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Oldest MacOS that still boot on a 2019 iMac?
- Thread starter dcpmark
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Apple’s firmware dictates how far back you can boot to an older OS. In general, you are unable to boot to macOS older than whatever version the computer originally shipped with. For example, the 2013 trash can Mac Pros, while currently shipping with 10.14 Mojave, can technically be rolled all the way back to Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks, as that was the original OS it shipped with upon release. Therefore, it is entirely dependent on your computer’s model and year of release. I would suggest using the free program Mactracker as a reference: it is essential in providing valuable insight into everything Mac, and it has a section labeled “Software” that gives specifics in terms of every machine/device’s OS/iOS capabilities.
Ah, got it. I'll just pick up the latest Parallels to run my older MacOS....thanks!
Mactracker doesn't yet have the 2019 models, but everything else you said is correct.
Graphics performance is quite poor in virtualized instances of MacOS, but it should work fine as long as the task isn't graphically demanding.
I've always wondered why that is. It just doesn't seem to scale the way that CPU does. I also wonder if you can use an eGPU inside a virtual machine to get full performance because it's not sharing it?