macOS 11 Big Sur on Unsupported Macs Thread

[Barry K. Nathan]

Could you expand on step 13?



I am getting this error on my Early 2013 15" MBP and created a 200GB APFS formatted partition on my Flash Storage for this.

Step 13 is basically click on Installer then click Continue, then choose the volume you're installing onto, and click Next. Or something like that.

If you're getting the error with 200GB of free space, I will need to see the Installer Log. When I get a chance I'll come back and edit this post to add instructions (but it's possible I won't get a chance until Friday or Saturday).

 

[amaze1499]

In any case, I'd say the main factors regarding success (in my experience) are:

• Do you have enough free disk space (I think 50GB should generally be enough; maybe you can get away with less)?

35GB minimum free space needed from my experience. I ran into the "not enough space" issue twice. As soon as there was 35GB space left, installation could continue.

 

[Barry K. Nathan]

35GB minimum free space needed from my experience. I ran into the "not enough space" issue twice. As soon as there was 35GB space left, installation could continue.

That sounds about right.

 

[StephN999]

Bonjour,

macOS Big Sur refuses to boot with OpenCore (and I need it), crashes almost directly to the apple display, but no problem without it, does anyone have an idea?

I'm at the last 0.6.2, but it produced the same thing with 0.6.0

I also didn't understand why it doesn't offer me an upgrade to beta 8, I tried different methods without success, but this one is optional for me, I'd like to understand, knowing that it didn't cause any problem with my supported iMac 2015.

Thank you very much. 😉

 

[jhowarth]

For Penryn Core2Duo same applies to beta 8 (and to its BaseSystem.dmg Recovery) , otherwise stuck on ACMKernelService (AppleCredentialManager.kext) at early booting, and it's not a kernel panic where could get some logs but just a kernel freeze, harder to figure out, downgrading to beta 6 kernel should work at least for now but this I guess should be applied also to a next full installer app because the staged installer uses an updated kernel too.

So I assume that this breakage also extends to the Harpertown processors in the 2008 MacPro? If so, it looks like Apple is burning all of its 'bridges' to the legacy hardware. I've suspected for awhile that Big Sur will be a dead end on unsupported Macs. You might get past 11.0 but your machine is unlikely to make it through the later point releases.

 

[MrWeenus]

After running Big Sur as my main OS on an unsupported MacBook Pro Retina 15" mid-2012, I can finally understand why Apple dropped those machines. The UI is horrendously slow and the OS runs super slow compared to Catalina.

I don't think it's because of the non-AC Wi-Fi card as speculated.

For example, minimising Safari into the dock drops a lot of frames. The animation is choppy and not as smooth as Catalina, no matter what resolution scaling I'm using.

 

[Barry K. Nathan]

After running Big Sur as my main OS on an unsupported MacBook Pro Retina 15" mid-2012, I can finally understand why Apple dropped those machines. The UI is horrendously slow and the OS runs super slow compared to Catalina.

I don't think it's because of the non-AC Wi-Fi card as speculated.

For example, minimising Safari into the dock drops a lot of frames. The animation is choppy and not as smooth as Catalina, no matter what resolution scaling I'm using.

I got similar feedback for the Late 2012 13" retina MacBook Pro (issue #35 on GitHub). I have a Late 2012 13" retina, so I'll test my patcher on there when I get a chance.

 

[LuisN]

Anyone with Macbook Pro retina 15" mid 2012? How does Big Sur perform compared to Catalina? Any slowdowns?

Almost the same. It will improve when it's released with all the debugging disabled

 

[ASentientBot]

After running Big Sur as my main OS on an unsupported MacBook Pro Retina 15" mid-2012, I can finally understand why Apple dropped those machines. The UI is horrendously slow and the OS runs super slow compared to Catalina.

I don't think it's because of the non-AC Wi-Fi card as speculated.

For example, minimising Safari into the dock drops a lot of frames. The animation is choppy and not as smooth as Catalina, no matter what resolution scaling I'm using.

Is there the normal transparency in your Dock/menubar? I wonder if Apple has removed some display drivers in the last couple betas and nobody noticed. What you're describing sounds a lot like an unaccelerated system.

There's nothing inherently that much slower about the 2012 vs. 2013 hardware.

 

[MrWeenus]

Is there the normal transparency in your Dock/menubar? I wonder if Apple has removed some display drivers in the last couple betas and nobody noticed. What you're describing sounds a lot like an unaccelerated system.

There's nothing inherently that much slower about the 2012 vs. 2013 hardware.

Nope. I do have graphics acceleration working as games run pretty fine, albeit with slowdowns due to Big Sur's overhead.

@Barry K. Nathan I can help you diagnose any problem. I'll even let you remote in if it helps you diagnose anything.

 

[LuisN]

Is there the normal transparency in your Dock/menubar? I wonder if Apple has removed some display drivers in the last couple betas and nobody noticed. What you're describing sounds a lot like an unaccelerated system.

There's nothing inherently that much slower about the 2012 vs. 2013 hardware.

Don’t think so. Chances are he is running beta 6 as is an unsupported Mac. My 2012 retina runs pretty well. Even my 13” 2012 is as fast as with Catalina

 

[MrWeenus]

Don’t think so. Chances are he is running beta 6 as is an unsupported Mac. My 2012 retina runs pretty well. Even my 13” 2012 is as fast as with Catalina

Beta 8

 

[Barry K. Nathan]

Nope. I do have graphics acceleration working as games run pretty fine, albeit with slowdowns due to Big Sur's overhead.

@Barry K. Nathan I can help you diagnose any problem. I'll even let you remote in if it helps you diagnose anything.

Thanks for the generous offer. However, for the moment I first want to examine things in more detail on my own Late 2012 13" Retina MacBook Pro. (If I'm not able to do it today, then hopefully I'll be able to do it this weekend.)

Don’t think so. Chances are he is running beta 6 as is an unsupported Mac. My 2012 retina runs pretty well. Even my 13” 2012 is as fast as with Catalina

Just to make sure I understand (as I'm trying to keep track of the feedback):

• Are "2012 retina" and "13" 2012" the same Mac or two different Macs?
• If two different Macs: Is the "2012 retina" 13" or 15"? Is the "13" 2012" Retina or non-Retina?

Beta 8

That's an interesting wrinkle. I might be able to try beta 6 on my Retina MBP today, but beta 8 will almost definitely have to wait for the weekend.

 

[MrWeenus]

I think my performance post came across a little bit misunderstood. In no way it is acting like a non-accelerated Mac, but it is noticeably *slower* than Catalina when running animations, especially with Safari.

 

[LuisN]

Beta 8

Ok. So it maybe a problem with the drivers as ASentientbot said

Thanks for the generous offer. However, for the moment I first want to examine things in more detail on my own Late 2012 13" Retina MacBook Pro. (If I'm not able to do it today, then hopefully I'll be able to do it this weekend.)


Just to make sure I understand (as I'm trying to keep track of the feedback):

• Are "2012 retina" and "13" 2012" the same Mac or two different Macs?
• If two different Macs: Is the "2012 retina" 13" or 15"? Is the "13" 2012" Retina or non-Retina?

That's an interesting wrinkle. I might be able to try beta 6 on my Retina MBP today, but beta 8 will almost definitely have to wait for the weekend.

different macs. 2012 13” non retina AND mid 2012 15” retina

 

[LuisN]

I think my performance post came across a little bit misunderstood. In no way it is acting like a non-accelerated Mac, but it is noticeably *slower* than Catalina when running animations, especially with Safari.

Catalina is pretty well "oiled" now after almost one year 😉

 

[sinbad21]

After running Big Sur as my main OS on an unsupported MacBook Pro Retina 15" mid-2012, I can finally understand why Apple dropped those machines. The UI is horrendously slow and the OS runs super slow compared to Catalina.

I don't think it's because of the non-AC Wi-Fi card as speculated.

For example, minimising Safari into the dock drops a lot of frames. The animation is choppy and not as smooth as Catalina, no matter what resolution scaling I'm using.

I have a MBP mid 2012 not retina, an older machine than yours, and I don't experience that. Maybe because the non retina display doesn't need so much calculation.

 

[justperry]

I have a MBP mid 2012 not retina, an older machine than yours, and I don't experience that. Maybe because the non retina display doesn't need so much calculation.

I have 2 2012 Macs, a Mac Mini and a 13" non retina MBP, the only time I see slowness is in Safari while opening a link in a new tab and scrolling in the tab I am in at the same time.

 

[Barry K. Nathan]

I have a MBP mid 2012 not retina, an older machine than yours, and I don't experience that. Maybe because the non retina display doesn't need so much calculation.

The late 2012 13" Retina is driving 4x as many pixels using the same GPU (and I think same CPU) as the Mid 2012 13" non-Retina, so the Retina does have worse GPU performance (at least when using the built-in screens; I'm not sure how external monitors affect this).

 

[Barry K. Nathan]

I think my performance post came across a little bit misunderstood. In no way it is acting like a non-accelerated Mac, but it is noticeably *slower* than Catalina when running animations, especially with Safari.

So I just compared Catalina and Big Sur beta 6 on my Late 2012 13" Retina MBP. Dock icons bounce a little more smoothly in Catalina when programs are loading. Otherwise, everything seems just a little smoother and faster to me in Big Sur, especially Safari. (Yes, I installed Safari 14 under Catalina before making this comparison.) And I have the transparent menu bar in both Catalina and Big Sur -- it's clear that both are getting accelerated.

(I did cheat a little by using dd on Linux to copy my Early 2011 13" MBP's internal SSD contents onto an external SSD. Both SSDs are the exact same capacity, exact same number of sectors, which made that the easy way to go. However, I don't think it's likely that this would make any difference, and I can double-check later by going through the whole installation procedure on the Late 2012 when I get a chance.)

MrWeenus, would you mind doing the following? Go to the Apple menu, choose About This Mac, choose System Report, and on the left side, under Hardware, click "Graphcis/Displays". (It may look like "Graphics/Dis.." or something like that, depending on the window size.) Then take a screenshot of the window. (A screenshot of the whole screen, so we can see the menu bar as well, probably would be even better.) And post the screenshot to this thread. Thanks!

 

[MrWeenus]

The dGPU is active because League of Legends (xD) is active in the background.

 

[Barry K. Nathan]

The dGPU is active because League of Legends (xD) is active in the background.

Thank you for the screenshots. So you do have the transparent menu bar, and you have transparency in general. That is consistent with graphics being accelerated, and so is the system report information. (It appears that a lack of graphics acceleration is not the problem.)

One more thing: Would you mind double-checking what build number you have in About this Mac? The reason I ask is that I've already received one bug report from someone who was utterly convinced he was running beta 7, but it turned out to actually be beta 6, and I just want to be really sure about which version you're running. Thanks!

 

[MrWeenus]

Thank you for the screenshots. So you do have the transparent menu bar, and you have transparency in general. That is consistent with graphics being accelerated, and so is the system report information. (It appears that a lack of graphics acceleration is not the problem.)

One more thing: Would you mind double-checking what build number you have in About this Mac? The reason I ask is that I've already received one bug report from someone who was utterly convinced he was running beta 7, but it turned out to actually be beta 6, and I just want to be really sure about which version you're running. Thanks!

20A5374i

 

[Barry K. Nathan]

20A5374i

So it really is beta 8 then. OK.

Did you happen to observe what performance was like under beta 6? (If not, don't worry about it.)

 

[MrWeenus]

So it really is beta 8 then. OK.

Did you happen to observe what performance was like under beta 6? (If not, don't worry about it.)

It's been the same since beta 1. For example, when opening the LoL client (which is Electron), the GPU almost dies. I barely get 1FPS throughout the system.

Graphics performance is definitely worse than Catalina. It is a night and day difference.
I've been watching the CPU and GPU clocks closely and they don't throttle.