Live-Stream Gaming on Parallels Desktop: Part 1
The following is the first in a series of posts by guest blogger Patrick Schoof—or, as he is known in gaming circles, Unexceptional, a popular Twitch streamer using Parallels Desktop 10 for Mac. Read on to learn about his experience choosing and using Parallels Desktop to live-stream games from his iMac.
One Twitch Streamer’s Reason for Choosing Parallels Desktop
First, let me say this: I’m a Mac person. Pretty much always have been. Plain and simple, they make more sense to me. Second, I’m also a gamer. I’ve heard for years from friends who play PC games that I’ve made the wrong OS choice because developers “don’t make games for Mac.” According to them, all the good games are on PC only and because of my love of Mac, I would never catch up. That sucks, because there are a ton of games I want to play.
So, how do I settle these differences? Parallels Desktop.
About a year ago, I started looking into how to run Windows on Mac in the simplest possible way. I explored partitioning my hard drive or building my own (neither of which I did because I’m bad at computers). Then I discovered Parallels Desktop for Mac. It allowed me to run Windows on my Maceasily, without needing to learn a bunch of computer mumbo jumbo.
Even so, I didn’t buy it yet. I wasn’t sure that I’d be playing enough Windows-only games to make it worthwhile—and I’d heard that it didn’t run most games well—so I waited.
Okay, full disclosure time: I actually waited until my girlfriend got a job working for Parallels. We packed up and moved across the country, which meant I had to look for work.
The place I wound up was Twitch, a website where people live-stream video games and gaming events for anyone to watch. I’d been watching Twitch for years and decided this was my best chance to see if I could become a streamer myself, but quickly I discovered that not only games are partial to Windows—so is most streaming software. That’s when I finally got Parallels Desktop 10—and I haven’t looked back.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of my guest blog series next week, when I’ll detail my full streaming setup using Parallels Desktop 10 and Windows 8.
Until then, you can catch my stream on Twitch as Unexceptional, or follow me on Twitter@UnexceptionalTV!
P.S. You can see Parallels Desktop in action at the #LANVegas14 event at Skillcon with Mountain Fortune and other big names in gaming! It starts December 26. Here’s more info: http://bit.ly/1yb4uqr
Patrick Schoof is a popular live-streamer with the handle of “Unexceptional” onTwitch, as well as a guy with a Writing degree who uses it to say (hopefully) witty things while gaming. Catch his stream weekdays from 11 AM to 5 PM PST. You can also follow him on Twitter @UnexceptionalTV. Happy gaming!
