In this thread, advancements in running macOS 10.14 (Mojave) on unsupported systems will be discussed.
Current Hardware Support Status:
- Video Cards
- Pre-Metal AMD video cards (Radeon HD 6xxx series and older):
Drivers will load, but full acceleration will not be achieved. in beta 3 the drivers don't even load anymore
- Pre-Metal nVidia video cards (GeForce 5xx series and older): Drivers will load and full acceleration will be achieved, but menu bar and Finder sidebar will look weird in the light mode. Also some weird menu bar anomalies in dark mode, but much less apparent. Random kernel panics have also been reported with these cards.
- Pre-Metal Intel iGPUs (Intel HD Graphics 3000 and Intel HD Graphics "Arrandale/1st Gen"): Drivers will load and full acceleration will be achieved. Menu bar/Finder sidebar anomalies described above will also be present. No kernel panics or any instability issues have been reported with Intel iGPUs thus far.
- Machine Support
- Any system that uses a Core i-series CPU (Arrandale or later) will be able to run Mojave.
- Core 2 Duo/nVidia MCP79/89/i965-based systems will not longer kernel panic on boot! The potential cause of this kernel panic has been found and eliminated by replacing com.apple.telemetry.plugin in S/L/UserEventPlugins with the High Sierra version.
- MacPro3,1 (Early-2008) systems had the same kernel panic issue, and as such, Mojave will run on them with replaced com.apple.telemetry.plugin.
Installing for Testing:
To install on your machine, you can download and run my "
macOS Mojave Patcher" application, which will let you download a copy of the latest Public Beta from Apple, and create a bootable USB installer for use on unsupported systems. It contains all the patches necessary to achieve the hardware support listed above. At this point, it is recommended that you install Mojave on one of these unsupported systems for testing only, and NOT as your main/daily use OS.
The current compatibility list (assuming we are able to fix AMD and NVidia acceleration):
- Xserve 2009
- Mac Pro 2009 (although, it makes more sense to upgrade it to a 2010/2012 and then install officially)
- iMac Late 2009-Late 2011 (Core i series only)
- MacBook Air Mid 2011 (works perfectly except for UI glitches)
- MacBook Pro Mid 2010-Late 2011 (Core i series only) (works perfectly except for UI glitches if you disable the discrete GPU)
- Mac Mini Mid 2011 (the HD 3000 variant works perfectly except for UI glitches)
- MacPro3,1 (Early 2008)
- MacBook 7,1 (Mid 2010)
A possibility for some computers is a Thunderbolt external GPU.
This needs to be investigated more, and requires kext patches.
The following unsupported models are Thunderbolt capable:
- MacBook Pro (Early/Late 2011)
- MacBook Air (Mid 2011)
- Mac mini (Mid 2011)
- iMac (Mid 2011)
Yet a third possibility is to upgrade the MXM slot GPU on 2009-2011 iMacs. This has not been investigated yet.
Manual Patch Tutorial:
MacBook6,1 or MacBook7,1 owners who would like to patch their system manually can follow this amazing tutorial made by
@ASentientBot,
here.
Moderator Note:
Please do not ask for, or provide help getting developers profile information to access unauthorised beta software on MacRumors. If you are not a developer, sign up to the
Apple Beta Software Program to get the official public beta releases.
