Most Powerful Leopard system?

[Project Alice]

I just kinda skimmed this thread so sorry if this was already brought up. I do see the 5,1 Mac Pro talked about above a little bit.

So, the 2009 Mac Pro 4,1 can be flashed to a 5,1 as you know. I have two of them, one with two X5680s and the other (this one functions as my server) with two X5675s.

My main machine is the one with two X5680s. They both started off as “Eight Core 2009” 4,1 models. Mine has been upgraded with a lot of things including the GPU which is a Radeon RX590, and it runs Monterey.
It does still see Leopard (even from an APM disk) as a bootable device. Obviously, Leopard will not work with that GPU. However if I installed a GPU Leopard has drivers for (such as the Radeon HD 2600 XT from my 3,1 Mac Pro or maybe even the GT 120?) I am pretty confident Leopard would boot.

On my specific Mac that would mean Leopard running on a 12c/24t machine with 96GB of 1333MHz ram. I’d say that’s about as powerful as Leopard will go.

Personally though if you ended up with such a Mac Pro, using it only for Leopard is a waste. This thing is my main and most powerful computer. It runs Monterey, Mojave, and Windows 11. It also plays new triple A games at mostly max/high settings and averages with 60fps (this is why Windows is installed).

Edit:
I wanted to add, prior to upgrading to the Radeon RX590 I had a macvidcards GTX 780 Ti installed, which obviously had a boot screen. I actually attempted booting Leopard on it, and it did start to boot. It kernel panic’d soon after though due to what I’m pretty sure was because of the GPU.
If anybody wanted I could try to boot my aforementioned X5675 Mac Pro from a Leopard disk, it has a GT 120 installed since all it does is run TrueNAS and some other stuff.

 

[Amethyst1]

Mine has been upgraded with a lot of things including the GPU which is a Radeon RX590, […] Obviously, Leopard will not work with that GPU.

If you remove all ATI-related kexts Leopard should boot without graphics acceleration.

 

[Project Alice]

If you remove all ATI-related kexts Leopard should boot without graphics acceleration.

Even though my card has no Apple EFI on it?
I use the OpenCore boot screen to switch between Mojave, Monterey, and Windows.

 

[Amethyst1]

Even though my card has no Apple EFI on it?

Gotcha. No idea But if you give this a try please report back. Maybe OpenCore’s magic does the trick for Leopard as well.

 

[Project Alice]

Gotcha. No idea But if you give this a try please report back. Maybe OpenCore’s magic does the trick for Leopard as well.

I am curious now and I might try this.
Opencore spoofs the Mac to be a MacPro 7,1 so I actually had to give it the -no-compat-check nvram flag because without it Mojave shows the “no” symbol (the 7,1 shipped with I think Catalina)
Assuming Leopard works with that flag as well it’s possible it may work…

 

[Amethyst1]

Assuming Leopard works with that flag as well it’s possible it may work…

I don’t think Leopard cares about the model identifier. I’ve booted it natively on a MacBookAir3,1 which was released like a year after 10.5.8!

 

[MrCheeto]

As I woke up, I was ready to set a bounty for somebody to find out exactly what you guys are discussing now! Coincidence.

I’d want to see if somebody running with 12-cores could possibly get Leopard to boot and run without a hickup.

I’m still willing to share something if somebody is successful! Yes I mean monetary too, but equally as importantly sharing it in my build video so anybody can try.

As for my personal build, I’d be wary of flashing to 5,1 as tsialex has stated that 4,1 ROM chips or some other vRAM will bug out and brick eventually if doing so. I’d have to apply some kind of patch which he says would only last for at least another ten-years. I’m happy to buy his services, but system integrity is critical to me.

I couldn’t wrap my head around why a die-shrinkage would lead to software breaking, but I don’t have near the knowledge that most of the posters here do so I’m just in the back seat asking if we can get a Happy Meal.

Alice, another familiar face. I agree it would be a waste to restrict this Mac to Leopard. The goal of having Leopard boot with twelve-cores is that I can use 10.5 whenever I want, but when I have to I have the power of modern wizbang contraptions at my fingertips. This is the only “mule” I have, so it should be able to serve my whole home for everything I need consistently, reliably, and flexibly. I’d be crazy enough to install four or five different versions of OS X just because it would afford more flexibility. But at the end of the day, I want to go home to Leopard.

 

[LightBulbFun]

I just kinda skimmed this thread so sorry if this was already brought up. I do see the 5,1 Mac Pro talked about above a little bit.

So, the 2009 Mac Pro 4,1 can be flashed to a 5,1 as you know. I have two of them, one with two X5680s and the other (this one functions as my server) with two X5675s.

Leopard natively wont boot on a Westmere CPU, you will need a Hackintosh kernel to do so or possibly CPUID spoofing with OpenCore if you have already gone down that Route

 

[MrCheeto]

Leopard natively wont boot on a Westmere CPU, you will need a Hackintosh kernel to do so or possibly CPUID spoofing with OpenCore if you have already gone down that Route

If you spoof the ID, Leopard won't know the difference? All code is executed and cores are addressed as they should? Or is Leopard somehow locked to eight-cores or something? My newbie guess is that the OS looks for an ID to tell it what to expect and what crap to load, but if the CPU is newer than the OS then...

Is there a..necessarily "accepted" source for the hacked kernel? Can I inject the kernel into an existing install, or just start fresh?

This OpenCore deal, does that just mean we are pretending to be a PC to get past the installer?

 

[Wowfunhappy]

I've never run anything older than Snow Leopard outside of a Virtual Machine, so someone will likely be able to provide more specific/useful answers, but I wanted to clarify a few things.

Is there a..necessarily "accepted" source for the hacked kernel? Can I inject the kernel into an existing install, or just start fresh?

The kernel is a hidden file in the root directory of your boot drive (aka /) named "mach_kernel". So yes, you can replace it in an existing install.

Lest this seem overly simplistic, this file is the most low-level, critical part of your operating system.

The XNU kernel is actually open source though, so (in most cases) custom kernels are just people legitimately modifying and recompiling the source code which Apple has made available for people to use. Custom kernels have fallen out of favor on Hackintosh in recent years (partly because critical components are missing from the open source releases of more recent kernels—this shouldn't be an issue in Leopard), but IMO it's actually a very clean way of adding hardware compatibility. What is source code for if not making changes and compiling a custom version?

If you spoof the ID, Leopard won't know the difference? All code is executed and cores are addressed as they should?

The answer to your first question is "yes", Leopard won't know the difference, but I don't know the answer to the second question. Leopard will think it's running on on an older CPU even though it isn't. If it tries to do something that only works on the older CPU (really, the older platform, see below), it won't work.

I couldn’t wrap my head around why a die-shrinkage would lead to software breaking, but I don’t have near the knowledge that most of the posters here do so I’m just in the back seat asking if we can get a Happy Meal.

So, it's usually the platform — the motherboard — which causes problems. The x86 architecture is inherently backwards compatible, and that's why you can run Leopard in a Virtual Machine on the newest Alder Lake CPUs. However, CPUs rely on lots of other bits of hardware—memory, SATA, power delivery, etc. Virtual Machines generally emulate this stuff.

I haven't read through this whole thread, but if you're using a motherboard and socket that is compatible with Leopard, then I would expect (!) faking the CPU ID to be sufficient for Leopard to work with a newer CPU, since again, the actual CPU is backwards compatible.

 

[ponzicoinbro]

isolates me and my workflow

Sounds like you were isolated already and listened to some very manipulative grifters who made you believe these things are a thing.

Mac users are productive people. We create useful things. We move society forward.

If you really have been around since the PowerPC days you should know we don’t do 4chanisms and conspiracy theories. Only these crazies believe they are fighting a war against imaginary enemies.

May the G4 be with you.

And hopefully it has Mirror Doors and a 23” Cinema Display.

 

[originaldotexe]

I have booted Leopard on a Late 2010 MacBook Air; but that machine uses a Core 2 Duo "Penryn" CPU which is recognised as far back as Tiger (10.4.11), so it wasn't surprising that it worked. I had to remove the GeForce kexts, losing graphics acceleration in the process though.

My attempt to boot Leopard on a Mid 2010 iMac using a Core i5-750 "Clarkdale" CPU failed. Thus, a 2010 or 2012 Mac Pro using a "Westmere" CPU may not boot Leopard either. But the single-processor quad-core 2010 and 2012 Mac Pros use "Nehalem" CPUs which Leopard can handle. Nonetheless, it's not guaranteed that Leopard is going to boot on a 2010/2012 Mac Pro though, so a 2009 is the safest bet.

If you want a system which is, albeit unofficially, also capable of booting Tiger natively, the 2008 8-core Mac Pro is worth looking at. It uses Core 2-derived Xeons. But you'll need the stock ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics card to get graphics acceleration on Tiger; the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT (which was an optional upgrade IIRC) lacks drivers.


Unless you're dead set on the form factor, I'd look into a 2004/2005 15" or 17" PowerBook G4, used in clamshell mode, instead. Why? A (moderately) faster CPU (on 2005 models), but more importantly, a 2 GB RAM ceiling vs. the mini's tight 1 GB and a substantially more powerful, fully Core Image-capable GPU (ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 or 9700), which really improves things when running Leopard. As strange as it sounds, the Mac mini G4 runs unofficial OS 9 much better than it runs OS X.

actually, there was an update released to add nvidia 8xxx (8800 included) drivers to tiger. lots of people were using them on tiger hackintoshes back then. you will have to scour the web for it though as i dont believe it was ever released on software update.

 

[B S Magnet]

Sounds like you were isolated already and listened to some very manipulative grifters who made you believe these things are a thing.

Mac users are productive people. We create useful things. We move society forward.

If you really have been around since the PowerPC days you should know we don’t do 4chanisms and conspiracy theories. Only these crazies believe they are fighting a war against imaginary enemies.

May the G4 be with you.

And hopefully it has Mirror Doors and a 23” Cinema Display.

This right here.

It’s safe to say that regulars on here and on the PPC forum are generally all about being a part of Team It (Still) Just Works and Keep It Out of Landfills for the legacy gear we all run here.

 

[lepidotós]

Team It (Still) Just Works and Keep It Out of Landfills

Some of us go a little too far -- I keep all my dead RAM stored away in case I ever meet a hardware wizard that can wave a magic wand and bring it back. If I had a stable job I'd have a side gig repairing as many Macs and selling them as I could...​

and a 23” Cinema Display.

They're cool but LCDs with PWM hurt my eyes, I'll take the ADC CRT any day. Or an FW900 or G400...​

 

[B S Magnet]

They're cool but LCDs with PWM hurt my eyes, I'll take the ADC CRT any day​

PWM?

Some of us go a little too far -- I keep all my dead RAM stored away in case I ever meet a hardware wizard that can wave a magic wand and bring it back​

I have a “hazardous waste/semiconductor waste” bin I take to recycling and proper disposal every five years or so. The bin is remarkably small compared against a more common waste/recycling bin. The bin accumulates with dead PCB-based stuff, wire bits, dead batteries, and, until about four or five years ago, dead CFL bulbs (including thin CCFL tubes from LCDs — all of which I try to keep intact for self-evident reasons).

Another reason I take to recycling so infrequently is because one here must travel to a designated facility which accepts this class of waste.

 

[lepidotós]

@B S Magnet Pulse-width modulation, controlling the brightness of the screen by flickering the backlight on and off n-amount of times a second, and varying how long it stays on compared to how long it stays off.​

 

[B S Magnet]

@B S Magnet Pulse-width modulation, controlling the brightness of the screen by flickering the backlight on and off n-amount of times a second, and varying how long it stays on compared to how long it stays off.​

Wait… is this how brightness variance on a backlight is handled, and why, when converting CCFL to LED backlighting, the fast-to-respond LED flickers perceptibly/badly when not at maximum brightness, but would be less perceptible with CCFL given the slower response to changes in luminosity for things like fluorescent and tungsten-filament lighting?

 

[lepidotós]

@B S Magnet Yeah, though I honestly notice it with many CCFLs too, and it's what's made me biased against flat panels for the longest time. At least the ones in my iMac G5 and my Acer P191w monitor... though another place I tend to notice it is in LED car headlights. I guess I just got used to 75Hz+.​

 

[Amethyst1]

Wait… is this how brightness variance on a backlight is handled, and why, when converting CCFL to LED backlighting, the fast-to-respond LED flickers perceptibly/badly when not at maximum brightness, […]

Yes and no. Low-frequency PWM can lead to visible flickering. The two cures are using very high-frequency PWM (like on the Dell UP2715K where I don’t notice any flickering) or not using PWM at all which is referred to as “flicker-free”.

 

[eyoungren]

…I'd have a side gig repairing as many Macs and selling them as I could...

I thought about doing that once. Other than iBooks, I'm fairly comfortable inside most PowerPC/Early Intel Macs.

Ultimately, I rejected the idea. Why? Aside from the purchase of parts/broken Macs to repair, I'd get attached. Then I'd have a bunch of repaired Macs and parts for Macs I'd be unwilling to let go or sell. I can lie to myself that this wouldn't be the case, but there's broken Macs and parts I have right now that I find difficult to let go.

And that doesn't include some of the fully working Macs that I've received or bought that have yet to be put to a purpose or even turned on.

 

[eyoungren]

PWM is a popular topic in the iPhone forum here on MR. The major thread:

Eye-strain while using iPhone X and up

Hello all, I thought I'd post here about an issue I've been having and see if anyone else is experiencing the same thing. When I'm using the phone my eyes feel strained, like, they're trying to focus on the screen. Also, I've noticed that when I look away from my phone at something else, my...

forums.macrumors.com

There's been quite a few others.

 

[lepidotós]

Aside from the purchase of parts/broken Macs to repair, I'd get attached.

Yeah, fair. I just bought my MacBook to libreboot, review, and resell and that's been a real problem for me. I should definitely downsize, I just don't want to get rid of any of them either.​

 

[LightBulbFun]

actually, there was an update released to add nvidia 8xxx (8800 included) drivers to tiger. lots of people were using them on tiger hackintoshes back then. you will have to scour the web for it though as i dont believe it was ever released on software update.

sort of!

there where Tiger drivers for certain G80 family cards (8800 Ultra 8800 GTX 8800 GTS, GeForce 8600M GT etc)

but the 8800 GT is G92 card and is sadly completely incompatible with any tiger drivers

however the Quadro FX 5600 (which shipped as an option for the MacPro3,1) is a G80 card, so should in theory should work in Tiger, but I dont think anyones tested it sadly!

sometimes I toy around with getting one off eBay to test out with, but I dont have a MacPro3,1 to test it in sadly (and I dont think the 32Bit EFI ROM that MVC made has made it to the public domain yet, so I cant test it out in my MP1,1)


also the drivers where released as part of an update https://support.apple.com/kb/dl180?locale=en_US

but it only triggers in software update if your on a MacBookPro3,1 (or are masquerading as one)

theres a similar update for the iMac7,1 that adds ATI Radeon 2xxx drivers as well https://support.apple.com/kb/DL179?locale=en_US

(and again you dont normally see this update in Software update as it only triggers on iMac7,1)


you can use these updates to convert a normal tiger install to support these later cards (but word of warning they can break compatibility with older cards!)

for example if you wanted to run Mac OS X Server Tiger on a MBP3,1 or iMac7,1

 

[MrCheeto]

I already posted the Operation Norge link here as my Most Powerful Leopard machine. Now to the point of getting a PowerPC there's the Mini.