macOS 11 Big Sur on Unsupported Macs Thread

[andrey_russian]

Just upgraded via @Barry K. Nathan 's micropatcher 0.5.0.
iMac 27 mid 2011 (12,2) with a K610M
All went smooth.
Used --2011 --iMac got wifi but not brightness control. What should I do?

2011 iMac 27" K1100M Graphics Card Swap And Install Catalina - Hello, World! Codes

A step-by-step guide on how I successfully swap the graphics card to K1100M on my 2011 27″ iMac and install Catalina in this unsupported system. I decided to take on this project due to the infamous Apple AMD GPU failure…

helloworldcodes.com

 

[TimothyR734]

Wish dosdue1 would give us an update.

Most likely we will not be getting a acOS Big Sur patcher from dosdude as he is busy with other things like college and in order to make a Big Sur patcher it has to be made from the ground up and most likey it will only be for those Macs the have Metal GPU's as no has be able to get graphic acceleration working yet for non-metal GPU's

 

[TheSkywalker77]

Thanks for all the work y'all have done!

I'm debating installing it on my main partition, I'll try it out for a month or so and see how it goes.

 

[mazz0]

Micropatcher working fine for me so far.

It got stuck in a reboot cycle for a while (screen totally black, rebooting every few minutes (could only tell by the sound)), but fully powering off and back on fixed this (actually I booted to the USB stick in between powering it off and on, but didn't do anything there).

Installed the kexts, wifi's working. Can keep and resume fine too, only thing that's not working currently is brightness control. Can't remember what I had to install in Catalina to get that working. My GPU temp sensor and Macs Fan Control are all working though, so it's fine.

I accidentally did an upgrade rather that fresh installation though (I thought the installer would aks me which I wanted, it didn't), which the Micropatcher notes say is unstable coming coming from a dosdude patched Catalina, so we'll see. I might need to re-install at some point.

Anyway, long story short, and it's early days, but Micropatcher gets an initial thumbs up from me.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Micropatcher working fine for me so far.View attachment 1659117
It got stuck in a reboot cycle for a while (screen totally black, rebooting every few minutes (could only tell by the sound)), but fully powering off and back on fixed this (actually I booted to the USB stick in between powering it off and on, but didn't do anything there).

Installed the kexts, wifi's working. Can keep and resume fine too, only thing that's not working currently is brightness control. Can't remember what I had to install in Catalina to get that working. My GPU temp sensor and Macs Fan Control are all working though, so it's fine.

I accidentally did an upgrade rather that fresh installation though (I thought the installer would aks me which I wanted, it didn't), which the Micropatcher notes say is unstable coming coming from a dosdude patched Catalina, so we'll see. I might need to re-install at some point.

Anyway, long story short, and it's early days, but Micropatcher gets an initial thumbs up from me.

To get brightness control with this K2100M GPU you need to use the OpenCore / Catalina Loader mentioned in the post in my signature. You will not get it back just by patching the OS. It is (and was) the same as with all other prior MacOS versions.
So the missing brightness control is not a missing piece of the micro patcher, is is a missing piece in your basic installation. These things are (right now) not related as long as we have a patcher without an OpenCore setup included.

 

[KennyW]

Micropatcher working fine for me so far.View attachment 1659117
It got stuck in a reboot cycle for a while (screen totally black, rebooting every few minutes (could only tell by the sound)), but fully powering off and back on fixed this (actually I booted to the USB stick in between powering it off and on, but didn't do anything there).

Installed the kexts, wifi's working. Can keep and resume fine too, only thing that's not working currently is brightness control. Can't remember what I had to install in Catalina to get that working. My GPU temp sensor and Macs Fan Control are all working though, so it's fine.

I accidentally did an upgrade rather that fresh installation though (I thought the installer would aks me which I wanted, it didn't), which the Micropatcher notes say is unstable coming coming from a dosdude patched Catalina, so we'll see. I might need to re-install at some point.

Anyway, long story short, and it's early days, but Micropatcher gets an initial thumbs up from me.

Did nvidia cards get any graphic acceleration ?

 

[jackluke]

About BigSur "non Beta", my BaseSystem fix still works for legacy USB patches, either micropatcher or BaseSystem fix will work to "Install or Upgrade Big Sur" (through ASentientBot Hax3 fix), because apple automatically populates the Recovery menu with the "Install app" (and its SharedSupport.dmg) available on the root Installer ramdisk.

Then I add that those who encountered the new prohibitory symbol with a new text support.apple.com/mac/startup, know this is unrelated to any unwanted EFI firmware update, instead it's simply an updated apple driver apfs.efi or boot.efi (currently size 724 KB, previous beta size 642 KB).

I tested this easily, installed BigSur 11.0.1 RC2 on external USB drive, then plugged this external drive to another Mac, used the stock 724 KB boot.efi, cleared boot-args, boot.plist, nvram and csrutil to provoke the "prohibitory symbol" and I got exactly that text message support.apple.com/mac/startup from a machine where BigSur hasn't neither installed directly, so most probably is only the updated boot.efi that contains also some pictures and icons, for example the dark boot screen, apple logo, loading bar and others graphics.

 

[Ausdauersportler]

Did nvidia cards get any graphic acceleration ?

YES!
Nvidia Kepler cards are metal compatible and get all the acceleration needed to run smoothly with Big Sur. It has been discussed more than one time here and it has been even published on the GPU thread and it is part of the first post there. Where did you sleep the last weeks BTW, election is over, too.

 

[mazz0]

To get brightness control with this K2100M GPU you need to use the OpenCore / Catalina Loader mentioned in the post in my signature. You will not get it back just by patching the OS. It is (and was) the same as with all other prior MacOS versions.
So the missing brightness control is not a missing piece of the micro patcher, is is a missing piece in your basic installation. These things are (right now) not related as long as we have a patcher without an OpenCore setup included.

Ah, OK, thanks. I thought maybe it wasn't that because I thought that Catalina Loader was also required for "Put Display to Sleep", which is working without it. I must have misremembered.

I've still got Catalina Loader on a USB stick, though if brightness control is all that's missing I might not bother. The default brightness looks fine.

 

[mazz0]

Did nvidia cards get any graphic acceleration ?

Yup, running lovely! At first I thought the transparency wasn't working, I thought maybe it's disabled it cos it detected lack of acceleration, but actually the transparency's just quite subtle, especially when you have something mostly white behind the window in question.

 

[KennyW]

Yup, running lovely! At first I thought the transparency wasn't working, I thought maybe it's disabled it cos it detected lack of acceleration, but actually the transparency's just quite subtle, especially when you have something mostly white behind the window in question.

I asked because your iMac has an Quadra K2100 GPU upgrade.

Some of the older unsupported Macs have older generation of nvidia and AMD cards.
Many seem to work under Catalina, including the Radeon HD2600 Pro in my iMac 7,1 (mid 2007) and nvidia GeForce 320M in MacMini 4,1 (mid 2010), which I owned and both running Catalina.
The user interface is responsive, though of course a bit slow as compared to recent GPUs, and videos played smoothly in QuickTIme with very few skipped frames.

But the ATI HD5000 & 6000 series are not Metal compatible. My iMac 11,3 (mid 2010) with HD5750 can run Catalina with DosDude's Patcher, but the Finder interface is sluggish. Videos still play smoothly in QuickTime with probably CPU decoding support without obvious skipped frame. This is running WITHOUT the legacy graphics patch as I am also preparing to change it to metal compatible GPU with unluckily multiple hurdles.

But if in BigSur all these old GPUs are still metal compatible (though not fully metal capable), then it may be still worthwhile to aim for the last (??) version of Intel OSX...

 

[Ausdauersportler]

But if in BigSur all these old GPUs are still metal compatible (though not fully metal capable), then it may be still worthwhile to aim for the last (??) version of Intel OSX...

About which "these old GPUs are still metal compatible" you are writing here exactly?

Only NVIDIA Kepler or AMD Polaris/Ellesmere CPU will get video (AMD) and graphics acceleration in Big Sur in iMacs late 2009 to mid 2011 (referring to the current technical status).

 

[tuzmaster]

iMac 2011 with k3100m and updated Bluetooth module working smoothly. Handoff and watch unlock working perfectly (updated from Catalina and micropatch used)

 

[KennyW]

About which "these old GPUs are still metal compatible" you are writing here exactly?

Only NVIDIA Kepler or AMD Polaris/Ellesmere CPU will get video acceleration in Big Sur in iMacs late 2009 to mid 2011 (referring to the current technical status).

You are right 🤗

i miss the remarks in the 1st post again.
Many unsupported Macs, though can now still install and run BigSur as in Catalina, will lose graphic acceleration that is important for the Finder UI navigation. That's what I am asking. I think video acceleration is another different things.

Need to see how responsive the UI in the iMac 7,1 and MacMini 4,1 when the official BigSur is out.

 

[44quattrosport]

As always everything fine. Patcher 0.5.0

 

[amaze1499]

Looks like we have a Micropatcher RC ?

 

[iMac-Oldschool]

Looks like we have a Micropatcher RC ?

The latest version still appears to be v0.5.0, which is now a week old. It can be used to install RC2 if you modify the terminal commands to remove any reference to Beta.

 

[webg3]

Micropatcher 5.0
macOS Big Sur 11.0.1

 

[telepati]

is anyone successfully installed Big Sur to Early iMac 9,1 ATI 4850?

 

[jackluke]

is anyone successfully installed Big Sur to Early iMac 9,1 ATI 4850?

This should work: BigSur BaseSystem fix

I don't included yet any ATI AMD GPU framebuffer drivers, but also with basic video kext should work, just some efforts are required with a non-APFS Mac when using OpenCore to complete properly the stage3 installer (for stage2 installer I made a working fix for any non-APFS Mac), otherwise if you have an APFS patch or install on internal SATA disk or easier use an already installed or cloned BigSur from another Mac, then just applying "BigSurFixes Legacy USB patches" from Utilities is sufficient for booting desktop with responsive usb devices on those machines.

 

[laertemeira]

Done! Installed 20B28 on MBP 8,2 using micropatcher 0.4.4 with Jackluke's corebrightness added.

View attachment 1658704

Hi @air.man! Very nice! Intel HD3000 remains without acceleration by all material shared here, if I understood correctly. How usable is your machine, for daily work, with this macOS? I have a MBP 8,3, with same GPU. I'm thinking to replace my MacBook by a cMP 5,1 with a RX580 for daily drive, once my work is most at home now, if Catalina was the last version for my MPB with a GPU accelerated. Thanks!

 

[telepati]

This should work: BigSur BaseSystem fix

I don't included yet any ATI AMD GPU framebuffer drivers, but also with basic video kext should work, just some efforts are required with a non-APFS Mac when using OpenCore to complete properly the stage3 installer (for stage2 installer I made a working fix for any non-APFS Mac), otherwise if you have an APFS patch or install on internal SATA disk or easier use an already installed or cloned BigSur from another Mac, then just applying "BigSurFixes Legacy USB patches" from Utilities is sufficient for booting desktop with responsive usb devices on those machines.

Can I use these for RC2?

 

[amaze1499]

MacBookPro9,2 Micropatcher 0.5.0 BigSur 20B28 - No issues whatsoever. Thanks!

One issue though: applemusic app is freezing up constantly. its basically not usable til its been force reset.

 

[jackluke]

Can I use these for RC2?

In few minutes I am updating some features of BaseSystem fix, you can use those same BaseSystem Legacy USB fix commands , because the resources are downloaded from my GitHub where I am uploading some modification .

edit:
Added on BaseSystem "BigSurFixes Frameworks patch" for enabling Night Shift on unsupported BigSur non Metal, but graphics framebuffer is required .

 

[telepati]

In few minutes I am updating some features of BaseSystem fix, you can use those same BaseSystem Legacy USB fix , because the resources are downloaded from my GitHub .

Ok. I am following your GitHub repo. 👍