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macOS 11 Big Sur on Unsupported Macs Thread

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The first post of this thread is a WikiPost and can be edited by anyone with the appropiate permissions. Your edits will be public.
dukebound85 said:
has anyone run oclp on a big sur supported mac that may not have all big sur features? (ie sidecar)
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Sidecar needs at least a metal iGPU (which means HD4000 and up). Most macOS features are bound to real hardware (like BT 4.0 or 4.2, metal capable dGPU, metal iGPU etc.).

You cannot patch back hardware. You may get OpenGL (but no metal) graphics acceleration back for some legacy pre metal video cards, you may get Atheros BT support (but no HandOff and Continuity) and so on, you may get SideCar (but only wired or with a limited screen size or performance issues).

So it is more a rule than an exception not to have all possible Big Sur features on unsupported Macs.
 
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HexagonWin said:
Hello, I'm also on a MacBook4,1. (Not pro!)
With the MacBook5,2 option, did you get mouse and trackpad/keyboard working? For me with 4,1 config or 5,2 config I can boot with internal hdd but mouse and keyboard doesn't work. Thanks.
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Yes, I had the 4,1 running with USB/trackpad/keyboard. But have not tried it with more recent OC versions.
One thing you can have a look at in the meantime (you triggered me resuming the 4,1 experiments again ;-) is the
USB definition within the USB-Map.kext info.plist file. This resides in the OC folder on your EFI partition.
I noticed that when I wanted to "unspoof" certain MacBooks (set them back to their original model-ID) I had to change contents there as well or lose USB/trackpad/keyboard functions.
 
BeatCrazy said:
EDIT: I didn't realize I need to apply patches as part of the initial setup, in order to improve the graphics response. Once patches applied, it works really well! Leaving my original post below in case someone runs into the same situation, they'll know to complete this "final step" with non-Metal supported Macs.

Did an experiment today with my MacBookPro6,1 which is a Mid 2010 17" model with the i7 and Nvidia GT 330M (non-Metal) graphics. A maxed out machine from 11 years ago, free to me :) I used a fresh SSD and built the Big Sur installer via another Mac. So no funny business, just as "fresh" of an install as you could get.

Three things I want to point out, for anyone considering using OCLP with this model.
  1. It works! Yes, following the excellent instructions, you can definitely get this model running macOS 11.4. Thank you to the wonderful team that contributed so much to making Big Sur work on something that definitely should not. Great job OCLP team! :cool:
  2. Many things are ultra-slow, like worse than HDD. Doing the initial Big Sur set-up installation options, it was like cursor is frozen for 3 seconds, can move for 1 second. Repeat. Instead of taking 5 minutes for initial install, it's more like 20.
  3. This "freezing" manifests itself in many native Apple apps, like News, Maps, etc. Which basically makes them unusable. Other apps (like Safari) work much better. But they still worked/launched slowly, like you're using a HDD, instead of the SSD I am using.
As such, I'm going to pull the drive and revert back to High Sierra. Big Sur is too stuttery for me, but I really appreciate the effort into making this work. So simple to install (vs. previous OC instances) and definitely keeps many computers from becoming e-waste.

Thanks again OCLP folks, and I'll keep up the good fight with my iMac 11,1 27" Late 2009 w/metal GPU that runs really strong thanks to OCLP.
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Could you tell me if you managed to do a clean install of big sur (whatever version) with OCLP on your iMac 11,1 w/metal gpu ? As i have the same configuration and never made it run for some weeks now :-(.
Only managed to do it with micropatcher only.
 
hexagram92 said:
Could you tell me if you managed to do a clean install of big sur (whatever version) with OCLP on your iMac 11,1 w/metal gpu ? As i have the same configuration and never made it run for some weeks now :-(.
Only managed to do it with micropatcher only.
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Yes, I did a 100% clean install of 11.4 with OCLP on my iMac w/K2100M. It works amazingly well.
 
BeatCrazy said:
Yes, I did a 100% clean install of 11.4 with OCLP on my iMac w/K2100M. It works amazingly well.
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Did you made any changes for the patcher to work ? (for example forcing Nvdia gpu or changing SMBIOS to moderate)
Maybe it has to do with my GPU, i've not a Quadro but a GTX 770m patched with nickdvb firmware
 
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hexagram92 said:
Did you made any changes for the patcher to work ? (for example forcing Nvdia gpu or changing SMBIOS to moderate)
Maybe it has to do with my GPU, i've not a Quadro but a GTX 770m patched with nickdvb firmware
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No, no changes to the patcher were needed in my installation. My GPU is also patched with the nickdvb firmware, but I'm not familiar with support for your particular card.
 
Bmju said:
Minimal Google fu ("OpenCore sidecar") and the kind folks at Dortania tell me the current state of play is: https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-For-Legacy-Macs/post-install/sidecar.html
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dukebound85 said:
this link is no longer found:(
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You're right, the whole repo which that documentation was in seems to have gone. I'm sure in the right thread or discussion there's a post explaining rearrangement of documentation, don't know if @khronokernel has a quick moment to clarify? If so thx!
 
Hello,

Successful installation of Big Sur 11.5 beta3 on 2009 MacBook Pro 5,2 -- 17 inch, 1 TB SSD ( on June 15th)

Method: OCLP 0.1.7 combined with USB based full installer (see post 10,805 above for link to installer package)

Originally I used OCLP 0.2.0 to initiate 11.5 beta3 update, however, the postinstall volume patch did not work and there was no graphic acceleration. I reverted to OCLP 0.1.7 and used that version to install the "volume patch", this time with success. I noted that there were posts detailing similar problems with initial OCLP 0.2.0 release; I have since updated to 0.2.2 version.

I tried to use software update, but the installation did not complete successfully. Full Installer method worked without problems.

Hope this is of help.

Screen Shot 2021-06-29 at 15.57.32.png
 
Have there been detailed reports on this thread about how the non-metal compatible GPUs are faring with open core legacy patcher and Big Sur? I know some people are doing it, but generally how well does it work?

there’s a great install tutorial on YouTube about OCLP Big Sur and non-metal compatible gpus, but it doesn’t really show how well the graphics acceleration patches work afterwards in that video….. just shows how to install.

what’s the overall experience like? Pros? Cons? From what I’ve read, it seeems like it is still a work in progress? Please direct me to a post if it is somewhere in here. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
 
There are some graphical glitches and you need to make use of some things like tccplus, but it works great.

You can give it a try and if you don’t like it you don’t have to keep using it.

If you have the 2011 iMac upgrading to a metal GPU would provide the best experience.
 
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Ive got a MBP 8,1 (2011 13 inch) that works very well with dosdude1 catalina…. At some point, I’ll probably try OCLP and big sur with this machine, but the wizards keep conjuring new patches for the graphics, so still holding out for now…..😉 🧙‍♂️ 🧙‍♀️
 
Hi everyone,
I use quite a lot my iMac late 2013 (iMac14,3) as a hub for file sharing. It worked perfectly well with Mojave. But I installed Big Sur using OpenCore Legacy Patcher... and now in System Preferences --> Energy saver, I only see the option "Wake up for ETHERNET network access". It doesn't seem to work over WIFI and that's really annoying to me.
Is there a workaround or a way to fix this please ? I’m using the last version OCLP 0.2.2 and I did a clean install of Big Sur 11.4. I really hope you’ll be able to help me as this is for now the only issue I encounter with Big Sur, but that’s a huge issue for me and I don’t want to downgrade back to Mojave… and entirely prevent my iMac from sleeping is not the best solution as well.

Thanks a lot

Capture d’écran 2021-06-30 à 01.59.02.png
 
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mat1696 said:
Hi everyone,
I use quite a lot my iMac late 2013 (iMac14,3) as a hub for file sharing. It worked perfectly well with Mojave. But I installed Big Sur using OpenCore Legacy Patcher... and now in System Preferences --> Energy saver, I only see the option "Wake up for ETHERNET network access". It doesn't seem to work over WIFI and that's really annoying to me.
Is there a workaround or a way to fix this please ? I’m using the last version OCLP 0.2.2 and I did a clean install of Big Sur 11.4. I really hope you’ll be able to help me as this is for now the only issue I encounter with Big Sur, but that’s a huge issue for me and I don’t want to downgrade back to Mojave… and entirely prevent my iMac from sleeping is not the best solution as well.

Thanks a lot

View attachment 1799919
Click to expand...
SMC reset will likely fix. 😎 OCLP 0.2.3 is here: https://nightly.link/dortania/OpenC...s/build-app/main/OpenCore-Patcher-TUI.app.zip FWIW
 
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K two said:
Sometimes Onyx/Maintenance fixes weird stuff. Try v.0.2.3?
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I also tried Onyx… The bad news is that I’ve justed tested to boot on my external ssd with Big Sur betas and the same issue occurs. When I take the same ssd and boot into my MacBook Air the option « Wake up for WIFI network access » appears, though.

So that seems to be a deeper issue, what do you think ? I opened an Issue in the OpenCore Github, but not received any answer for now…

I hope I’ll be able to fix this soon, otherwise the downgrade will be harder (and I don’t want to downgrade as - except for that issue - I love Big Sur on my iMac). If you have other ideas I’ll be more than pleased to hear them :)
 
K two said:
Came via Software Update CP. Like @mdgm wrote. 👀
Click to expand...
Dear Sir,
I received Restart message from Auto update and Auto restarted 3 times.
Thank you dosdude1,khronokernel,ASentientBot and other developers for hard working.
I upgraded successful my both MacBookPro 8,1 & 5,5 with OpenCore Legacy Patcher 0.2.3 Nightly.
Nice day & all the Best!
 
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Successful update from 11.5 Beta 3 to 11.5 beta 4 (20G5052c) on 2009 MacBook Pro 5,2.

Method: Software Update (via system preferences) and OCLP 0.1.7 installed on internal drive.
Applied Volume Patches for Graphic Acceleration with success.

Several reboots required just as for 11.5 beta 3 update . (See https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...unsupported-macs-thread.2242172/post-30058979 for some details).
If during the installation-reboot process machine boots into the Apple Drive Picker (rather than OCLP picker) just choose OCLP internal icon (EFI boot) in Apple Picker to access OCLP drive picker. Once in OCLP environment pick MacOS Install or Macintosh HD icon, whichever one's icon is visible; the latter choice may be related to using OCLP 0.1.7 rather then the 0.2.2 version(?)

System functions as expected.

Hope this information is of help.

Screen Shot 2021-06-30 at 11.31.32.png
 
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