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MacinJosh

macrumors 6502a
Jan 29, 2006
676
55
Finland
OK, let's take the metaphor out. No more Apples & Oranges, we'll just talk Apples.

Mr. Dimwitt Flathead III walks into Apple store in February of 2008 and buys a NEW Mac Pro.

Right now, is that a 4 year old machine or a 6 year old one?

Assuming that it's the 1,1 Mac Pro, it's a 4-year old machine but a 6-year old model.

A teenager can be 13 to up to 19-years old. Different ages same "model".
 

jeanlain

macrumors 68020
Mar 14, 2009
2,440
936
I understand why things need to be updated, but if Apple is capable of including an entire family of 32bit drivers in the Beta, why not in later releases?
Or they could just make Mac Pro 1.1 boot the 64-bit kernel, regardless of EFI. Hackers can do it with a boot loader, so can Apple.
There might be an issue with Mac Pros equipped with a 7300GT though, since this card has a 32-bit EFI (the X1900XT got an EFI update).
 

teohyc

macrumors 6502
May 24, 2007
494
406
Am I the only one here who's going to use the 2006 Mac Pro until it physically breaks down, or when Adobe stops releasing software for Snow Leopard?

In which case, I would stop upgrading software as the old ones are working perfectly fine for me and will still do so.

Sure, compared to new machines, the 2006 is slow. But it's a slow fast machine if you know what I mean. It's still way faster than my office's recently PC upgrade to quadcore. Pretty amazing.
 

MacinJosh

macrumors 6502a
Jan 29, 2006
676
55
Finland
Sure, compared to new machines, the 2006 is slow. But it's a slow fast machine if you know what I mean. It's still way faster than my office's recently PC upgrade to quadcore. Pretty amazing.

I wouldn't go that far. Sure it can't keep up with the current iMacs and higher-end MBPs and certainly not the MPs in terms of raw CPU power, but it sure can even beat low-end MBAs, Minis, and MBPs in raw CPU power (at least my 3Ghz Quad). Add to that any compatible GPU, up to a 6870 and an SSD, you have quite a competent machine keeping up with the rest of them. Expandability is a nice plus. Certainly not slower.

Sadly, the only thing holding it back is the EFI32.
 
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ftaok

macrumors 603
Jan 23, 2002
6,487
1,572
East Coast
Apple always sells the latest model, until a new one comes out, then the old model disappears in favor of the new one. Old models can be purchased as refurbs from the Apple store, but the 'new' model is always the latest one. I assume Apple goes bu then the model was released, not when they stopped selling it, so a 2006 model is 6 years old this year.

I'm replying to this and all of the following discussions.

I am aware that Apple has always sold the latest model right up until the new model is released. Can't remember if they did it this way back in the Performa/LC days, but certainly since Steve Jobs came back. (rare exceptions do exist ... e.g. silent upgrades, etc).

My point is that, if indeed, the MacPro 1,1 is not supported by Mountain Lion, then there are folks that own a 4.5 year old Mac that won't be able to get the latest OS. Sure, the range of ages on that particular Mac can be between 4.5 to 6 years old.

I can see where Apple is coming from. They drop support for older machines in order to keep the platform innovating. I get it. But it still stings when you have a perfectly capable machine that isn't able to upgrade to the latest OS. I have a CoreDuo Macbook. It's been maxed out to its capabilities in RAM and hard drive space. But I'm stuck on Snow Leopard ... which wouldn't be so bad, but Apple tends to drop support for their 1st party apps right along with the OS. It stings.

Anyways, 4.5 years is still a good run for a computer.
 

Graeme43

macrumors 6502a
Sep 11, 2006
519
5
Great Britain (Glasgow)
I found seed notes for 10.8 server and trimmed out the rest. Appears to say that all Mac Pros are supported and I also noticed no i3 support

1. February 16, 2012 11:13PM UTC

OS X Mountain Lion Seed
Server Release Notes


Minimum System Requirements

You can install this version of Server on any Macintosh server or desktop computer with:
• An Intel Core 2 Duo, i5, i7 or Xeon processor
• At least 2GB of RAM
• At least 20GB of available disk space
 
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Sweetfeld28

macrumors 65816
Feb 10, 2003
1,490
30
Buckeye Country, O-H
I found seed notes for 10.8 server and trimmed out the rest

1. February 16, 2012 11:13PM UTC

OS X Mountain Lion Seed
Server Release Notes


Minimum System Requirements

You can install this version of Server on any Macintosh server or desktop computer with:
• An Intel Core 2 Duo, i5, i7 or Xeon processor
• At least 2GB of RAM
• At least 20GB of available disk space


Hmmm. That does sound kinda like someone should give it a try. But not me, ha, I'm still in the process of uninstalling ML since it was flaking out my machine.
 

MacinJosh

macrumors 6502a
Jan 29, 2006
676
55
Finland
I found seed notes for 10.8 server and trimmed out the rest. Appears to say that all Mac Pros are supported and I also noticed no i3 support

1. February 16, 2012 11:13PM UTC

OS X Mountain Lion Seed
Server Release Notes


Minimum System Requirements

You can install this version of Server on any Macintosh server or desktop computer with:
• An Intel Core 2 Duo, i5, i7 or Xeon processor
• At least 2GB of RAM
• At least 20GB of available disk space

Interesting. Thanks for letting us know.
 

MacVidCards

Suspended
Nov 17, 2008
6,096
1,056
Hollywood, CA
I found seed notes for 10.8 server and trimmed out the rest. Appears to say that all Mac Pros are supported and I also noticed no i3 support

1. February 16, 2012 11:13PM UTC

OS X Mountain Lion Seed
Server Release Notes


Minimum System Requirements

You can install this version of Server on any Macintosh server or desktop computer with:
• An Intel Core 2 Duo, i5, i7 or Xeon processor
• At least 2GB of RAM
• At least 20GB of available disk space

Can you quote any of the places that gomac claims Apple specifically announced that this support would be ended soon? That the 32 bit kernel would be removed before launch?
 

Graeme43

macrumors 6502a
Sep 11, 2006
519
5
Great Britain (Glasgow)
Can you quote any of the places that gomac claims Apple specifically announced that this support would be ended soon? That the 32 bit kernel would be removed before launch?

I did see that a bug of 10.8 client says it can't run 32 bit kernel extensions but thats all I found
 

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Yebubbleman

macrumors 603
May 20, 2010
5,831
2,420
Los Angeles, CA
Does everyone realize that Mountain Lion will not support our machines? With my upgraded processors and SSD, I absolutely love my machine as geek benches at 9500. But now I feel its absolute junk since I can't update it even though it was advertised as a 64 bit machine and that is what Mountain Lion requires. Very P.O. right now.

There aren't drivers for either the ATI Radeon X1900 nor the NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT that are 64-bit and AMD and NVIDIA have respectively abandoned support for these GPUs, so thusly Apple has too. It's the same reason why your Mac Pro won't support Boot Camping with Windows 7. It has nothing to do with the pure muscle of that machine via your SSDs and your upgraded Xeons.

I did see that a bug of 10.8 client says it can't run 32 bit kernel extensions but thats all I found

Odd that there's no Core i3 support. Apple did use it on the rev of iMacs before last.


Or they could just make Mac Pro 1.1 boot the 64-bit kernel, regardless of EFI. Hackers can do it with a boot loader, so can Apple.
There might be an issue with Mac Pros equipped with a 7300GT though, since this card has a 32-bit EFI (the X1900XT got an EFI update).

It's a driver issue, not an EFI issue.
 
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Graeme43

macrumors 6502a
Sep 11, 2006
519
5
Great Britain (Glasgow)
There aren't drivers for either the ATI Radeon X1900 nor the NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT that are 64-bit and AMD and NVIDIA have respectively abandoned support for these GPUs, so thusly Apple has too. It's the same reason why your Mac Pro won't support Boot Camping with Windows 7. It has nothing to do with the pure muscle of that machine via your SSDs and your upgraded Xeons.

I run Windows 7 x64 with an ATI 4870 and a nVidia 7300GT (screen 2 so it doesn't split my VRAM on the good card)

If I go to system info i see this

GeForce7xxx:

Version: 7.0.52
Last Modified: 10/08/2011 05:40
Get Info String: GeForce7xxx 7.0.52 270.01.00f01
Kind: Intel
Architectures: i386, x86_64
64-Bit (Intel): Yes

Location: /System/Library/Extensions/GeForce7xxx.kext
Kext Version: 7.0.0
Load Address: 0x1a24000
Valid: Yes
Authentic: Yes
Dependencies: Satisfied
 

Yebubbleman

macrumors 603
May 20, 2010
5,831
2,420
Los Angeles, CA
I run Windows 7 x64 with an ATI 4870 and a nVidia 7300GT (screen 2 so it doesn't split my VRAM on the good card)

If I go to system info i see this

My bad, with the 7300GT it's solely a Mac driver issue and that card can do Windows 7. NVIDIA did give the Windows users some lovin' for that card, but they have long since left the Mac users out in the cold. This is why it isn't supported for games like StarCraft II when running in OS X. With the X1900, it's a problem with both which is why Windows 7 isn't supported via Boot Camp on X1900 machines (as well as X1600 equipped MacBook Pros and iMacs).
 

Winni

macrumors 68040
Oct 15, 2008
3,207
1,196
Germany.
Your machine will be 6 years old when Mountain Lion is released. I think it's fair that they drop support for a 6-year old computer.

No, it is not. Microsoft still supports 12 years old operating systems and their newest operating system still supports hardware that is older than six years. This is why businesses prefer the Windows platform over OS X.

----------

Or they could just make Mac Pro 1.1 boot the 64-bit kernel, regardless of EFI. Hackers can do it with a boot loader, so can Apple.

Linux and Windows also boot 64-Bit kernels on the Mac Pro 1,1. Only Apple screws this up.
 

MonkeyBrainz

macrumors regular
Feb 18, 2012
194
0
No, it is not. Microsoft still supports 12 years old operating systems and their newest operating system still supports hardware that is older than six years. This is why businesses prefer the Windows platform over OS X.

No, Microsoft doesn't support anything. It's the hardware vendors that keep making drivers for their parts to keep working in older versions of Windows. Also, Microsoft generally stops supporting OS upgrades after 10 years, which is still longer than Apple, but they do it as well. Since Apple controls both the hardware and software, they can presumably do as they please. If they wanted to, they could easily support older hardware, but that's not how Apple operates. Out with the old, in with the new. It's not like your computer is going to stop functioning after 5 years, but you won't get the latest OS. It's something you just have to deal with as a Mac user. Either that or make yourself a Hackintosh.
 

derbothaus

macrumors 601
Jul 17, 2010
4,093
30
No, it is not. Microsoft still supports 12 years old operating systems and their newest operating system still supports hardware that is older than six years. This is why businesses prefer the Windows platform over OS X.

----------



Linux and Windows also boot 64-Bit kernels on the Mac Pro 1,1. Only Apple screws this up.

I think you just summed up the entire business model difference. That's why Win has 90% of the market and Apple doesn't and doesn't care. They push forward regardless of whether you think they need to or not. Sometimes it works out, sometimes not.
Wal-Mart vs. Boutique. Business prefer Windows because it is most prevalent and MS gives clear and comprehensive road maps for the future. Images can be used indefinitely without HW driver mismatches. I have never been at a business that uses PC's older than 6 years either. They get replaced just as often as the Mac's do.
Apple didn't screw the EFI up. They just are forcing older users into upgrading. MS would do this too is they had a vested interest in selling their HW. They don't sell CPU's so it is a moot point for them. The Mac is still as good as the day you got it, you just can't have the latest OS which would slow down the Mac anyway. Just use the last capable OS. You really are not missing much in terms of features. Just where those feature are located.
The minute 10.8 is gold I am reverting my Macbook back to 10.6 as I will not need to test 10.7 compatibility anymore and it ruins the heat and efficiency of my Core 2 Duo 2008 MBP.
 
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MacVidCards

Suspended
Nov 17, 2008
6,096
1,056
Hollywood, CA
Apple has already indicated they're going to remove a bunch of support files required for this to work.

It requires the 32 bit drivers to work. Apple has already said the 32 bit drivers are going away.


Can someone with a developer account look through ALL of the pages on 10.8 and find this info?

Certainly if there are notes available to developers, they would either have this info or not have this info.

Someone MUST be able to back up these assertions? I find it hard to believe he just made it up out of thin air.

If Apple keeps 32 bit support in ML, then this entire thread is pointless and people with these 4.5 to 6 year old machines will just need to use something other than a 7300GT or X1900 and they will continue being able to run current OS for another year or two.

If in fact they just wrote and included the 32 bit support as a tease, or a taste of what we will all be missing out on, then we need to start finding Plan B.

Can anyone find this info from Apple?
 

Ccrew

macrumors 68020
Feb 28, 2011
2,035
3
No, Microsoft doesn't support anything. It's the hardware vendors that keep making drivers for their parts to keep working in older versions of Windows.
.

Actually it's Microsoft not changing the driver model that allows the third parties to keep tweaking their drivers.
 

Yebubbleman

macrumors 603
May 20, 2010
5,831
2,420
Los Angeles, CA
Linux and Windows also boot 64-Bit kernels on the Mac Pro 1,1. Only Apple screws this up.

If I'm not mistaken, Apple doesn't even support running 64-bit versions of Windows on that generation of Mac Pro.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1846?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

Even if it did though, I think Apple's main limitation here is that the bootloader for Mac OS X directly talks to the EFI, whereas Windows and Linux use a BIOS emulation layer on EFI. 32-bit-only EFI and only a 64-bit kernel and bootloader don't mix, hence why some on here have talked of using a modified bootloader to get around the limitation.

No, Microsoft doesn't support anything. It's the hardware vendors that keep making drivers for their parts to keep working in older versions of Windows. Also, Microsoft generally stops supporting OS upgrades after 10 years, which is still longer than Apple, but they do it as well. Since Apple controls both the hardware and software, they can presumably do as they please. If they wanted to, they could easily support older hardware, but that's not how Apple operates. Out with the old, in with the new. It's not like your computer is going to stop functioning after 5 years, but you won't get the latest OS. It's something you just have to deal with as a Mac user. Either that or make yourself a Hackintosh.

That's really not the issue here. The issue on the GMA 950 and X3100 machines is that those video chipsets were offering bare minimum performance when they were released and now Apple can't technologically go any further with them. The issue on the NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT found on that Mac Pro is that NVIDIA hasn't updated their Mac drivers in ages and probably won't, and given the supposed full switch to 64-bit only in Mountain Lion, they can't keep reusing the same 32-bit driver that they've had since the beginning. Similarly, the issue on the ATI Radeon X1600, ATI Radeon Mobility X1600, and ATI Radeon X1900 found in the Early-Late 2006 iMacs, Early-Late 2006 MacBook Pros, and the original (Mac Pro 1,1) Mac Pro is that AMD stopped making drivers for those graphics cards. Those cards are not supported in Windows 7, and given that AMD isn't making new drivers for them, it makes sense that at a time when Apple needs all 64-bit drivers (and there weren't any previously as no Macs with those cards could ever boot to a 64-bit kernel), there aren't any, and thusly the machine isn't supported. It's not Apple's fault that Intel's IGPs circa 2006-2008 are poor performing and that NVIDIA and AMD have abandoned support for six year old graphics cards.
 

jeanlain

macrumors 68020
Mar 14, 2009
2,440
936
I found seed notes for 10.8 server and trimmed out the rest. Appears to say that all Mac Pros are supported and I also noticed no i3 support

1. February 16, 2012 11:13PM UTC

OS X Mountain Lion Seed
Server Release Notes


Minimum System Requirements

You can install this version of Server on any Macintosh server or desktop computer with:
• An Intel Core 2 Duo, i5, i7 or Xeon processor
• At least 2GB of RAM
• At least 20GB of available disk space
The server version just corresponds to the server admin tools, not the whole OS. I think they just messed with the system requirements here.
The actual requirement is a Mac with OS X 10.8 already installed.
 

Yebubbleman

macrumors 603
May 20, 2010
5,831
2,420
Los Angeles, CA
The server version just corresponds to the server admin tools, not the whole OS. I think they just messed with the system requirements here.
The actual requirement is a Mac with OS X 10.8 already installed.

Still though, someone should find out what that no Core i3 nonsense is all about. Sure, Core i3s only existed on the Mid 2010 iMac, but I can't imagine a Core i3 being insufficient where a Core 2 Duo isn't.
 

jeanlain

macrumors 68020
Mar 14, 2009
2,440
936
Oh, the absence of core i3's is likely a mistake.
Again, the actual requirement of ML server is a Mac running ML.
 
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