2010/2012 cMPs with certain graphics cards will run macOS 10.14 Mojave

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Not trying to be snarky but I'm amazed at how many people are willing to tolerate this behavior from Apple. Especially those who consider themselves professionals.

Apple has stated 10.14 requires a Metal capable graphics card yet the 2010 / 2012 Mac Pros were only sold by Apple with graphics cards which lack metal support. Thus leaving 2010 / 2012 Mac Pro owners to speculate how Apple will resolve this issue.

I know many people love Mac OS but how much are you willing to tolerate before you say enough is enough?

The only thing you need to be upset about is the trashcan. It was a brave move but the SGI O2 and G4 Cube were a warning sign enough.

What Apple should do is complete DIY kits for builder enthusiasts. There are a number of PC companies (Corsair, EVGA, etc) making large sums of money selling all sorts of sexy-designed components and there is no reason Apple shouldn't follow suit with competitively priced components on a regularly updated store.

The Hackintosh crowd would eat it up and never need the headache of hacking macOS again.

 

[pl1984]

Would you be similarly bothered if cMP support simply came to a natural end at macOS 10.13? That is personally what I expected to happen.

Mojave support is a bonus. If the Metal uncertainly is annoying, just make peace with running 10.13 for the remaining life of the machine and ignore Mojave.

My comment is primarily about Apple professional users who continue to tolerate Apple's half hearted effort to keep the Mac Pro alive.

 

[macdos]

Apple says No

I say Yes

View attachment 764550


(I had a quick look at the GPU drivers everything pre-metal has been purged, interesting NVIDIA fermi drivers are still there so does Fermi actually support metal? i Remember that being a bit debated "back in the day" no NVIDIA drivers newer then kepler tho sadly)

How is Mojave actually working with 7950 though? Open GL Extension Viewer says that card has no support for Metal, whereas System Profiler says it does.

 

[LightBulbFun]

How is Mojave actually working with 7950 though? Open GL Extension Viewer says that card has no support for Metal, whereas System Profiler says it does.

I see metal here... (OpenGL viewer has not been updated to report on 1v3 however the card supports that too, any Metal compatible card supports 1v3)

keep in mind quite a few Macs use/used GCN1.0 cards like the MP6,1 the mid 2015 dGPU rMBP and a few 5K retina iMacs too IIRC. so I can see the 7950 having good driver support for some time yet.

 

[pat500000]

how about gtx 680?

 

[macdos]

I see metal here... (OpenGL viewer has not been updated to report on 1v3 however the card supports that too, any Metal compatible card supports 1v3)

keep in mind quite a few Macs use/used GCN1.0 cards like the MP6,1 the mid 2015 dGPU rMBP and a few 5K retina iMacs too IIRC. so I can see the 7950 having good driver support for some time yet.

View attachment 765066

Uh, we have the same card? Or is it referring to the Mac itself?

 

[LightBulbFun]

Uh, we have the same card? Or is it referring to the Mac itself?

View attachment 765068

your running a Mac Pro 3,1 on high sierra with sierra Graphics drivers

im not surprised things are not working properly.

how about gtx 680?

as a general rule of Thumb: anything AMD GCN 1.0, NVIDIA (Fermi?)/Kepler, or intel ivy bridge and newer support metal will be supported by Mojave...

 

[kohlson]

willing to tolerate this behavior from Apple.

To be clear, I am somewhat (and pleasantly) surprised that my 9-year-old system can still be updated to support the latest OS.

That said, I think Apple is being unacceptably (haughtily?) uncommunicative in regards to "Metal Support," for the reasons that have been discussed here. Here's an idea: JUST GIVE US A LIST. You know, like other companies.

 

[thomasthegps]

My comment is primarily about Apple professional users who continue to tolerate Apple's half hearted effort to keep the Mac Pro alive.

Agreed, Apple can fix these things with a simple firmware/OS update. From what I understand adding HEVC GPU (encoding, decoding) support for the RX 480/580/VEGA on the Mac Pro 4.1/5.1 would come down to adding/modifying a couple of plist files. Giving us NVME support and 5GT/SEC+BOOTSCREEN would come down to a copy paste of the correct drivers to the Mac PRO firmware.

Realistically the effort to develop such firmware and OS changes would probably take an experienced Apple engineer 30 min. The part that would take more time would be testing the firmware, although since the NVME and GOP firmware drivers probably already exist inside of a modern IMAC or macbook pro, I'm not sure how much more testing would have to be done.

Forcing pro users to "upgrade" to a new Apple computer by not offering fully supported GPU options, is just going to piss people off. Can you Imagine buying the upcoming Mac Pro 7,1 if it only supports in total 2 different GPUS and you have no proper way to upgrade in the future ??

If apple is unwilling to create a firmware that suits our needs, then they could release it as open source. Then we would be free to create a community firmware at our own risk.

 

[h9826790]

Can you Imagine buying the upcoming Mac Pro 7,1 if it only supports in total 2 GPUS and you had no proper way to upgrade in the future ??

...only up to two AMD downclocked GPU without proper cooling....

 

[AidenShaw]

Apple can simply make 10.14 not support cMP at all. But they didn't, this is actually a good move.

Why would you trust Apple on this?

The current developer beta won't install on a cMP. Apple says that support is coming - but Apple has a history of broken promises and changes in direction....

• Carbon64
• Rosetta
• OpenGL
• OpenCL
• Aperture (plus many others)

I would be very worried if even a portion of my income depended on Apple's support of the cMP.

 

[joebclash]

My comment is primarily about Apple professional users who continue to tolerate Apple's half hearted effort to keep the Mac Pro alive.

I think most people on this board (including me) would consider themselves a "fan" of apple. We tend to give apple alot more rope then other companies but lately I have started to loose my patiences with them. I'm starting to think my macbook pro will be my last computer purchase from them. This makes me sad...

 

[h9826790]

Why would you trust Apple on this?

The current developer beta won't install on a cMP. Apple says that support is coming - but Apple has a history of broken promises and changes in direction....

• Carbon64
• Rosetta
• OpenGL
• OpenCL
• Aperture (plus many others)

I would be very worried if even a portion of my income depended on Apple's support of the cMP.

I mean "have a choice for us" is good move, not "abandon all the current API, software, standard... in the coming 10.14 is a good move".

If that's a bad OS, all I can just ignore it. But if it's a good one, then I can use it. I have the choice.

 

[flowrider]

I get different results. System Information tells me:

Metal: Supported, feature set macOS GPUFamily1 v3

Opem GL Extensions Viewer tells me:

This is with an MVC flashed GTX 1080.

Lou

 

[h9826790]

I get different results. System Information tells me:

Metal: Supported, feature set macOS GPUFamily1 v3

Opem GL Extensions Viewer tells me:

View attachment 765079

This is with an MVC flashed GTX 1080.

Lou

Post #104

"OpenGL viewer has not been updated to report on 1v3"

 

[goMac]

Agreed, Apple can fix these things with a simple firmware/OS update. From what I understand adding HEVC GPU (encoding, decoding) support for the RX 480/580/VEGA on the Mac Pro 4.1/5.1 would come down to adding/modifying a couple of plist files. Giving us NVME support and 5GT/SEC+BOOTSCREEN would come down to a copy paste of the correct drivers to the Mac PRO firmware.

Realistically the effort to develop such firmware and OS changes would probably take an experienced Apple engineer 30 min. The part that would take more time would be testing the firmware, although since the NVME and GOP firmware drivers probably already exist inside of a modern IMAC or macbook pro, I'm not sure how much more testing would have to be done.

Bootscreen is not that simple. Code is not just a copy/paste thing.

That said, given what we've seen from Apple on Mojave and the 2010 Mac Pro, I think it's possible. But it's not as simple as just copy/pasting something.
[doublepost=1528327235][/doublepost]

The current developer beta won't install on a cMP. Apple says that support is coming - but Apple has a history of broken promises and changes in direction....

High Sierra Beta 1 didn't support APFS boot on Mac Pros and that was still fixed. They have a good track record here. (Bootscreen GPU support isn't something they've publicly promised though, that's just speculation.)

 

[h9826790]

Bootscreen is not that simple. Code is not just a copy/paste thing.

That said, given what we've seen from Apple on Mojave and the 2010 Mac Pro, I think it's possible. But it's not as simple as just copy/pasting something.
[doublepost=1528327235][/doublepost]

High Sierra Beta 1 didn't support APFS boot on Mac Pros and that was still fixed. They have a good track record here. (Bootscreen GPU support isn't something they've publicly promised though, that's just speculation.)

For us, it's not that simple because we lack of documents to follow / study.

But for Apple, I believe it should be really that simple.

 

[blindpcguy]

probably buying a 4,1 and upgrading to a 5,1 once were for sure mojave runs on thease mchines as my 2014 mac mini just is not cutting it lol already got a amd 7950 to flash so i should b set

 

[h9826790]

probably buying a 4,1 and upgrading to a 5,1 once were for sure mojave runs on thease mchines as my 2014 mac mini just is not cutting it lol already got a amd 7950 to flash so i should b set

So, you will buy another Mac again when Apple release 10.15 in 2019?

10.14 most likely will be the very last OS officially supported on the 5,1.

 

[LightBulbFun]

I was doing some quick testing in Mojave on my Mac Pro when I noticed that in system profiler

the metal values are diffrent for the ATI Radeon HD 7950 vs the NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M/Intel HD 4000 in my MBP9,1

 

[crjackson2134]

So, you will buy another Mac again when Apple release 10.15 in 2019?

10.14 most likely will be the very last OS officially supported on the 5,1.

Emphasis on officially.

Someone will likely find a way to install macOS for several more years if history is any indication. If not, mine will be a Linux/Win box and I will likely consider a new machine if it’s of decent design.

That said, I’m fairly confident someone will find a way to make it happen.

 

[h9826790]

Now I doubt how accurate OpenGL Extension Viewer about the Metal capability is.

I can understand that this software is not up to date to show anything beyond 1v2. However, it seems something wrong if it says my GT120 has Metal support.

 

[LightBulbFun]

Now I doubt how accurate OpenGL Extension Viewer about the Metal capability is.

I can understand that this software is not up to date to show anything beyond 1v2. However, it seems something wrong if it says my GT120 has Metal support.
View attachment 765134

I think metal acts a bit like how Core image does

if you still have an Old PowerPC Mac lying around

install 1 Core image card and 1 non Core image card

attach 1 screen to each card

you will see that system profiler will report both screens as being Core image capable and thats because its accelerated off of the 1 Core image capable GPU

so in this case if you had a screen plugged into the GT 120 and fired up a Metal app on that screen it would use your Metal GPU (1080 Ti in this case)) and pipe it over to the GT 120s display, if that makes sense


BTW I noticed you have a W3690 which according to intel is not getting spectre patched microcode

however as far as I know the W3690 uses the same microcode as every other Westmere 1366 CPU, so would you be up for patching your BootROM and seeing if the spectre patched microcode loads? (do you have your Stock Nehalem CPU on hand too?)

(PS the W3690 has an unlocked multiplier so you might be able to overclock it using ThrottleStop if you have windows installed if thats something your interested in )

 

[goMac]

For us, it's not that simple because we lack of documents to follow / study.

But for Apple, I believe it should be really that simple.

It's likely there are more differences in newer EFIs that would need to be accounted for when back porting changes to older EFIs. It's like putting an engine from a new car into an older model year. Yeah, it's the same car line, but that doesn't mean it's a drop in job.

Not saying it's impossible, just that it's not that simple.

 

[h9826790]

I think metal acts a bit like how Core image does

if you still have an Old PowerPC Mac lying around

install 1 Core image card and 1 non Core image card

attach 1 screen to each card

you will see that system profiler will report both screens as being Core image capable and thats because its accelerated off of the 1 Core image capable GPU

so in this case if you had a screen plugged into the GT 120 and fired up a Metal app on that screen it would use your Metal GPU (1080 Ti in this case)) and pipe it over to the GT 120s display, if that makes sense


BTW I noticed you have a W3690 which according to intel is not getting spectre patched microcode

however as far as I know the W3690 uses the same microcode as every other Westmere 1366 CPU, so would you be up for patching your BootROM and seeing if the spectre patched microcode loads? (do you have your Stock Nehalem CPU on hand too?)

(PS the W3690 has an unlocked multiplier so you might be able to overclock it using ThrottleStop if you have windows installed if thats something your interested in )

I am very interested in that indeed.

I have the original CPU on hand, and have another dual processor (also with the original CPUs) as well. So, as long as I don't kill the motherboard, I can alway recovery my cMP.

For ThrottleStop, I believe I've try this software few years ago. From memory, the UI looks like the clock speed is changed, but the actual speed doesn't change. However, it's really too long ago, and I tried too many different methods, so, not 100% sure if my memory is right. Anyway, I will try that again and report back. Thanks for your suggestion.

And I am more than happy to test if the same microcode can apply to the W3690. And if the microcode make my W3690 not bootable, my dual tray should able to let me recover to the stock firmware.

So, how we do that. Via PM? Or we communicate at here so everyone can see our every single step?