faster than version 3.0. It delivers a reduced time for suspending virtual machines, faster Windows application launch times, and greatly improved scrolling speeds in Windows Vista and Windows 7 with Mac OS X 10.6.3, according to the release notes.
On the visual front, the company claims up to five times better 3D graphics with OpenGL 2.1 for Windows Vista, OpenGL 2.1 for Windows 7, much faster Aero on Windows Vista and Windows 7, and greatly improved scrolling speeds in Windows Vista and Windows 7 with Mac OS X 10.6.3.
Unity Improvements, changes with USB “EasyConnect,” Bigger, More Complex Virtual Machines, PC Migration Improvements, and even Boot Camp Improvements are all detailed in the release notes over at VMware’s website,
here. Also noteworthy is a list of newly supported guest operating systems. These include Ubuntu 8.0.4.4: 32- and 64-bit, Ubuntu 10.04: 32- and 64-bit, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 Service Pack 1: 32- and 64-bit, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 1: 32- and 64-bit, and RHEL 5.4: 32- and 64-bit.
The VMware Fusion 3.1 update is free for existing 3.0 customers, while those who own an earlier version can benefit from a $39.99 upgrade fee. A completely new license costs $79.99, while a free (fully featured) trial version of the software is also available.
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