macOS 15 Sequoia on Unsupported Macs Thread

[Neon Ball]

That's interesting to hear about your experience. I have a 2014 MBP myself, and I found that Sequoia is actually faster than Big Sur was on my machine. It seems like performance can vary quite a bit depending on the specific model and configuration. Perhaps it's because my model has a discrete GPU.

If it's the one in your signature, it has a quad core chip which helps immensely. I own two 2013 13" models (4GB and 16GB RAM) and there's a significant difference in performance when going for Sonoma and especially Sequoia. 2015 15" however doesn't show as stark of a difference because of its quad core chip and I've heard even the 15" 2012 can be a decent performer still, again due to quad core chip.

My guess is Apple has focused more on parallelization in the later versions of macOS (especially Sequoia since the dual core MacBook Airs were dropped despite being T2 equipped) and all dual cores suffer from it badly.

 

[peppolone]

If it's the one in your signature, it has a quad core chip which helps immensely. I own two 2013 13" models (4GB and 16GB RAM) and there's a significant difference in performance when going for Sonoma and especially Sequoia. 2015 15" however doesn't show as stark of a difference because of its quad core chip and I've heard even the 15" 2012 can be a decent performer still, again due to quad core chip.

My guess is Apple has focused more on parallelization in the later versions of macOS (especially Sequoia since the dual core MacBook Airs were dropped despite being T2 equipped) and all dual cores suffer from it badly.

Honestly, I had assumed his 2015 (being newer than my 2014) would have been quad-core too! My mistake.

 

[Neon Ball]

Honestly, I had assumed your 2015 (being newer than my 2014) would have been quad-core too! My mistake.

It is, 15" models are quad cores which means they can sustain Sequoia much better. The other poster's model is a 13" though and 13" models were dual cores until 2018 and the 2018/2019 MacBook Airs were also dual core, which were dropped from Sequoia. I think based on that Apple no longer has officially supported systems with dual core chips, so they can focus more on multithreading/parallelization.

Sequoia's performance dip is pretty bad on the 13" models but on the 15" models with quad cores it's less significant.

 

[Snide]

It is, 15" models are quad cores which means they can sustain Sequoia much better. The other poster's model is a 13" though and 13" models were dual cores until 2018 and the 2018/2019 MacBook Airs were also dual core, which were dropped from Sequoia. I think based on that Apple no longer has officially supported systems with dual core chips, so they can focus more on multithreading/parallelization.

Sequoia's performance dip is pretty bad on the 13" models but on the 15" models with quad cores it's less significant.

Thanks for the info. I saw some nice 15" models going for around $200, but couldn't pass on the 13" for $99.

In the meantime, I wonder how tolerable it would be on my iMac with its 5400 RPM HD.

 

[olad]

Thanks for the info. I saw some nice 15" models going for around $200, but couldn't pass on the 13" for $99.

In the meantime, I wonder how tolerable it would be on my iMac with its 5400 RPM HD.

Get rid of the HD first; it would be an exercise in self-inflicted pain. Substitute an SSD.

 

[olad]

Is there a way members' signatures can be seen without having to dig deep into the profile? I have searched and searched, to no avail.

 

[peppolone]

Is there a way members' signatures can be seen without having to dig deep into the profile? I have searched and searched, to no avail.

I've always seen them in the messages, anyway here it is.

 

[JedNZ]

Is there a way members' signatures can be seen without having to dig deep into the profile? I have searched and searched, to no avail.

If you’re viewing the site on a mobile in portrait mode, just turn it 90° onto landscape and you’ll see the sig.

 

[ksec]

Same on mid MacBook Pro 2014 but fine in Firefox browser .

I think we can conclude it is some Metal Drivers issues.

 

[ronton3]

204F5068b is now available, downloading it now.

Edit. Black screen. SSD stuck. Need I say more.

 

[peppolone]

15.5RC (24F74) installed, all ok on my MBP

 

[ronton3]

204F5068b is now available, downloading it now.

This is strange, I had set OTA to download and save for later, I came back to find a black screen, and on restart a stalled progress bar, Also a couple of the usual error messages, I reset NVRAM and SMC, and it came back up but still had a message to install the new DEV beta, I then checked and found this. The new beta is installed and OCLP is not asking to reapply patches and the screen is normal.

The RC macOS Sequoia 15.5 build uses number 24F74, replacing 24F5068b. I must be confused I just saw this on a website.

 

[olad]

Thanks

I've always seen them in the messages, anyway here it is.

Many thanks. I didn't know until today that enabling that option also made others' signatures visible.
(Boy! Signatures ARE interesting!)

 

[OKonnel]

That's interesting to hear about your experience. I have a 2014 MBP myself, and I found that Sequoia is actually faster than Big Sur was on my machine. It seems like performance can vary quite a bit depending on the specific model and configuration. Perhaps it's because my model has a discrete GPU.

Exactly, @peppolone, Big Sur is not the best macOS for your MBP 11,3. This Mac, according to your signature, is almost identical to my iMac 14,2 with nVidia Kepler series card. So, in my opinion, the best performing System, but also totally perfect and without any bugs, is Sonoma 14.7.5 with OCLP 2.4.0 Nightly (with the mediaanalysis and Unlock Feature enabled in the OCLP settings, as they work very well in our Macs and Sonoma).

With Sonoma, Macs with our features run 101% like a newly purchased Mac; obviously apart from the lower performance in video processing and conversion and little else, caused, rightly so, by hardware limitations…

I went back to Sonoma in the first place because with Sequoia our Intel processors are under stress and if you pay attention you can feel it and also many things don't work or work badly because of the nVidia Kepler card:
- the histogram in Preview
- processing and conversion to JPG via Preview of many iPhone photos in HEIC format
- other Preview malfunctions
- Strange problems when creating custom icons
- Problems with dynamic backgrounds
- AirPlay not working from iPhone YouTube to Mac
- other issues associated with the Kepler series card
- occasional issues with Bluetooth and WiFi
- issues with image preview in Spotlight
- etc.

Sonoma, on the other hand, flies, it is a rock, and our Macs are back to being as perfect as they were with the last supported Operating System, but with better performance in everything.

In time, perhaps the OCLP’s Developers could solve Sequoia's problems with Kepler cards, but Sequoia will be increasingly burdened by Apple's AI research which - I guess you know - does not affect Macs with Intel CPUs…

So why would you want and use an increasingly burdened OS whose code is now developed and optimised, in fact, based on Apple Silicon processors and Metal 3 GPU?…
Sequoia has, compared to Sonoma, two (useless and ugly) dynamic wallpapers that don't work with our Kepler video cards and the Password application that I didn't miss at all on my return to Sonoma; both because, also thanks to iCloud, it can be accessed to the our passwords normally, from Safari or System Settings, and because (after having used it) I can say that Password not half as good as 1Password which, on the other hand, offers a lot of potential and is worth the cost of the subscription.

The rest (of Sequoia) is just useless bells and whistles like, for example, Mail categories and all the things that weigh down our Macs and take away that perception of perfection that we old Mac users were once used to.

Bye, paisa’, and say hello to the beautiful capital of Italy

 

[deeveedee]

I thought I might have a way to get Safari working again on my HackBookPro6,2 (non-metal, NVidia Tesla) in Sequoia 15.5 Beta. I'm amazed that the Ventura 18.1.1 Safari installer runs and installs without issues in Sequoia.

Unfortunately, Safari 18.1.1 in Sequoia 15.5 is still not able to load web pages.

This is further confirmation that reverting Safari to an earlier version will not fix the non-metal Safari issues in Sequoia 15.5.

 

[rehkram]

My guess is Apple has focused more on parallelization in the later versions of macOS (especially Sequoia since the dual core MacBook Airs were dropped despite being T2 equipped) and all dual cores suffer from it badly.

Thanks for that. It would to tend to explain why people are reporting differing experiences on this thread.

Glad I shelled for the 4 core rMBP10,1 option in 2012, even though I didn't know exactly why at the time, call it "gut feeling".

I will let that experience continue to guide future Mac purchases. In other words, for future proofing, don't go for the most affordable base CPU/GPU option, ramp it up a couple of clicks or more, if you can afford it.

 

[ronton3]

204F5068b is now available, downloading it now.

This is strange, I had set OTA to download and save for later, I came back to find a black screen, and on restart a stalled progress bar, Also a couple of the usual error messages, I reset NVRAM and SMC, and it came back up but still had a message to install the new DEV beta, I then checked and found this. The new beta is installed and OCLP is not asking to reapply patches and the screen is normal.

The RC macOS Sequoia 15.5 build uses number 24F74, replacing 24F5068b. I must be confused I just saw this on a website.

Regardless of what happened earlier RC 15/24F74 is now working well.

My mail problem is still the same, when I click on the inbox list message, the message is not displayed in the opening window. Does anyone know how to fix this? Thanks.

 

[MacinMan]

Regardless of what happened earlier RC 15/24F74 is now working well.

My mail problem is still the same, when I click on the inbox list message, the message is not displayed in the opening window. Does anyone know how to fix this? Thanks.

Did you have the mail issue under 15.4.1? I have 15.4.1 installed, and I have the same model iMac, and mail works as it should here. I haven't used my Sequoia install for a while. Have stuck with Monterey for the most part as it's the official supported version, and only use OCLP if I need something newer. Categories also seems to have no issues in mail.app. I'm able to switch between them without issue.

 

[hvds]

15.5RC (24F74) installed, all ok on my MBP

MBP11,1: installed 15.5RC over 15.5b4 OTA on external SSD. Using OCLP 2.3.2. Post-install patching uses direct-match metallib.
Watching and testing for a while now, in preparation for using the forthcoming 15.5 release on the internal SSD.

CloudFlare problem with Safari: login to researchgate.net uses cloudflare, resulting in a loop of repeated login attempts. Works in Firefox. Safari OK otherwise - fair enough for me.

I am also still pleased with the performance of this dual-core machine on Sequoia. But battery went down to 76% health now after 530 cycles in 11 years of usage. Using AlDente for charge limiting when possible but need the MBP a lot while traveling. Once the battery becomes too weak, I may buy a new machine instead of a new battery (e.g. a new 2013 (M2) MacBook Air 15"/16GB/1TB available at present for 1100 Swiss Francs). - Disadvantage will be the lack of interesting and satisfying experience I have with OCLP!

 

[deeveedee]

Smooth OTA upgrade from Sequoia 15.5 Beta -> RC on my HackBookPro6,2. Applying post-install patches with OCLP 2.3.2 Nightly in this test volume. Posting this with Firefox, since Safari does not load MacRumors web pages in Sequoia 15.5.

 

[ronton3]

Did you have the mail issue under 15.4.1? I have 15.4.1 installed, and I have the same model iMac, and mail works as it should here. I haven't used my Sequoia install for a while. Have stuck with Monterey for the most part as it's the official supported version, and only use OCLP if I need something newer. Categories also seems to have no issues in mail.app. I'm able to switch between them without issue.

I think it started with 15.5b2 or 3, I don't use the categories system, fortunately I have no problems on the iphone 13, or ipad Mini 6. but sometimes it is much easier for me to use mail on the Imac. Maybe I will install an earlier version for a trail on a different volume, but this seems like an odd problem.

 

[MacinMan]

I think it started with 15.5b2 or 3, I don't use the categories system, fortunately I have no problems on the iphone 13, or ipad Mini 6. but sometimes it is much easier for me to use mail on the Imac. Maybe I will install an earlier version for a trail on a different volume, but this seems like an odd problem.

OK, couldn't remember if you had the issues before 15.5 betas. I use categories as I'm used to Gmail's interface, and wanted to see how Apple did it.

 

[peppolone]

Exactly, @peppolone, Big Sur is not the best macOS for your MBP 11,3. This Mac, according to your signature, is almost identical to my iMac 14,2 with nVidia Kepler series card. So, in my opinion, the best performing System, but also totally perfect and without any bugs, is Sonoma 14.7.5 with OCLP 2.4.0 Nightly (with the mediaanalysis and Unlock Feature enabled in the OCLP settings, as they work very well in our Macs and Sonoma).

With Sonoma, Macs with our features run 101% like a newly purchased Mac; obviously apart from the lower performance in video processing and conversion and little else, caused, rightly so, by hardware limitations…

I went back to Sonoma in the first place because with Sequoia our Intel processors are under stress and if you pay attention you can feel it and also many things don't work or work badly because of the nVidia Kepler card:
- the histogram in Preview
- processing and conversion to JPG via Preview of many iPhone photos in HEIC format
- other Preview malfunctions
- Strange problems when creating custom icons
- Problems with dynamic backgrounds
- AirPlay not working from iPhone YouTube to Mac
- other issues associated with the Kepler series card
- occasional issues with Bluetooth and WiFi
- issues with image preview in Spotlight
- etc.

Sonoma, on the other hand, flies, it is a rock, and our Macs are back to being as perfect as they were with the last supported Operating System, but with better performance in everything.

In time, perhaps the OCLP’s Developers could solve Sequoia's problems with Kepler cards, but Sequoia will be increasingly burdened by Apple's AI research which - I guess you know - does not affect Macs with Intel CPUs…

So why would you want and use an increasingly burdened OS whose code is now developed and optimised, in fact, based on Apple Silicon processors and Metal 3 GPU?…
Sequoia has, compared to Sonoma, two (useless and ugly) dynamic wallpapers that don't work with our Kepler video cards and the Password application that I didn't miss at all on my return to Sonoma; both because, also thanks to iCloud, it can be accessed to the our passwords normally, from Safari or System Settings, and because (after having used it) I can say that Password not half as good as 1Password which, on the other hand, offers a lot of potential and is worth the cost of the subscription.

The rest (of Sequoia) is just useless bells and whistles like, for example, Mail categories and all the things that weigh down our Macs and take away that perception of perfection that we old Mac users were once used to.

Bye, paisa’, and say hello to the beautiful capital of Italy

Honestly, I still feel more comfortable using Sequoia. And as I mentioned a few pages back, ever since the 15.5b3 update, I've actually noticed a solid performance boost too. I’m also not experiencing any of the issues you mentioned—aside from the Cloudflare verification problem on some websites, which, as I also pointed out on Discord, seems to be affecting a lot of people. Ciao fratè...

 

[Neon Ball]

Thanks for that. It would to tend to explain why people are reporting differing experiences on this thread.

Glad I shelled for the 4 core rMBP10,1 option in 2012, even though I didn't know exactly why at the time, call it "gut feeling".

I will let that experience continue to guide future Mac purchases. In other words, for future proofing, don't go for the most affordable base CPU/GPU option, ramp it up a couple of clicks or more, if you can afford it.

True, although the situation is a bit different now with Apple Silicon since even the base model ships with 8 CPU cores, not to mention Apple's chips have very fast cores.

Those Intel dual cores have been woeful for years since there weren't a lot of improvement in subsequent generations but because of efficiency and heat reasons Apple had to ship those in the smaller models instead of higher performing quad core chips. Like imagine doing video editing on an Intel MacBook Air which is entirely possible on an Apple Silicon MacBook Air with passive cooling. That is very likely part of why Apple said bye to Intel.

 

[jotzet]

Exactly, @peppolone, Big Sur is not the best macOS for your MBP 11,3. This Mac, according to your signature, is almost identical to my iMac 14,2 with nVidia Kepler series card. So, in my opinion, the best performing System, but also totally perfect and without any bugs, is Sonoma 14.7.5 with OCLP 2.4.0 Nightly (with the mediaanalysis and Unlock Feature enabled in the OCLP settings, as they work very well in our Macs and Sonoma).

With Sonoma, Macs with our features run 101% like a newly purchased Mac; obviously apart from the lower performance in video processing and conversion and little else, caused, rightly so, by hardware limitations…

I went back to Sonoma in the first place because with Sequoia our Intel processors are under stress and if you pay attention you can feel it and also many things don't work or work badly because of the nVidia Kepler card:
- the histogram in Preview
- processing and conversion to JPG via Preview of many iPhone photos in HEIC format
- other Preview malfunctions
- Strange problems when creating custom icons
- Problems with dynamic backgrounds
- AirPlay not working from iPhone YouTube to Mac
- other issues associated with the Kepler series card
- occasional issues with Bluetooth and WiFi
- issues with image preview in Spotlight
- etc.

Sonoma, on the other hand, flies, it is a rock, and our Macs are back to being as perfect as they were with the last supported Operating System, but with better performance in everything.

In time, perhaps the OCLP’s Developers could solve Sequoia's problems with Kepler cards, but Sequoia will be increasingly burdened by Apple's AI research which - I guess you know - does not affect Macs with Intel CPUs…

So why would you want and use an increasingly burdened OS whose code is now developed and optimised, in fact, based on Apple Silicon processors and Metal 3 GPU?…
Sequoia has, compared to Sonoma, two (useless and ugly) dynamic wallpapers that don't work with our Kepler video cards and the Password application that I didn't miss at all on my return to Sonoma; both because, also thanks to iCloud, it can be accessed to the our passwords normally, from Safari or System Settings, and because (after having used it) I can say that Password not half as good as 1Password which, on the other hand, offers a lot of potential and is worth the cost of the subscription.

The rest (of Sequoia) is just useless bells and whistles like, for example, Mail categories and all the things that weigh down our Macs and take away that perception of perfection that we old Mac users were once used to.

Bye, paisa’, and say hello to the beautiful capital of Italy

@OKonnel - as you were stating that u enabled mediaanalysisd: are you using Apple Photos a lot? Does it correctly recognize faces?

Thank you,
Joachim