How to enable hardware GL and Realview in Solidworks on Parallels for a Mac Pro
[2020 Update: I published a new story on how to do this process for a MacBook Pro. Check it out here.]
So you got yourself a shiny new MacPro and you decided, hey, with all this computing power, shouldn’t I be able to run SolidWorks on Windows 10 in a virtualized environment instead of having to reboot into Bootcamp all the time? Not only should you, but you mostly definitely can. Parallels is pulling some pretty impressive benchmarks these days, and on a 6-core MacPro you can throw 3 cores at Windows with a good chunk of RAM and hardly feel the impact in OS X.
But you’ll find out quickly that SolidWorks disables hardware GL and RealView unmercifully and the workarounds to get these running are not well documented.
Follow these instructions and you should find yourself up and running with both hardware GL and RealView in a matter of minutes on your new MacTube.
In the “Search the web and Windows” field in the lower left, type “regedit” and hit return. If you’re squeamish, export a backup of your registry file before you do anything else. I never do. I tear the tags off my pillows, too. Risky!
In Regedit, go to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SolidWorks\SolidWorks 20xx\Performance\Graphics\Hardware\Current, double click on the “Workarounds” key and change the value from 10 to 4000480. Also note the name of the data string for the “Renderer” key very carefully. You’ll need to duplicate this string later. (It should say something like “Parallels using AMD Radeon HD — Firepro DXXX OpenGL Engine)
Next, go to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SolidWorks\SolidWorks 20xx\Performance\Graphics\Hardware\Gl2Shaders\Other, and create a new key. Rename this key with the same name as the Renderer key, leaving off the “OpenGL Engine” portion of the string. It needs to be otherwise identical or it won’t work. Inside this key, create a new DWORD (32-bit) Value, call it “Workarounds” and set the value to 40000 in hexadecimal.
That should do it, but to be on the safe side, change the “Workarounds” key values for all instances of: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SolidWorks\SolidWorks 20xx\Performance\Graphics\Hardware\ that mention “Parallels and ATI Technologies” to 4000480 in hexadecimal.
Reboot and behold the wonders of hardware GL and RealView on your MacPro!
One caveat: RealView is slow in Parallels, even with hardware GL turned on. Any transparency in your model and you’ll see frame rates drop into the single digits. I’m finding that with dual D500s, performance suffers with even moderate assemblies. Still, RealView is indispensable for seeing how lighting reflects across complex surfaces, and with this hack it gets the job done in most cases, which is good enough for my needs. YMMV.
Good luck!
