macOS 10.14 Mojave on Unsupported Macs Thread

[Deregulated]

W

Already tried this. The kexts load, but there is still no GPU acceleration.

What is affected when GPU acceleration is not present? I have a Late 2011 MacBook Pro (Intel HD Graphics 3000)

 

[iphone2g&3gfan]

Are you parsing this statement differently than I am?



Source: https://download.developer.apple.co...Jun_4_2018/macOS_10.14_beta_Release_Notes.pdf

To me that seems to be saying that the stock cards in the 2010 and 2012 will not be compatible with Mojave and that Apple is going to recommend a card(s) that is.

Also the GT120 was the stock card for the 2009 (which is not supported by Mojave and was not supported by High Sierra). The 2010 and 2012 both used the ATI 5770 and 5870. So I highly doubt the GT120 will be Mojave-compatible (at least not officially).

The GT120 falls into the Tesla architecture (G96 chip) and therefore may be supported by the Web Drivers (NVDANV50HALWeb.kext) although I personally have not seen a Tesla web driver card (I don't even know if NVDANV50HALWeb.kext is included in the Web Driver bundle) Could someone check that? I don't have a Mac readily available to extract it from.

If Tesla is supported by the Web Drivers update for Mojave, then that gives us acceleration on GT 320m + 9400m + 9600m (cpu not compatible with SSE4.1 for those machines though, I think, so Mojave's out) + GT 330m. The GT 320m is in the 2010 MacBook Pro 13" (I believe) and the 330m I have in my 15" 2010. The 9400m is in various Apple MacBooks and Mac Minis (MCPsomething chipset by Nvidia, popular with late 2000's computers for a mix in performance and value)

 

[montyboy_us]

I installed using a supported system, and am booting from that drive on the unsupported machines.

I did the beta install to an external drive, then plopped that drive in my Pro 5,1 with GTX 680 and I just get greeted with the 'NO'. When it was connected to the supported MacBook Air I made sure to delete PlatformSupport.plist. I must be missing something else as the 680GTX is metal compatible. Any pointers will be greatly appreciated.

 

[iphone2g&3gfan]

This is interesting for me, as my 2010 iMac Core i7 has a Radeon 5750.

Note though that the system requirements for those old Mac Pros stipulates that a Metal compatible GPU is installed.

"Mac Pro, late 2013, and mid 2010 an mid 2012 where equipped with Metal-capable GPU"

Ah, darnit. I don't have the PDF, but that indicates that we may be out of luck. (Unless the devs were *kind* enough to provide an OpenGL WindowServer, which we can then feed with our 10.13 kexts)

However, I think you have MXM as an option, provided the backlight adjustment is a sacrifice you are willing to make, and the EFI bootscreens (unless you flash it, and I don't think MXM's have been successfully EFI flashed)
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I did the beta install to an external drive, then plopped that drive in my Pro 5,1 with GTX 680 and I just get greeted with the 'NO'. When it was connected to the supported MacBook Air I made sure to delete PlatformSupport.plist. I must be missing something else as the 680GTX is metal compatible. Any pointers will be greatly appreciated.

Back in Lion you could delete PlatformSupport. Nowadays, you have to mod it, not delete it. Follow the format of the preexisting lines, and add the board-id from here: https://gist.github.com/rtrouton/e6cf0f4064aea52fac2e5116c4b05f2e
It is 'Mac-F221BEC8'.
Also add MacPro5,1 to the section with the model names. I have not edited the file in a while, so forgive me for my not-so-detailed description.
[doublepost=1528169641][/doublepost]

W

What is affected when GPU acceleration is not present? I have a Late 2011 MacBook Pro (Intel HD Graphics 3000)

In a nutshell, many apps will crash or fail to launch or error out with an OpenGL/Metal missing message, overall system performance will be sluggish, and certain graphical elements will glitch/white squares/who knows. The Dock will not have translucency (white) and neither will the menubar at top.

If you can get the FrameBuffer kext to load, then you will have some more performance, but the glitches will remain and apps will fail.

 

[dosdude1]

Just tested on a Penryn Core 2 Duo-based Late-2008 MBP. It kernel panics on boot.

 

[iphone2g&3gfan]

Just tested on a Penryn Core 2 Duo-based Late-2008 MBP. It kernel panics on boot.

Do you have a verbose mode picture, if possible? It should not KP since you do have SSE4.1...

 

[Deregulated]

Ah, darnit. I don't have the PDF, but that indicates that we may be out of luck. (Unless the devs were *kind* enough to provide an OpenGL WindowServer, which we can then feed with our 10.13 kexts)

However, I think you have MXM as an option, provided the backlight adjustment is a sacrifice you are willing to make, and the EFI bootscreens (unless you flash it, and I don't think MXM's have been successfully EFI flashed)
[doublepost=1528169504][/doublepost]


Back in Lion you could delete PlatformSupport. Nowadays, you have to mod it, not delete it. Follow the format of the preexisting lines, and add the board-id from here: https://gist.github.com/rtrouton/e6cf0f4064aea52fac2e5116c4b05f2e
It is 'Mac-F221BEC8'.
Also add MacPro5,1 to the section with the model names. I have not edited the file in a while, so forgive me for my not-so-detailed description.
[doublepost=1528169641][/doublepost]
In a nutshell, many apps will crash or fail to launch or error out with an OpenGL/Metal missing message, overall system performance will be sluggish, and certain graphical elements will glitch/white squares/who knows. The Dock will not have translucency (white) and neither will the menubar at top.

If you can get the FrameBuffer kext to load, then you will have some more performance, but the glitches will remain and apps will fail.

That’s horrible. I didn’t expect them to drop 3+ years worth of Macs. Mine is fully capable. :/

 

[iphone2g&3gfan]

Already tried this. The kexts load, but there is still no GPU acceleration.

Sadly, this may mean that WindowServer is Metal only. This would make sense, as it would optimize performance by stripping the OpenGL code, but we can always try more: like hack in the 10.13 WindowServer and some frameworks... once we get concrete data on what is and is not included in 10.14, we can begin the slow process of porting/hacking...
[doublepost=1528170046][/doublepost]

That’s horrible. I didn’t expect them to drop 3+ years worth of Macs. Mine is fully capable. :/

Don't fret yet, while no guarantees can be made at this point I'm sure someone (or I) will hack in WindowServer at some point, or maybe it already has OpenGL, or maybe Apple backs off on their 2010/2012 Mac Pro GPU mandate...

 

[dlopan]

Apple is just being lazy. Typical for everything Apple these days. I have a Macbook Air early 2012. Works fine on High Sierra.

 

[EugW]

Ah, darnit. I don't have the PDF, but that indicates that we may be out of luck. (Unless the devs were *kind* enough to provide an OpenGL WindowServer, which we can then feed with our 10.13 kexts)

However, I think you have MXM as an option, provided the backlight adjustment is a sacrifice you are willing to make, and the EFI bootscreens (unless you flash it, and I don't think MXM's have been successfully EFI flashed)

I mentioned earlier I'm perfectly happy using my 2010 iMac just as an external monitor. Looked at from the front, it perfectly matches my 2017 iMac.

 

[dosdude1]

Update: MBP5,1 kernel panic was due to incompatible APFS driver in my system firmware. Going to inject the APFS driver from Mojave and try again.

 

[EugW]

Update: MBP5,1 kernel panic was due to incompatible APFS driver in my system firmware. Going to inject the APFS driver from Mojave and try again.

Does Mojave require APFS? Or can you still boot HFS+?

 

[iphone2g&3gfan]

Does Mojave require APFS? Or can you still boot HFS+?

I don't think so, because Fusion Drives still only have HFS+ available, and they're supported (presumably)
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I mentioned earlier I'm perfectly happy using my 2010 iMac just as an external monitor. Looked at from the front, it perfectly matches my 2017 iMac.

Good point. They sure are great monitors!

 

[EugW]

I don't think so, because Fusion Drives still only have HFS+ available, and they're supported (presumably)

Mojave supports AFPS on Fusion. I just don't know if it's mandatory or not when you upgrade to Mojave.

 

[redheeler]

Got Mojave booting on a 2011 MacBook Pro 13"... No GPU acceleration of course, but everything else seems to work no issues.

That's pretty much the expected result, it boots without graphics acceleration. If Apple has removed OpenGL support from the WindowServer, we're looking at a real problem here.

 

[iphone2g&3gfan]

That's pretty much the expected result, it boots without graphics acceleration. If Apple has removed OpenGL support from the WindowServer, we're looking at a real problem here.

Indeed, indeed. Hacking it in would be the only option, from 10.13. But, the Nvidia Web Drivers might still have our back here, but I only know for certain that metal is supported for Maxwell and above. It may support metal all the way back to tesla, and that's what we're hoping for. Kepler is metallized by the stock drivers, and I don't believe Fermi had stock drivers. So:

Tesla --> Native (no metal), Web Drivers (maybe metal)
Fermi --> Not native, Web Drivers (maybe metal)
Kepler --> native (metal), Web Drivers (maybe metal)
Maxwell (Gens 1 + 2) --> Not native, Web Drivers (metal confirmed: https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/t...or-macos-high-sierra-update-06012018/?page=35)
Pascal --> Not native, Web Drivers (metal confirmed)

If someone could chime in with some of these details, that would be great. My computer is an Air on Ubuntu 18.04, and I banished macOS long ago, so sadly I cannot provide these.

 

[EugW]

That's pretty much the expected result, it boots without graphics acceleration. If Apple has removed OpenGL support from the WindowServer, we're looking at a real problem here.

Our prediction in the 10.14 system requirements prediction thread was that Metal would be the cutoff. So, the Metal requirement doesn't surprise here. In retrospect though, perhaps if we weren't so surprised Metal would be the cutoff, we shouldn't be so surprised if Apple may have completely removed OpenGL support too.

 

[iphone2g&3gfan]

Our prediction in the 10.14 system requirements prediction thread was that Metal would be the cutoff. So, the Metal requirement doesn't surprise here. In retrospect though, perhaps if we weren't so surprised Metal would be the cutoff, we shouldn't be so surprised if Apple may have completely removed OpenGL support too.

Right, since stripping the OpenGL code removes unneeded bloat (that they emphasized removing @ WWDC and with iOS 12.) OpenGL apps do still launch, and the 10.14 kexts still provide the GLDriver.bundle. I don't think that there is an OpenGL shim that translates the calls to Metal. So it may be possible that we will not have UI Acceleration, but that we do have OpenGL App Acceleration. This would be weird, but it is possible. It would be a usable state, if we can achieve it. So far, we have nothing...

Could somebody open Activity Monitor.app as root from 10.14:

$ sudo /Applications/Utilities/Activity\ Monitor.app/Contents/MacOS/Activity\ Monitor

and search for "WindowServer" open it, and click on "Open Files and Ports" and provide a screenshot? This can give us insight into how it operates today, without OpenGL.

 

[rmendez011]

What about the early 2011 MacBook Pro, 15" with a AMD Radeon HD 6490M? would there be a difference in getting Mojave to work on this GPU?

 

[Insleep]

What about the early 2011 MacBook Pro, 15" with a AMD Radeon HD 6490M? would there be a difference in getting Mojave to work on this GPU?

No, it's not Metal-compatible unfortunately.

 

[iphone2g&3gfan]

What about the early 2011 MacBook Pro, 15" with a AMD Radeon HD 6490M? would there be a difference in getting Mojave to work on this GPU?

• No metal
• No web drivers to fall back on

We can try kextloading, but that still wouldn't solve the Metal issue (missing) so at best only OpenGL apps will run accelerated, at worst the kext doesn't even load. Then we deal with whether WindowServer has any opengl code left, and if it doesn't, no UI acceleration.

 

[redheeler]

Our prediction in the 10.14 system requirements prediction thread was that Metal would be the cutoff. So, the Metal requirement doesn't surprise here. In retrospect though, perhaps if we weren't so surprised Metal would be the cutoff, we shouldn't be so surprised if Apple may have completely removed OpenGL support too.

Credit to you for correctly predicting that Apple would expect us to throw away our capable 2011 Macs. Every year I must work to lower my expectations of Apple further.

What about the early 2011 MacBook Pro, 15" with a AMD Radeon HD 6490M? would there be a difference in getting Mojave to work on this GPU?

I'm afraid not. The 6490M and 6750M simply have no support for Metal. My Early 2011 17" is still going strong but also unable to run Mojave.

 

[AppleGeek1127]

Right, since stripping the OpenGL code removes unneeded bloat (that they emphasized removing @ WWDC and with iOS 12.) OpenGL apps do still launch, and the 10.14 kexts still provide the GLDriver.bundle. I don't think that there is an OpenGL shim that translates the calls to Metal. So it may be possible that we will not have UI Acceleration, but that we do have OpenGL App Acceleration. This would be weird, but it is possible. It would be a usable state, if we can achieve it. So far, we have nothing...

Could somebody open Activity Monitor.app as root from 10.14:

$ sudo /Applications/Utilities/Activity\ Monitor.app/Contents/MacOS/Activity\ Monitor

and search for "WindowServer" open it, and click on "Open Files and Ports" and provide a screenshot? This can give us insight into how it operates today, without OpenGL.

 

[TMRJIJ]

Does Mojave require APFS? Or can you still boot HFS+?

I would assume not. Many of the supported 2012 Macs had HDDs, if I recall.

 

[iphone2g&3gfan]

Yes, yes, YES! It definitely loads AppleIntelKBLGraphicsGLDriver.bundle, so there STILL IS some OpenGL handling in WindowServer! This may be to:

1) Run OpenGL apps natively (~99.9999% chance)
2) Provide an OpenGL accelerated UI fallback (~35% chance)
3) Intentionally provide us a chance to manually load the OpenGL only drivers, with full support for them (0.01% chance)

Just to be clear, it's from 10.14 right?