When running Fritz (or any Windows chess GUI) on a Mac via Parallels, engine compatibility depends heavily on your Mac’s architecture and how Parallels emulates CPU instructions.
If you're on an Apple Silicon Mac (M1/M2/M3):
• Parallels use Windows 11 ARM, and AVX2 instructions aren't natively supported.
• That’s why AVX2 builds of Stockfish fail or crash, while POPCNT builds work reliably—they use simpler, widely supported instructions.
If you're on an Intel Mac, AVX2 might work depending on your CPU generation, but even then, Parallels can sometimes throttle performance or misreport capabilities.
• Stick with x86-64-popcnt builds for stability.
• If you're benchmarking engines, use Stockfish’s bench command to compare nodes per second across builds.
• Fritz itself runs fine in Parallels, but engine selection is key for smooth analysis.
Thats what AI has to say about your question.
Is anyone running the latest version of Fritz on an Apple laptop using Parallels? I know that Stockfish AVX2 for Windows does NOT work. I have to use the POPCNT version.
Thanks.