OpenCore Legacy Patcher iMac 2011 27inch

[Brabazone]

First time posting here and wasn't sure where to post so hope this is ok.

I have a 2011 iMac, i7 with 8gb ram and 500gb SSD. The GPU is a ATI Radeon HD 4670 256MB.

My problem is I have installed Ventura, Monterey and Big Sur with OpenCore but each installation has given me the same problem. When I open Youtube it runs perfect but when I go into full screen mode on YT the graphics go crazy. When this happens the computer is unusable so I have to restart it. It always boots into the OS with no issues, it's only when I try and run video in full screen that this problem occurs. I can run either Safari or Firefox normally with YT but as soon a I go to full screen the problem is there.

I have run the OpenCore boot patcher and installed the relevant patches to the OS but the issue continues. I understand that my graphics card does not have Metal support but from my limited understanding of Opencore this should be okay as long as I don't have 5-6000 series card installed as my card can be patched to work. I have no experience of using Opencore prior to installing it on my Mac so forgive me if I am incorrect in my interpretation of the documentation.

It may be a case I am doing something wrong or it could just be that my card is not capable of working with open core. If anyone has any ideas I would love to hear as I have tried everything I can think of with no luck.

BTW, I would like to thank all the contributors to OpenCore for their work, it truly is amazing work and despite my little setback it's hard to believe it's still possible for a 2011 iMac to run the latest OS.

 

[Bigwaff]

when I go into full screen mode on YT the graphics go crazy

Can you be more specific?

 

[Brabazone]

Can you be more specific?

Can you be more specific?

Hi, thanks for trying to problem solve this, much appreciated. I have attached a video here, will give you a better understanding of what the issue is.

 

[Aston441]

back in the day, long ago when i was building PCs, that was usually bad ATI card driver. Usually an updated or different driver would solve the issue. Not sure if there's a way to swap in different drivers in MacOS

 

[Dennis Paul Eldridge]

Hi, I've got essentially the same problem on a slightly earlier iMac (11.2), with the same video hardware I believe. I haven't resolved the issue, but at least I've found another person with the same problem. My thought was that it may be bad hardware, but this leads me to believe that the Opencore driver may still be a bit buggy unfortunately.

I understand that there are some settings in OCLP that you can apply which relate to this - if you go to Settings you'll see a button for Non-Metal Settings. In there are three tick boxes. I'm not sure if you have to apply these before creating the installation, or if they are applied after installation. I'm about to try recreating the installer with the boxes ticked.

 

[xdxdaustin]

back in the day, long ago when i was building PCs, that was usually bad ATI card driver. Usually an updated or different driver would solve the issue. Not sure if there's a way to swap in different drivers in MacOS

*this*

back in the day I made my old Dell Inspiron 1501 into a Hackintosh, and I had some bugs with the graphics drivers then. does seem like the most likely explanation here.

just out of curiosity, have you tried playing a full screen video in VLC to see what happens?

 

[Dennis Paul Eldridge]

Well I can report what appears to be success! I've run through a few YT videos in full screen and they seem stable. Whew!

Thanks to everyone for helping!

 

[nick42983]

It looks like another commenter got this issue sorted so adjusting the right settings might help. At the risk of sounding trite though the "problem" is that you're using a 2011 computer to run 2022 software. I hadn't heard of OpenCore before and it sounds like an interesting project, at a certain point though the inevitable problems and cumulative hours-long troubleshooting isn't worth it. All of the problems I had with my 2015 MBP are now gone with my 2021 M1 MBP. If you can afford a Mac Mini or frankly any Mac with Apple Silicon I think you'll be very satisfied with the experience and performance over your older machine. 12 years is a very good run in computer world.

 

[ShockTroop]

I too have a 2011 iMac 3.1 i5 12GB Ram and AMD 6970M with a fusion drive. I was thinking of installing Monterey. Currently the iMac is used for storing photos and music and sharing to my apple tv. What would the benefit/risk be with using open core? I see on the open core site that my model has an issue with GPU Acceleration. Thanks!

 

[InfoTime]

Well I can report what appears to be success! I've run through a few YT videos in full screen and they seem stable. Whew!

Thanks to everyone for helping!

Can you report what you did to make it a success?

 

[Dennis Paul Eldridge]

Can you report what you did to make it a success

Hmm... I don't actually recall what I did, and I actually don't recall it being successful ultimately. In any case I've moved on and have acquired, for now, a 2013 iMac. It actually belongs to a client but he's taking his time paying me to fix it up, and until he does I'm using it as a daily driver.

Specs:
Processor: 2.7 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5
Graphics: Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB
Memory: 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Hard Drive: External 500GB SSD boot disk, with the internal 1GB drive used for storage.

The reason for not installing the 500GB SSD internally is the fact that it's just too much hassle to open the screen on these, unfortunately. But it runs like a rocket nonetheless.

Used OCLP to install Ventura 13.4.1, absolutely vanilla, works like a dream, knock on wood lol.

 

[sunboa]

I had same problem on my iMac 11,2 i3 Dual-core 3.06
I tried to change some settings in OCLP after reading here.
Under Non-Metal configuration, I uncrossed "Beta Blur"
I can fullscreen Youtube now.
I hope more people would give a try, and test if that's the issue?

 

[sunboa]

I had same problem on my iMac 11,2 i3 Dual-core 3.06
I tried to change some settings in OCLP after reading here.
Under Non-Metal configuration, I uncrossed "Beta Blur"
I can fullscreen Youtube now.
I hope more people would give a try, and test if that's the issue?

No, the problem comes back 1 day after.
I will try to install Catalina patcher on it, and see if the problem is still there.

 

[Andrey84]

you're using a 2011 computer to run 2022 software

It's not sounding trite, it's stating the obvious. Buying a new Mac is literally the only available option, other than using OCLP, for many people, so no one is going to miss this idea. There is a possibility that this can be resolved via "Non-Metal Settings", which is the kind of thing OP needs to test and report back.