MP 1,1-5,1 Obsolete, Use OpenCore instead | What you need to do to make Catalina work with MacPro5,1

[mko-io]

Hi @tsialex
Thanks for the efforts to help Mac pro community. Just want to clarify the steps to make it work for my case:

my setup:
2017 Macbook pro (no touchbar, already running Catalina)
Mac pro 2010(with bootrom 144 running Mojave)
NVME SSD
NVME to USB enclosure

Install steps:
1. Put NVME SSD into enclosure and plug into macbook, using the official Catalina installer to install into the usb drive
2. take the ssd out of enclosure and put into the pcie slot in the mac pro
3. boot mac pro into recovery mode and open terminal and type command
nvram boot-args="-no_compat_check"
4. reboot and select the boot drive to new NVME ssd
5. done(no need to disable/enable SIP)

OS Update stepsDo something in reverse)
1. Take SSD out of Mac, and put it into USB enclosure, then connect to macbook
2. boot macbook into external SSD
3. do the normal update
4. take SSD and put it back to mac pro
5. done(need to do this every time with OS update)

Am I correct about this?

Thanks

 

[Pro7913]

I wouldnt update for macOS Catalina with old Mac Pro. Buying a new Mac Pro would be the choice but since Apple didnt make a basic version which costs around $3000, there isnt any choice.

 

[tsialex]

@tsialex Who develops the CZO VMM patch? Any idea if there is a Catalina version in development?

cheers-

@Czo is the original developer, but he is not maintaining it now #1,758
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Hi @tsialex
Thanks for the efforts to help Mac pro community. Just want to clarify the steps to make it work for my case:

my setup:
2017 Macbook pro (no touchbar, already running Catalina)
Mac pro 2010(with bootrom 144 running Mojave)
NVME SSD
NVME to USB enclosure

Install steps:
1. Put NVME SSD into enclosure and plug into macbook, using the official Catalina installer to install into the usb drive
2. take the ssd out of enclosure and put into the pcie slot in the mac pro
3. boot mac pro into recovery mode and open terminal and type command
nvram boot-args="-no_compat_check"
4. reboot and select the boot drive to new NVME ssd
5. done(no need to disable/enable SIP)

OS Update stepsDo something in reverse)
1. Take SSD out of Mac, and put it into USB enclosure, then connect to macbook
2. boot macbook into external SSD
3. do the normal update
4. take SSD and put it back to mac pro
5. done(need to do this every time with OS update)

Am I correct about this?

Thanks

Yes, seems correct.

 

[star-affinity]

Hi @tsialex
Thanks for the efforts to help Mac pro community. Just want to clarify the steps to make it work for my case:

my setup:
2017 Macbook pro (no touchbar, already running Catalina)
Mac pro 2010(with bootrom 144 running Mojave)
NVME SSD
NVME to USB enclosure

Install steps:
1. Put NVME SSD into enclosure and plug into macbook, using the official Catalina installer to install into the usb drive
2. take the ssd out of enclosure and put into the pcie slot in the mac pro
3. boot mac pro into recovery mode and open terminal and type command
nvram boot-args="-no_compat_check"
4. reboot and select the boot drive to new NVME ssd
5. done(no need to disable/enable SIP)

OS Update stepsDo something in reverse)
1. Take SSD out of Mac, and put it into USB enclosure, then connect to macbook
2. boot macbook into external SSD
3. do the normal update
4. take SSD and put it back to mac pro
5. done(need to do this every time with OS update)

Am I correct about this?

Thanks

Really!? Way too much hassle having to do that every time.Then it's definitely time to move on from the MacPro5,1 I think.
I will make it a Windows 10 only computer I think, perhaps keep High Sierra on it too since I can't go to Mojave due to the lack of Nvidia drivers (have a GTX 1070 in there).

Yet again I wonder why och why Apple can't offer a desktop computer I'm interested in (i.e. mid tower without Xeon CPUs).

Edit:
Can say I went the route of installing Catalina 10.15.2 on an external Samsung T3 drive (SSD) via a supported computer and then booted the MacPro5,1 from that drive and cloned it over onto my NVMe drive in the Mac Pro. Will be some hassle cloning things back and forth every time an OS update is released, but I think I'll go that route instead of opening the Mac Pro and take out the NVMe drive each time, especially since I don't have an external NVMe drive enclosure.

 

[krakman]

Hi @tsialex
Thanks for the efforts to help Mac pro community. Just want to clarify the steps to make it work for my case:

my setup:
2017 Macbook pro (no touchbar, already running Catalina)
Mac pro 2010(with bootrom 144 running Mojave)
NVME SSD
NVME to USB enclosure

Install steps:
1. Put NVME SSD into enclosure and plug into macbook, using the official Catalina installer to install into the usb drive
2. take the ssd out of enclosure and put into the pcie slot in the mac pro
3. boot mac pro into recovery mode and open terminal and type command
nvram boot-args="-no_compat_check"
4. reboot and select the boot drive to new NVME ssd
5. done(no need to disable/enable SIP)

OS Update stepsDo something in reverse)
1. Take SSD out of Mac, and put it into USB enclosure, then connect to macbook
2. boot macbook into external SSD
3. do the normal update
4. take SSD and put it back to mac pro
5. done(need to do this every time with OS update)

Am I correct about this?

Thanks

just use the dosdude Catalina installer for unsupported Macs

macOS Catalina Patcher

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Really!? Way too much hassle having to do that every time.Then it's definitely time to move on from the MacPro5,1 I think.
I will make it a Windows 10 only computer I think, perhaps keep High Sierra on it too since I can't go to Mojave due to the lack of Nvidia drivers (have a GTX 1070 in there).

Yet again I wonder why och why Apple can't offer a desktop computer I'm interested in (i.e. mid tower without Xeon CPUs).

Really!? Way too much hassle having to do that every time.Then it's definitely time to move on from the MacPro5,1 I think.
I will make it a Windows 10 only computer I think, perhaps keep High Sierra on it too since I can't go to Mojave due to the lack of Nvidia drivers (have a GTX 1070 in there).

Yet again I wonder why och why Apple can't offer a desktop computer I'm interested in (i.e. mid tower without Xeon CPUs).

just use the dosdude Catalina installer for unsupported Macs

macOS Catalina Patcher

 

[tsialex]

Really!? Way too much hassle having to do that every time.Then it's definitely time to move on from the MacPro5,1 I think.
I will make it a Windows 10 only computer I think, perhaps keep High Sierra on it too since I can't go to Mojave due to the lack of Nvidia drivers (have a GTX 1070 in there).

Yet again I wonder why och why Apple can't offer a desktop computer I'm interested in (i.e. mid tower without Xeon CPUs).

High Sierra will have at least a year of Security Updates, Mojave at least two years.

MP5,1 with Polaris and Vega GPUs got unofficial, but easy to do, x264 decode and encode plus x265 decode hardware acceleration with Mojave with excellent FCPx support. For anyone working with video, the last updates were a godsend.

Catalina don't support hardware acceleration yet, so one more motive to stay with Mojave for now.

 

[mko-io]

just use the dosdude Catalina installer for unsupported Macs

macOS Catalina Patcher

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just use the dosdude Catalina installer for unsupported Macs

macOS Catalina Patcher

I think dosdude1's patch, doesn't support OS update either

 

[tsialex]

just use the dosdude Catalina installer for unsupported Macs

macOS Catalina Patcher

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just use the dosdude Catalina installer for unsupported Macs

macOS Catalina Patcher

Catalina Patcher is not a solution for people that want an un-patched macOS…

 

[bsbeamer]

You can't even go to Mojave because of NVIDIA drivers, but are questioning the hassle of going to Catalina? There are other ways/methods, some require true patches/hacks and others do not.

Apple makes their product decisions and there's been a gap between the Mac Mini and Mac Pro offering for a long time. Let's keep this thread on topic...

 

[mko-io]

Catalina Patcher is not a solution for people that want an un-patched macOS…

+1 for vanilla unpatched macOS, I don't think the dosdude1's patch allows OS update

 

[JeffPerrin]

Really!? Way too much hassle having to do that every time.Then it's definitely time to move on from the MacPro5,1 I think.

Not everyone updates that often. Most pros only update *when necessary* as updating means downtime and potential software breakage. So the described update route seems quite reasonable.

I will probably/eventually go this route myself as I only update my workstation maybe once a year. (the ol' "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" mantra!) Yes, I'd love a 7,1, but not at that base price, and certainly not a v1.0 at that base price! Mac mini or iMac does not appeal to me due to my workstation set-up and workflow...

 

[adamestafford]

I was able to install Catalina on an external drive from a compatible mac and boot my 5,1 using the drive via USB. It was a bit slow, but I attributed it to the slow drive. (It's a clean install and I haven't signed in to AppleID yet.) After a little bit of time it crashed and restarted. I looked at the crash report and it was referencing 'nvram boot-args="-no_compat_check"', has anyone had this issue yet?

 

[star-affinity]

You can't even go to Mojave because of NVIDIA drivers, but are questioning the hassle of going to Catalina? There are other ways/methods, some require true patches/hacks and others do not.

Apple makes their product decisions and there's been a gap between the Mac Mini and Mac Pro offering for a long time. Let's keep this thread on topic...

I was hoping that Catalina would relatively soon get support for the new AMD Navi GPUs so I could buy one of those and then skip Mojave. I don’t think AMD Polaris GPUs are very tempting considering their age, price and power efficiency compared to the GTX 1070 I have now.

Having to take out (and back in) my NVMe drive every time a patch to Catalina comes out is not worth the hassle I think. I can stay on High Sierra like has been suggested, but I have been missing dark mode and PDF syncing with the Books app on iOS 12 (and now also iOS 13) that doesn’t work with High Sierra. Also there are some features in the Reminders app in iOS 13 that requires Catalina…

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Really!? Way too much hassle having to do that every time.Then it's definitely time to move on from the MacPro5,1 I think.
I will make it a Windows 10 only computer I think, perhaps keep High Sierra on it too since I can't go to Mojave due to the lack of Nvidia drivers (have a GTX 1070 in there).

Yet again I wonder why och why Apple can't offer a desktop computer I'm interested in (i.e. mid tower without Xeon CPUs).

It's not too bad. Particularly if you make your boot drive an external SSD, it becomes pretty easy to do. The best part of it, it doesnt rely on some patch. That is a deal breaker for many, because while I'm sure the people that do the patches are super people, you cannot guarntee the provenance of the patch. For all you know it puts in some backdoor straight to hackers somewhere. You cannot use that on a work machine.

 

[h9826790]

High Sierra will have at least a year of Security Updates, Mojave at least two years.

MP5,1 with Polaris and Vega GPUs got unofficial, but easy to do, x264 decode and encode plus x265 decode hardware acceleration with Mojave with excellent FCPx support. For anyone working with video, the last updates were a godsend.

Catalina don't support hardware acceleration yet, so one more motive to stay with Mojave for now.

Some correction to this.

H264 hardware acceleration can work in Catalina (by using board-id injection)

However, there is absolutely zero HEVC hardware acceleration can work in Catalina (on cMP, of course), not even the decoding (which works in Mojave). [Update: full HWAccel, including HEVC hardware encoding, now can be activated in Catalina 10.15.2 on cMP by using OpenCore]

 

[crjackson2134]

Some correction to this.

H264 hardware acceleration can work in Catalina (by using board-id injection)
View attachment 868177

However, there is absolutely zero HEVC hardware acceleration can work in Catalina (on cMP, of course), no even the decoding (which works in Mojave).

I hope some breakthrough will happen at some point. I won’t let go of Mojave for this reason.

 

[michaelz]

Upgrading my Mac Pro 5,1 on NVMe drive to Catalina with VMware Fusion raw disk method. Let's see if it works. Anyway, people here on this forum is genius!

 

[michaelz]

The VMware method is a great success. To @mko-io, VMware method is so much easier then using a supported Mac. All you need is one computer, your Mac Pro 5,1 and another HD to install another Mojave OS to run VMWare Fusion 11.5 (Free trial for 30 days); You don't need to take your NVMe SSD out; You can run "no_compat_check" command in the same Mojave OS without going to recover mode. Once you install or upgraded it in VMware, just change your Startup Disk to your main drive in Settings, then restart. To update, just reboot to Mojave with VMware, then reboot back to Catalina.

 

[papadj3]

michaelz-
Is there a step by step instruction set that will allow a complete newbe to use the VMware installation method to install Catalina on a cMP 5,1??

 

[tsialex]

michaelz-
Is there a step by step instruction set that will allow a complete newbe to use the VMware installation method to install Catalina on a cMP 5,1??

Start with this post #107
Details here #178

 

[michaelz]

michaelz-
...

There you go. ?@tsialex

 

[papadj3]

Thanks Again! You are the best

 

[Matt_Mac]

I used Parallels Pro on High Sierra to attached my Raid (3x Samsung 970Pro 512 on Highpoint 7103) as a physical disk to the VM.
Installed Catalina, installed the driver for the Raid-controller and the 10G network-card and changed boot-volume to the raid....
Catalina runs smooth on the 5.1

to dos for me:
- change the GPU back to the RX580 (at the moment the HD 5770 is installed for the High Sierra installation)
- adjust fan speed (the Highpoint raid-controller let the fans run very high...)
- activate continuity and so on

Hope I can patch the system with VM-method, when a update is released

 

[papadj3]

Matt_Mac-
Is there a step by step Catalina install method using Parallels with a single PCIe Nvme??
(Single Samsung 970Pro-no raid?)

 

[Matt_Mac]

Just create a VM and attach your physical SSD as a Disk (PRO Version from Parallels is required!!!) and install Catalina as usual... no tricks needed