macOS 15 Sequoia on Unsupported Macs Thread

[internetzel]

OK, so, seems like updating from a USB installer created by OCLP vs the OTA update eliminates the reboot with no root patches installed. I updated from 15.3 to 15.3.1 via USB and root patches were in place when done. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Monterey is my main install as it's the latest supported OS, and Open Core is installed on the SSD part of the Fusion drive, and then Sequoia and Sonoma are installed on their own APFS volume shared with the main "Macintosh HD" volume. Then I have Linux installed on a 4TB My Passport. I also have Mojave installed on a 3rd APFS Volume for 32-bit compatibility for mac native stuff. I've managed to get the dual boot setup to work nicely without random issues now. Once everything got setup, it's stayed reliable for now.

Has anyone here gotten compatibility layers for gaming to work under newer versions of macOS installed by Open Core. In my case and observations macOS kind of seems to such for cross platform gaming compared to Linux because it seems like some things just don't work the same way under macOS. So thought i would ask to see if anyone here has been able to use Open core to install a newer version of macOS and get a decent gaming setup on an older intel Mac that can still run 32 bit code.

EDIT: here are a couple examples of what I mean. I use the Heroic Game Launcher for Linux, and macOS. a good number of games from GOG work under macOS. However, newer games I got free through Prime Gaming that use DX11, doesn't always work right via wine on macOS, but work as expected under Linux and the same software. The only difference seems to be, Linux can use Vulkan to replace DX11 while macOS can't. So I was wondering if open core and newer versions of macOS with gaming features built in can be made to use Vulkan. I'm looking for someone who can help me with the more unique uses I have for my mac.

Wine cannot use MoltenVK for 32 bit Windows software, since MoltenVK uses Metal which is strictly 64 bit only - but even if it could, there are things which cannot easily be done using the Metal API.
For that purpose Apple created the D3DMetal framework inside its Game Porting Toolkit, which wine can use in order to get that job done - on Apple ARM CPUs only...

 

[MacinMan]

Wine cannot use MoltenVK for 32 bit Windows software, since MoltenVK uses Metal which is strictly 64 bit only - but even if it could, there are things which cannot easily be done using the Metal API.
For that purpose Apple created the D3DMetal framework inside its Game Porting Toolkit, which wine can use in order to get that job done - on Apple ARM CPUs only...

That's been one of my biggest hangups about getting a new mac is the backwards compatibility with things that either work on intel macos, or Linux or windows on an intel mac. It sounds like running the games on an M series mac with the game porting toolkit will work better than on an older intel mac.

These type of issues have also been my main frustrations with using a Open Core legacy patcher and a newer version of macOS as well. Between things needing the natively supported graphics drivers and then things that are older that haven't been updated in a while just not working as well on newer versions of macOS. For most things I do on a daily basis, Monterey still works fine, even Mojave can still handle a lot of it, and then Linux. Open core can also do the basics for me. I'm just one of those old time users who really stood by the best thing about the mac is, it was one computer that could do just about anything you wanted without needing multiple computers, and now with Apple's way of doing things now, I feel like everything that made the mac what it was for me are now gone. I know this thread isn't a gaming thread, and I am not a heavy gamer anyway. it's just nice to tinker with at times, and now I've considered scrapping PC gaming and getting a console. Quite a few of the games I got free through prime gaming on GOG also have console versions. So it might just work better to get a dedicated console vs trying to rely on an older mac. Even with things working, and mac native versions of things. I still have to deal with an older GPU, and CPU.

Thanks for the help. Maybe it's time I just left the apple community it's not the same that I grew up with and tough me to use computers as a kid back in the 80's and up.

 

[MacRumors3590]

Hello
On my test cMP:
macOS 15.3.1 installed atop 15.3 using the app, OCLP 2.3.0n
Won't startup now.. tried a reboot no go.
Do i need to disable amfi maybe?
thanks
P.S. maybe needs a newer kdk? which is not out yet

 

[vince22]

MacOS 15.3.1 OCLP 2.3n working well, handoff works too with mac mini 4.

 

[mwidjaya]

OTA to latest 15.3.1.

I think issues with sleep and BT still there.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Updated to 15.3.1 just now and ran the root patches. All seems ok with the system. However, when I opened the OCLP app and went to create a MacOS installer for 15.3.1, the dialog box is empty. I rebooted 3 times and it is the same. Anyone run into this? What is the best thing to do with this?

Edited to add: After several more attempts, the app finally displayed properly.

 

[headlessmike]

This update re-enables Apple Intellligence on supported Macs that had Apple Intelligence disabled before the update. Not sure yet what it does on unsupported Macs.

Apple Intelligence doesn't run on any Intel Macs so that can't happen.

 

[parken]

smooth OTA update to 15.3 and 15.3.1 in a iMac18,3 and OCLP 2.2.0

 

[PropClear]

Legacy Mac’s updated so far OTA 15.3 24D60 -> macOS 15.3.1 24D70 with newest OCLP 2.3.0n (KDK 24D60 or MetallibSupportPkg 24D70 when needed) as expected. MacPro 4,1 | 5,1 iMac 11,1 | 11,2 | 12,2 | 14,1 | 15,1 MacBookPro 10,1 | 11,1 | 12,1 | 14,1 | 14,2 MacBookAir 6,1 MacMini 6,1 | 6,2 | 7,1 👌 FYI

 

[houser]

Updated a few legacy Macs from 15.3 to 15.3.1: rMBP 10,1 MBA 7,2 MBA 6,1 and MBA 3,2
All good in the end but various issues requiring restarts, safe boots and rerunning patches, especially on the older ones.
FWIW. Nothing new that has not been covered in this thread many times.

 

[rehkram]

Worth watching, particularly for non-metal Mac users:

 

[TOM1211]

One mid 2014 MacBook Pro revert patches 650mb from 15.3 to 15.3.1 no issues then patch using a WiFi usb adapter and OCLP 2.2 the other one no dice had to download full installer couldn’t get it to do the smaller update at all kept saying no internet with the usb adapter but again no issues after downloading and patching.

 

[deeveedee]

Very smooth upgrade from Sequoia 15.3 -> 15.3.1 on my HackBookPro6,2. Applying Nvidia Tesla and Wi-Fi post-install patches with OCLP 2.2.0. Using Safari 18.3.

 

[Marfan-58]

Both my unsupported Macs updated to 15.3.1 without issue, although software update on the iMac is very unresponsive, so I use a usb installer.

 

[headlessmike]

Both my unsupported Macs updated to 15.3.1 without issue, although software update on the iMac is very unresponsive, so I use a usb installer.

I’ve noticed that too on my 2012 iMac. I just tap the update button in settings, which provides no visible feedback, then some time later the computer just says it’s ready to reboot. So the button is working it’s just the interface the doesn’t respond.

 

[amaze1499]

Tried to update using USB installer for a change:

Installation failed three times at about the same time 8 min left according to the log file.

Updating from 15.3.

 

[Marfan-58]

I’ve noticed that too on my 2012 iMac. I just tap the update button in settings, which provides no visible feedback, then some time later the computer just says it’s ready to reboot. So the button is working it’s just the interface the doesn’t respond.

Mr Macintosh suggests using Terminal to run
sudo softwareupdate -iar
But that failed with an error. Using a USB installer is no hardship and installs the patches at the same time, so arguably slightly quicker.

 

[MacRumors3590]

Does anyone know why from time to time during a fresh install I get this message?

"an error occurred preparing the software update"

I'm installing from a USB that worked in the past and I have other USB installers that worked before but still this happens. I am connected via Ethernet and did a PRAM reset.
thanks

NOTE:
Solved. you need to restart within the installer and continue the install at bootup... I had to do this a few times and then it worked. I found help on Reddit.

 

[Bigwaff]

I'm installing from a USB that worked in the past and I have other USB installers that worked before but still this happens.

Did you update the EFI on the USB with latest patches?

 

[luckyduke23]

The never ending gray background story continues, but this will hopefully be my last post on this topic...after changing my wallpaper in 15.3 about two weeks ago, I suddenly had the gray background problem again out of the blue...of course the gray background is not the actual problem, but the sluggish performance of the machine at startup which also causes the gray background problem. So when 15.3.1 came out yesterday (including installation of a new matching metallib and post-patching), I was hoping it would fix the problems, but it didn't. I did NVRAM and SMC resets before and after the update, but to no avail. The machine was horribly slow to boot. I then decided to rebuild and install OCLP 2.2.0 (overwriting the existing installation) and did the post-patching again, even though all patches were already installed. And VOILA, the problem disappeared. 🙏

Update Feb. 17, 2025:
Unfortunately, even the last solution did not last very long before the laggy startup happened again. Even rebuilding OCLP did not solve it this time. So I searched Google for the latest solutions and found the advice to open Mission Control, add a new space and delete the existing one. And indeed, it worked for me. The question is for how long this time. I will report...

 

[MacRumors3590]

Did you update the EFI on the USB with latest patches?

yes, thank you.
I solved it.. you need to restart within the installer and continue the install at bootup... I had to do this a few times and then it worked. I found help here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/macosVenturaPatcher/comments/129zdva/an_error_occurred_while_preparing_the_software

 

[houser]

.. you need to restart within the installer and continue the install at bootup... I had to do this a few times and then

Yup, been seeing the same for a long time on and off and on all but one Mac when last updating to 15.3.1
Sometimes one restart appears to not be enough. Maybe I had a bad day at th office but the update to 15.3.1
seemed to have more niggling issues than has been the case for a while. Not empirically true. Ah well.

 

[kuoshen]

I am having problems with my iMac 11,3 with Quadro K2100M. Currently I have osx 12.7.6 and OCP 2.0.1
I created the USB drive but it does not find EFI on startup
Any advice?
Thank you so much for your time

Hi, I faced the same problem on my Big Sur 11.4 running on iMac mid-2011 27" with Quadro KM2100M while using OCLP 2.2.0 and attempting to upgrade to Sonoma 14.7.4.

The "Install to disk" wouldn't copy the EFI files into the EFI partition of the USB stick. I checked using GParted on Linux and the partition was empty. So I formated my USB stick with FAT32 and manually copied the files onto the FAT32 partition. At restart, if you hold down the Option key to get the Boot picker, just insert or reinsert the USB stick and you should see a new option come out.

If it is still a problem to install to your SSD, try adding a small FAT32 partition and manually copy the EFI files over. It should get picked up by the boot picker as long as the EFI files are in a FAT32 partition.

Cheers

 

[Alfilde]

When I initially upgraded my iMac 14.1 with an SSD, 16 GB DDR3, and installed OCLP to run a more modern version of macOS, the boot time was noticeably faster compared to macOS Catalina.

However, since updating to Sequoia (currently running OCLP 2.2.0 & macOS 15.3), startup has slowed down significantly from the earlier versions.
Is this normal?
Assuming that this might be due to the hardware in this iMac not being fully capable of running the latest macOS versions smoothly, even with newest version of OCLP, gets me hesitate to update further, as it could lead to an even slower boot and, in the worst case, sluggish software performance as well.

Am I completely off track with my concerns? 🙄

 

[loby]

I’ve noticed that too on my 2012 iMac. I just tap the update button in settings, which provides no visible feedback, then some time later the computer just says it’s ready to reboot. So the button is working it’s just the interface the doesn’t respond.

I had the same issue, but I just waited for awhile and then the update responded.

You just have to click the update button and wait until it responses. It took about 20 minutes for something to respond, so it might be a bug or something.