macOS 10.14 Mojave on Unsupported Macs Thread

[jackluke]

Yes, I installed Mojave on a supported MacMini late 2012 into my external SSD drive.
I tried taking out the HD3000 graphics files, but the bugs resurfaced. So I had to reinstall them.

Which bugs, you mean that can open Maps app or a slideshow screensaver from Mojave beta 1 MBA 2011 ?

The only good thing that HD3000 kext give is the VRAM allocation but almost nothing else without Metal.
[doublepost=1529318329][/doublepost]

Some of the newer unsupported Macs have thunderbolt. So an eGPU with a PCIe x16 card inside may work. All depends if the OS will see it and output to it.

Maybe, but eGPU was intended for Thunderbolt 3, but luckily there is already a script for backwards Thunderbolt port compatibility that is “PurgeWangler”.

 

[BookEmDanno]

Which bugs, you mean that can open Maps app or a slideshow screensaver from Mojave beta 1 MBA 2011 ?

The only good thing that HD3000 kext give is the VRAM allocation but almost nothing else without Metal.

Maps wasn't rendering at all. And in Chrome, there were video links that didn't work at all. Didn't notice screensaver issue since I'm been busy debugging and haven't had a chance to be idle for more than 20 minutes (the set time to invoke screensaver).

I'm still going through some testing. Actually can't wait for the next beta or for the initial release of dosdude1's patch for Mojave.

This playtime (testing Mojave) is fun, but unfortunately, have my main devops job that keeps me from playtime.

 

[Guy Clark]

Perhaps running macOS Mojave on unsupported Macs is a hack too far.

 

[volodi]

...


Update on Mojave testing on this unsupported MBAir 13" mid 2011

Instead of using USB thumb drive for the boot partition, now I am utilizing an External SSD drive. Performance is much faster.

View attachment 766636

Also, fixes to bugs encountered (namely no sound, graphics issues like in maps, and others), I copied the following kext, bundle and plugin files from High Sierra

View attachment 766633

Testing will go on. I'm actually liking Mojave and will be my main MacOS as betas are made available.


Mahalo everyone.

what work HD 3000 Graphics? I copied this kexts for high Sierra, but it loading in black screen. How you fix it?

 

[jackluke]

what work HD 3000 Graphics? I copied this kexts for high Sierra, but it loading in black screen. How you fix it?

Black screen could be due to invoking HD3000 OpenGL libraries not supported.
Try to remove from Mojave disk path S/L/E all HD3000 kext, leave only AppleIntelSNBGraphicsFB in conjuction with AppleIntelHD3000 just this two kext, reboot in safe mode holding shift key targeting the Mojave disk.

 

[Starplayr]

Perhaps running macOS Mojave on unsupported Macs is a hack too far.

When the GM arrives, I am positive all the unsupported Macs with Metal will be able to run Mojave once the patches and video drivers are in place. Non-metal Macs will either need OpenGL/CL support turned back on or ideally some type of GPU upgrade either internally or externally. There are PCIe Thunderbolt 2 enclosures. I have not tested any of them but they do exist and many Thunderbolt 3 enclosures will also cooperate with TD2 with a proper adapter. Thunderbolt has always been backward compatible to its previous version. So there is hope.

 

[volodi]

Black screen could be due to invoking HD3000 OpenGL libraries not supported.
Try to remove from Mojave disk path S/L/E all HD3000 kext, leave only AppleIntelSNBGraphicsFB in conjuction with AppleIntelHD3000 just this two kext, reboot in safe mode holding shift key targeting the Mojave disk.

If remove all kexts hd 3000, and copy two kext AppleIntelSNBGraphicsFB with AppleIntelHD3000 its loadind in vesa mode with glithes and lags

 

[Hindrik1997]

Any news on getting mcp 3,1 working?

 

[jackluke]

If remove all kexts hd 3000, and copy two kext AppleIntelSNBGraphicsFB with AppleIntelHD3000 its loadind in vesa mode with glithes and lags

This is the only way at moment, with Framebuffer enabled just achieve VRAM and maybe some resolution switches but don't expect less glitches and lags.

 

[MacLawyer]

Does anyone know if I can format an external SSD in APFS with Mojave?

 

[jackluke]

Does anyone know if I can format an external SSD in APFS with Mojave?

Generally I prefer to format an ext ssd on a GUID scheme HFS+ the entire disk, then split some partitions leaving a part exfat and another for an apfs container, I don’t like to format the entire disk in apfs but I think it will be feasibile depending on the usb ssd adapter compatibility.

 

[BerenErchamion]

Hi guys. Very interesting thread. Some comments and questions. I'm a registered Apple developer, but spend all my time in iOS. Little knowledge of macOS. I was disappointed that Apple cut off support for my mid-2011 17" MacBook Pro. It runs High Sierra just fine, and has a Core i7-2820QM (8 threads) AMD Radeon HD 6750 GPU. I recently replaced the logic board and would like to get a couple more years out of the machine. It fully supports Metal 2, which is part of High Sierra, so the cut off seems a little arbitrary. Considering that much weaker, but newer, Mac minis are supported in Mojave, I don't doubt that the MBP can handle it.

I haven't the time to go through every post in this thread, so I'd appreciate a refresh on installation and patches. The installation utility for Mojave of course spits up when I try to install on my machine, saying its unsupported. Is the only way to get a copy of the install app to have a supported machine?

Other main question surrounds Metal. Is the only workaround to disable Metal and go to OpenGL? I couldn't tell from the posts what the status is on this. Once again, would appreciate an update.

 

[jackluke]

Hi guys. Very interesting thread. Some comments and questions. I'm a registered Apple developer, but spend all my time in iOS. Little knowledge of macOS. I was disappointed that Apple cut off support for my mid-2011 17" MacBook Pro. It runs High Sierra just fine, and has a Core i7-2820QM (8 threads) AMD Radeon HD 6750 GPU. I recently replaced the logic board and would like to get a couple more years out of the machine. It fully supports Metal 2, which is part of High Sierra, so the cut off seems a little arbitrary. Considering that much weaker, but newer, Mac minis are supported in Mojave, I don't doubt that the MBP can handle it.

I haven't the time to go through every post in this thread, so I'd appreciate a refresh on installation and patches. The installation utility for Mojave of course spits up when I try to install on my machine, saying its unsupported. Is the only way to get a copy of the install app to have a supported machine?

Other main question surrounds Metal. Is the only workaround to disable Metal and go to OpenGL? I couldn't tell from the posts what the status is on this. Once again, would appreciate an update.

Here are the steps to attempt a boot on unsupported mac:

1) Boot in recovery mode
2) From recovery select Utilities and launch Terminal
3) from Terminal type without quotes: "csrutil disable"
4) enter your user password then type (with quotes this time the final part)
5) nvram boot-args="-no_compat_check"
6) Reboot from the apple icon on the upper left

While if you already can boot to Mojave GUI installer then you need to install Mojave from a supported mac and clone the partition to an empty partition of your disk or install on an external disk or need a EFI firmware update for your mac but replaced logic board will made this step harder.

At the moment no workaround to bypass from Metal to previous OpenGL.

 

[BerenErchamion]

Okay, I guess what I'm missing is how to obtain the actual Mojave app/installer. Apple has a new process for installing the OS that I haven't seen before. Used to be you could just download the app or a package. Now Apple makes developers download and install a small utility that checks your system for compatibility. This is the step I can't get past.

 

[jackluke]

Okay, I guess what I'm missing is how to obtain the actual Mojave app/installer. Apple has a new process for installing the OS that I haven't seen before. Used to be you could just download the app or a package. Now Apple makes developers download and install a small utility that checks your system for compatibility. This is the step I can't get past.

I believe if you create a usb installer you get same result, you need a modified Mojave usb installer to bypass your Mac Hardware ID, maybe modifying the Platformsupport.plist and osinstall.mpkg but I can’t help in this case.

My advice is if you want try out Mojave beta install it from a supported mac to an external usb disk, maybe your GPU could be Metal enabled.

 

[BerenErchamion]

So it looks like the only way to get a copy of the OS is through access to a supported Mac, which I don't own personally. I guess the other question is on Metal. Has anyone gotten Metal to work on "unsupported" Macs?
[doublepost=1529338489][/doublepost]One other thought. I saw somewhere in the thread that someone had used VMWare Fusion to install Mojave on a virtualized Mac. Might it be possible to use a virtualized Mac do obtain a copy of Mojave, then hack it into the actual Mac hardware?

 

[jackluke]

So it looks like the only way to get a copy of the OS is through access to a supported Mac, which I don't own personally. I guess the other question is on Metal. Has anyone gotten Metal to work on "unsupported" Macs?
[doublepost=1529338489][/doublepost]One other thought. I saw somewhere in the thread that someone had used VMWare Fusion to install Mojave on a virtualized Mac. Might it be possible to use a virtualized Mac do obtain a copy of Mojave, then hack it into the actual Mac hardware?

your MBP 17” 2011 has dual graphics Intel hd 3000 partially supported and AMD 6000 series could instead support Metal natively, I think so, virtualizing you surely can install Mojave I think 30 gb virtual disk would be enough to test then from disk utilty clone to external usb disk and you could boot from real mac.

The challenge in this thread I guess is also to successful install Mojave beta 1 directly on an unsupported mac but this implies a risky EFI firmware update, so that’s why is preferrable to install it from a supported mac or inside a virtual machine supported mac and then cloning elsewhere.

 

[iphone2g&3gfan]

Which bugs, you mean that can open Maps app or a slideshow screensaver from Mojave beta 1 MBA 2011 ?

The only good thing that HD3000 kext give is the VRAM allocation but almost nothing else without Metal.
[doublepost=1529318329][/doublepost]

Maybe, but eGPU was intended for Thunderbolt 3, but luckily there is already a script for backwards Thunderbolt port compatibility that is “PurgeWangler”.

Thunderbolt is actually surprisingly easy, it's not as hard as it sounds. Just edit IOPCITunnelCompatible=1, but now that's no longer necessary I think because in high sierra we got 'official' egpu support. If anything doesn't work we just patch Info.plist with that key and that's it, I think?
[doublepost=1529340019][/doublepost]

Hi guys. Very interesting thread. Some comments and questions. I'm a registered Apple developer, but spend all my time in iOS. Little knowledge of macOS. I was disappointed that Apple cut off support for my mid-2011 17" MacBook Pro. It runs High Sierra just fine, and has a Core i7-2820QM (8 threads) AMD Radeon HD 6750 GPU. I recently replaced the logic board and would like to get a couple more years out of the machine. It fully supports Metal 2, which is part of High Sierra, so the cut off seems a little arbitrary. Considering that much weaker, but newer, Mac minis are supported in Mojave, I don't doubt that the MBP can handle it.

I haven't the time to go through every post in this thread, so I'd appreciate a refresh on installation and patches. The installation utility for Mojave of course spits up when I try to install on my machine, saying its unsupported. Is the only way to get a copy of the install app to have a supported machine?

Other main question surrounds Metal. Is the only workaround to disable Metal and go to OpenGL? I couldn't tell from the posts what the status is on this. Once again, would appreciate an update.

only macs that HAVE metal can upgrade to mojave. Any macs before 2012 do not have metal kexts (MTLDriver.bundle)

I don't think you have Metal 2, because the minimums are AMD Southern Islands/GCN 1.0/7xxx+ and Intel HD Graphics Ivy Bridge/HD 4000+.

 

[Czo]

NO! Intel HD 3000 and AMD 6000 series can't support Metal. So Metal and Metal based app's can't be used with Macs that contains anything, that older than Intel HD4000, AMD GCN, nVidia Fermi.

Mac's with thunderbolt can use eGPU's but that can't help with Macs with dedicated GPU's (like MacBook Pro's and iMacs and some Mac Minis). On that machines, the eGPU can only display the picture on the screen connected to eGPU (i have a thunderbolt - PCI-E box). On Mac's with Intel GPU only, the picture can be display on internal screen too (tested on 13" MBP from 2011 in High Sierra). But, on that 13" MBP, under Mojave the eGPU works only with external screen. I think, the "framecopy" feature requires a fully working accelerated Intel HD graphics (because, this works fine with a retina 2015 MBP with the same box and with the same eGPU).

 

[BerenErchamion]

Metal is definitely supported by my hardware in High Sierra:

My question is has anyone got it to work yet in Mojave?
[doublepost=1529340655][/doublepost]I don't think support for Metal 2 was the reason that Apple set the support cutoff where they did.

 

[Czo]

Metal is definitely supported by my hardware in High Sierra:

View attachment 766676

My question is has anyone got it to work yet in Mojave?
[doublepost=1529340655][/doublepost]I don't think support for Metal 2 was the reason that Apple set the support cutoff where they did.

No, it's not. Try some tests (gfxbench metal from app store, or opengl extension viewer from app store), or use google. Metal only supported on Radeons from GCN arch. On your screenshot, we see only a loaded framework. If you have a Metal supported GPU, system profiler tells it to you under the "Graphics/Display".

 

[BerenErchamion]

Okay, in that case, has enabling OpenGl worked?

 

[parrotgeek1]

That would be lovely, but a lot of work. I'd love to get more use out of my MP 2,1 on newer versions of MacOS but in the lack of that, I'll keep it running on Windows/Linux with El Cap. They are still awesome machines, even in 2018.

People tried to make an sse4.1 emulator but gave up
[doublepost=1529341676][/doublepost]

Okay, in that case, has enabling OpenGl worked?

Haven't worked on it for a while. I'm busy until the middle of next week. I also don't have access to any unsupported Macs (I only have MacBookPro11,1 with me).
[doublepost=1529341878][/doublepost]

Mac's with thunderbolt can use eGPU's but that can't help with Macs with dedicated GPU's (like MacBook Pro's and iMacs and some Mac Minis). On that machines, the eGPU can only display the picture on the screen connected to eGPU (i have a thunderbolt - PCI-E box). On Mac's with Intel GPU only, the picture can be display on internal screen too (tested on 13" MBP from 2011 in High Sierra). But, on that 13" MBP, under Mojave the eGPU works only with external screen. I think, the "framecopy" feature requires a fully working accelerated Intel HD graphics (because, this works fine with a retina 2015 MBP with the same box and with the same eGPU).

Could we make our own program that would run in full screen and copy the framebuffer?

 

[Czo]

People tried to make an sse4.1 emulator but gave up
[doublepost=1529341676][/doublepost]
Haven't worked on it for a while. I'm busy until the middle of next week. I also don't have access to any unsupported Macs because I'm not going to be home until September (I only have MacBookPro11,1 with me).
[doublepost=1529341878][/doublepost]
Could we make our own program that would run in full screen and copy the framebuffer?

I don't know. I think, this is the "feature", that any dual GPU MBP owner seeing (switching between GPU's). The dGPU renders it's framebuffer to IGP's framebuffer.

 

[BerenErchamion]

I think you guys have convinced me that I need to give up on my old MBP. I can use Xcode 10 it looks like for another year with 10.13.x. That will tide me over until the next MBP refresh, hopefully with 10 nm Intel processors. The XC10 beta runs under 10.13.4 and macOS compatibility is usually maintained through release. The main problem with that is that backward compatibility often isn't very good, and running on less than the most current macOS is buggy with bugs that Apple never gets around to fixing.

It would have been tricky using a hacked version of Mojave with Xcode in any case since you have to face Apple's developer portal to enable code signing etc. Don't know how carefully Apple checks developer hardware. Wouldn't want to get my hands slapped or my license revoked.

For what it's worth, I wish Apple would legitimize the Hackintosh community with either an open source version of macOS or a licensed generic version. There's so much passion and skill going into this that it's a shame that Apple doesn't recognize its value. Good luck everyone.