MP 1,1-5,1 Which MacOS is best for my cMP 5,1?

[pdxplm]

It's completely the other way around. OpenCore can give extra protection to the Mac Pro's BootROM (e.g. stop Windows to write that digital cert to corrupt your BootROM), but not write anything into it.

OpenCore is a boot loader. You can think that it is a mini OS, which small enough to be installed onto the EFI partition (a partition on the hard drive, not BootROM). Then the cMP can boot to it.

Then OpenCore allow the cMP to further boot to another OS, even some unsupported OS. e.g. In this case, Monterey on cMP.

The reason why OpenCore is boot screen related because few years back, it is the very first software that allow cMP to utilise the GOP driver to display boot screen. You can imagine this mini OS has a GPU driver for pretty much any modern GPU to display on the cMP. However, this is NOT the original function / intention of the OpenCore team to develope OpenCore. OpenCore is a boot loader, not GPU activator.

Then about 2 months ago, OpenCore developers further provide us the EnableGop driver, which allow us to inject that into the cMP BootROM. So that, even no OpenCore installed, the cMP can still show boot screen. This is more like a side project. The OpenCore developers are so kind to provide this tool to us. It's completely the users to choice to flash the cMP or not, regardless OpenCore is installed or not.

If you want to run unsupported OS on the cMP, you have to either patch the OS system files, or use boot loader. IMO, use boot loader and avoid patching is better.

1) Better security. OpenCore is an open source software, you can check all the codes to see if anything harmful inside. Even you don't have this skill, but many many people have, especially those OpenCore hater. But so far, no one find any prove that OpenCore is harmful to cMP.

And keep all OS system files unpatched should be the most secure.

2) Easier for OS update. Without boot loader, you must patch the system files for unsupported OS to run on cMP. Which means, every OS update breaks the system, and you have to patch it again. And hopefully the same way to patch the system files still works.

With boot loader, as long as the cMP can run the OS unpatched, you can update macOS with the native way, then your cMP can boot to the updated OS. No need to worry about patching.

Anyway, if you want to run Ventura on cMP now. There is no other choice but use OCLP (OpenCore + patching). I personally won't recommend people to go Ventura on cMP yet, unless they absolutely know what they are doing, and what's the possible issue. And how to recover from there, etc...

You are spot on with this! I have a scratch system that I've tested various versions of MacOS with OCLP. They have done an excellent job with supporting the older hardware. I am currently using a MacPro 5,1 with Ventura and it has breathed new life into the old solid machine. I'm in the process of taking my 2012 from Catalina to Ventura. This may keep my geekiness at bay until new stuff from Apple comes out.

 

[MacNB2]

You are spot on with this! I have a scratch system that I've tested various versions of MacOS with OCLP. They have done an excellent job with supporting the older hardware. I am currently using a MacPro 5,1 with Ventura and it has breathed new life into the old solid machine. I'm in the process of taking my 2012 from Catalina to Ventura. This may keep my geekiness at bay until new stuff from Apple comes out.

As @h9826790 pointed out that they would not "recommend people to go Ventura on cMP yet" as there are outstanding issues for example, with graphics if you are into video & editing and have an AMD GPU that not fully supported.
If you are just browsing and using just basic documents then it works fine and does breath new life into the old system.
Also have to remember that after every update, one has to patch Ventura again.
Pre Ventura OS's don't need patching and the updates are native.

Those are some of the reasons why I am still on Monterey and will eventually purchase Apple Silicon of some sort.

 

[MrScratchHook]

Does MacOS 11 (Ventura) and 13 (Ventura) also rely on Opencore?

To be safe and compatible with the logic program, just stay on mojave. BUt,LET ME SAY THIS: you are already on bootrom 144.000000 which means you had mojave installed at one point. once your ready, use martin lo opencore and go to big sur or monterey(which still has security updates), its tailor made for the 5,1 and it doesnt patch the macos, it tricks the system into thinking its a 2017 imac, i can testify that both macos work great under M.L.O.C. its not really complicated if you can follow the instructions and also have a metal supported card like a saffire pulse rx 580 8 gb that is known to work (not asus and not xfx) once you have M.L.O.C installed, if you use a pcie nvme ssd it will show on your desk top as an internal device as opposed as an external device. AND on top of all that you can boot into any macos you like within el capitan(i believe) all the way to monterey. i been running both for 1 year and a half, zero issues.

 

[macstatic]

To be safe and compatible with the logic program, just stay on mojave. BUt,LET ME SAY THIS: you are already on bootrom 144.000000 which means you had mojave installed at one point.

Actually not. It turned out my bootROM was corrupt, so I had TSIAlex rebuild it, hence that version was returned to me.

once your ready, use martin lo opencore and go to big sur or monterey(which still has security updates), its tailor made for the 5,1 and it doesnt patch the macos, it tricks the system into thinking its a 2017 imac, i can testify that both macos work great under M.L.O.C. its not really complicated if you can follow the instructions

I might give it a go further down the line, and it might not be as overwhelmingly complicated as it looks, but before attempting anything like this I prefer trying to understand it properly so I get the overall concept -and that takes time.

Getting back to 10.14 Mojave... I got the idea that I try to upgrade my 2012 Macbook Pro (10.13.6) first, as it's not a disaster if I mess things up like with my daily-use machine (cMP 5,1).
I'm glad I did it this way because upgrading from 10.13 didn't work so well, so there must have been some underlying problems. So I decided to wipe its SSD clean and install 10.14 from scratch which i've now done. I'm in the midst of trying to find the best way to restore my user folder from the backup, but not found the best solution for that yet. But when it's all done I'll have time to play around with 10.14 and see how well it works before trying to decide what to do next.

Oh, I remembered to deactive my iLok plugin licenses for Logic Pro and the other plugin licenses before erasing the drive. I hope I didn't miss any.

 

[MrScratchHook]

Actually not. It turned out my bootROM was corrupt, so I had TSIAlex rebuild it, hence that version was returned to me.




I might give it a go further down the line, and it might not be as overwhelmingly complicated as it looks, but before attempting anything like this I prefer trying to understand it properly so I get the overall concept -and that takes time.

Getting back to 10.14 Mojave... I got the idea that I try to upgrade my 2012 Macbook Pro (10.13.6) first, as it's not a disaster if I mess things up like with my daily-use machine (cMP 5,1).
I'm glad I did it this way because upgrading from 10.13 didn't work so well, so there must have been some underlying problems. So I decided to wipe its SSD clean and install 10.14 from scratch which i've now done. I'm in the midst of trying to find the best way to restore my user folder from the backup, but not found the best solution for that yet. But when it's all done I'll have time to play around with 10.14 and see how well it works before trying to decide what to do next.

Oh, I remembered to deactive my iLok plugin licenses for Logic Pro and the other plugin licenses before erasing the drive. I hope I didn't miss any.

martin lo opencore wont work on a macbook pro, for this laptop you will need opencore leagy patcher.

 

[macstatic]

martin lo opencore wont work on a macbook pro, for this laptop you will need opencore leagy patcher.

I mean that I'll spend some time trying out 10.14 on the Macbook pro first, then decide later what to do about the cMP. I'll most likely also install those various OSes on a separate drive in order to test them out before commiting by linking them up with my home folder.

 

[Macsonic]

Using Mojave, High Sierra, Catalina and Big Sur (Opencore). All OS including Catalina and Big Sur are working fine without beachballs or freezing. File transfers and saving files are of similar speeds. Occupied disk storage may also contribute to slowdowns. Under the storage tab, clicking on “Manage” and would delete files from there.

 

[dcbl]

I have been using Monterey on mine with conventional OCLP since last summer/fall (can't remember exactly) and it's been great aside from my old 280X dying. Since I replaced that with a 580 it's been rock solid. Haven't experienced any issues whatsoever and have performed point updates through Software Update with no problem.

Running 10.14 is still running an unsupported macOS. It's just that it's unsupported by security updates and new features. Given the choice between daily driving an unsupported OS that lacks security updates vs one that is arbitrarily prevented from upgrade because of hardware age yet works just fine I'll go with the secure option every time.

 

[avro707]

To be safe and compatible with the logic program, just stay on mojave. BUt,LET ME SAY THIS: you are already on bootrom 144.000000 which means you had mojave installed at one point. once your ready, use martin lo opencore and go to big sur or monterey(which still has security updates), its tailor made for the 5,1 and it doesnt patch the macos, it tricks the system into thinking its a 2017 imac, i can testify that both macos work great under M.L.O.C. its not really complicated if you can follow the instructions and also have a metal supported card like a saffire pulse rx 580 8 gb that is known to work (not asus and not xfx) once you have M.L.O.C installed, if you use a pcie nvme ssd it will show on your desk top as an internal device as opposed as an external device. AND on top of all that you can boot into any macos you like within el capitan(i believe) all the way to monterey. i been running both for 1 year and a half, zero issues.

XFX RX580 GTS worked fine for me, no difference to the Sapphire version, aside from the more useful 3 display ports.

Now I use a flashed Sapphire RX6600XT which is superior to the RX580 in performance, lower power usage and quiet.

I disabled the thunderbolt in the config.plist and still had issues with the forbidden symbol on restarts (only on restart). So that’s still a mystery. Surplus is disabled, as is monterand. NVRAM is reset as well. I would love to compare someone else’s working plist file with mine.

Monterey 12.6.5 is available for testing at the moment but I didn’t install yet.

 

[ddhhddhh2]

Considering the lifespan issue with SPI Flash, I would say that the officially end-of-life os, 10.14 Mojave, is the most suitable option. While I don't have extensive knowledge about SPI, I do understand that it has real lifespan issues and that under later versions of macOS, each boot and shutdown will consume more of its read and write capacity.

However, despite this, I still use the open core solution to run Monterey. My SPI has not been rebuilt or backed up, which presents some difficulty for me, and I need to do quite a bit of work and seek assistance from @tsialex (I must mention that he is a true expert and his fees are almost cheap. Those who need help have no reason not to seek his assistance). My strategy is to reduce the number of boot and shutdown cycles. As far as I know, there doesn't seem to be a way to truly know the remaining lifespan of SPI Flash. However, due to power consumption issues (even if you're not doing anything, it will still consume an average of 250-3xxW of power), most of the time I leave it in sleep mode. This allows me to drink a few more cups of Starbucks, and since I have a UPS, I can safely leave it in sleep mode until I need to wake it up.

The advantage of doing this is that based on my previous knowledge and testing, I know that the read and write consumption of SPI Flash is much smaller each time it wakes from sleep compared to boot and shutdown cycles. Although I know I could roll up my sleeves and do something and seek more stable help, I don't think I will do that, so for me, I will keep my Mac Pro 5,1 on Monterey and reduce the number of boot and shutdown cycles, or maybe at some point in the future, I will shut it down altogether. (I reiterate that my knowledge of SPI is quite poor, so please correct me if I'm wrong.)

It is truly an amazing Mac, and I have never regretted my purchase since the day I bought it. It still works very well, and I think Monterey is quite suitable for it. If you can update Wifi and BT correctly, arrange better M.2 SSD and graphics cards, its performance is not like a Mac that's over ten years old at all. But if it needs to be used for work every day, I think it's best to manage SPI Flash effectively or simply rebuild it.

 

[thibsweb]

Just adding my 2 cents here. Sorry for bringing up an old thread.

I have been preparing my Mac Pro4,1 for oclp since a year, cleaning bootrom, upgrading cards (rx580, bluetooth 4.1…) and disks and such. Still stuck on Mojave because it is working so great. Usually my machine never gets a reboot. I am familiar with uptimes in the 200+ days range and proud of it.

Then as time passes, more and more software gets inaccessible. I could live with that.

Then you begin to see “outdated browser” messages that turn into problems on most internet websites. Of course, safari is outdated! You use google chrome instead. But then you see Mojave is no longer supported since a few months. You use Firefox instead.

And today I saw that Firefox release 115 is the last one for Mojave. So sad. Meaning compatibility issues coming with websites in the coming months/years.

Well. Enough for me. I will be leaving Mojave this summer for 12.6.7. Enough of outdated software, enough of security issues, enough of website problems with outdated browsers

If op still needs advice, I could not recommend Mojave today (I could have just a few months ago).

 

[O.N.Y.X]

@thibsweb FYI it was a very rocky road for me getting Monterey installed but eventually managed to. OCLP worked for me as mentioned in that thread. I’m still keeping Mojave on another HDD, just in case, but Monterey works fine and gave me access to the latest versions of Apple’s apps (iWorks, Logic Pro).

 

[Silly John Fatty]

I'm using High Sierra on mine and don't see any issues. The only issue is the compatibility with iCloud/iOS if you use some of their stuff.

But I don't remember having any glitches or bugs or things like that on High Sierra. Another problem is of course that High Sierra is old and it could pose security risks. It depends what you use it for I guess. Mine is offline.

 

[thibsweb]

Yes for offline use High Sierra is perfect. i'd prefer Mojave thought.

I just took the plunge with OCLP. I am now running Monterey 12.6.7. Total installation time took me 90 minutes (with only a RX580 with no boot screen). Everything went totally flawlessly and everything is working as it should (it was not a clean install but an update from my Mojave installation). Happy ! But GateKeeper is now even more boring. Well..

The only real bad news is that my chinese third-party xbox gamepads (diswoe, from Amazon) no longer connect to bluetooth. Spent some time reading on that and seems Monterey is much more picky about such type of controllers. i'll have to buy myself a real Microsoft Xbox controller but that ain't cheap. Sidenote : Nintendo wiimotes are working perfectly.