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OpenCore Legacy Patcher worth doing?

P

Peter Franks

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Jun 9, 2011
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Just a curiosity...
Is it worth using OCLP on an early 2011 i5 13" MBP running Sierra. Would you bother going up to a later OS?
 
I did that using Monterey in September which lasted for a week then froze,
thee was is a great thread abut how OCLP works an d fails in December
I included my experiences with that process on a mid MacBook Pro 2012 non rentina.
 
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MBAir2010 said:
I did that using Monterey in September which lasted for a week then froze,
thee was is a great thread abut how OCLP works an d fails in December
I included my experiences with that process on a mid MacBook Pro 2012 non rentina.
Click to expand...
Thanks, yes, I've seen it being done on YouTube but mainly 2012 onwards and comments show there is a lot of fails on these as well as success stories.
DeltaMac said:
If you are currently running Sierra - you could certainly upgrade to High Sierra, natively supported - no OCLP needed for that.
Click to expand...
Thanks Delta, I did roll it back to Sierra a few years ago just because of incompatibility with a few progs like my Photoshop Elements, Word etc didn't work, so long ago I can't remember the other reasons, but I am running out of options on a lot of other things on Sierra, browsers especially keep driving me mad. Is it really worth doing for any other reasons. Does iMovie stay as is, can it upgrade from 9.0.4, or does iLife 11 disappear.
 
Fishrrman said:
I wouldn't bother with OCLP unless you're "a technical user" who can fix problems as they pop up.

Really, it's time to start thinking about replacing a now-13-year-old Mac laptop...
Click to expand...

Thanks Fish, just trying to eek it out a bit more, if I can. Finances are dire so wondered if worth the hassle of OCLP.
 
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Using OCLP on my MacBook Pro 2011 and it has worked fine up to MacOS Monterey. Before that I had kept it on High Sierra for a couple of years until some applications I use for work demanded a newer OS and I wanted to make more use of the newer iCloud services. OCLP got me 3 years extra without much fuss.

Actually, my MacBook Pro 2011 has the famous failing AMD GPU inside, but that didn't caused much trouble. Only movies that required hardware DRM decoding couldn't be played anymore, but that wasn't a real problem.
Eventually I have replaced it with a used MacBook Pro 2019 from a family member a couple of months ago. I cannot afford a new MacBook Pro just yet... holding off until M4 or M5.

btw... my MacPro 2008 is running OCLP too. Works fine, although with some applications it has become noticeable that the code isn't speed optimised as it used to be. I still use this machine though,

You can certainly go use OCLP on your MacBook too, but be sure that you have an SSD inside. That cranks up the data I/O speed significantly which is kind of nessesary with the newer OS versions. Also make a good backup, TimeMachine or disk clone, before you start upgrading. From that backup you can restore your applications and data again.
Last thing, keep the OCLP installer USB drive... don't erase after use. In some rare cases it might come in handy when the MacBook EFI partition on the internal drive won't boot. Then you need this USB drive with a working EFI partition to be able to boot.
 
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In my experience it works great on Quad-Core Intel-macs but I would not really recommend it on Dual-core systems. Sonoma is quite demanding on those older machines.

Don't do it on your main Mac.
 
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I’m currently using it on my main Computer which is a 2012 retina MBP 15. It’s quad core.

I’ve had almost no issues what so ever. Setup can be lengthy and somewhat confusing for a non technical user, but other than that things have been great. Been running Monterey maybe a year, and don’t really have any complaints.
 
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Powerbooky said:
Using OCLP on my MacBook Pro 2011 and it has worked fine up to MacOS Monterey. Before that I had kept it on High Sierra for a couple of years until some applications I use for work demanded a newer OS and I wanted to make more use of the newer iCloud services. OCLP got me 3 years extra without much fuss.

Actually, my MacBook Pro 2011 has the famous failing AMD GPU inside, but that didn't caused much trouble. Only movies that required hardware DRM decoding couldn't be played anymore, but that wasn't a real problem.
Eventually I have replaced it with a used MacBook Pro 2019 from a family member a couple of months ago. I cannot afford a new MacBook Pro just yet... holding off until M4 or M5.

btw... my MacPro 2008 is running OCLP too. Works fine, although with some applications it has become noticeable that the code isn't speed optimised as it used to be. I still use this machine though,

You can certainly go use OCLP on your MacBook too, but be sure that you have an SSD inside. That cranks up the data I/O speed significantly which is kind of nessesary with the newer OS versions. Also make a good backup, TimeMachine or disk clone, before you start upgrading. From that backup you can restore your applications and data again.
Last thing, keep the OCLP installer USB drive... don't erase after use. In some rare cases it might come in handy when the MacBook EFI partition on the internal drive won't boot. Then you need this USB drive with a working EFI partition to be able to boot.
Click to expand...
Thanks, I have an SSD and 8GB RAM, that was basically the limits of my tech know how, Easy enough to do, but need new battery as this one has gone the way of the dodo, again. Does it need more RAM, maybe 16, or does that not really make a huge difference? I think you lost me at EFI partitiion
ResPublica said:
In my experience it works great on Quad-Core Intel-macs but I would not really recommend it on Dual-core systems. Sonoma is quite demanding on those older machines.

Don't do it on your main Mac.
Click to expand...
2.3 GHz Intel Core i5 is as good as this gets
Dylan33x said:
I’m currently using it on my main Computer which is a 2012 retina MBP 15. It’s quad core.

I’ve had almost no issues what so ever. Setup can be lengthy and somewhat confusing for a non technical user, but other than that things have been great. Been running Monterey maybe a year, and don’t really have any complaints.
Click to expand...
'Non technical user' is my middle name. I mean I don't need the latest, but something that's a bit more up to date. iMovie 9.0.4 takes a year to upload anything, Has that improved on anything later?
 
Peter Franks said:
Thanks, I have an SSD and 8GB RAM, that was basically the limits of my tech know how, Easy enough to do, but need new battery as this one has gone the way of the dodo, again. Does it need more RAM, maybe 16, or does that not really make a huge difference? I think you lost me at EFI partitiion

2.3 GHz Intel Core i5 is as good as this gets

'Non technical user' is my middle name. I mean I don't need the latest, but something that's a bit more up to date. iMovie 9.0.4 takes a year to upload anything, Has that improved on anything later?
Click to expand...

8GB probably will work; 16GB will be smoother. iMovie won't be any faster than before though as it depends mostly on the GPU.
 
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Peter Franks said:
Thanks. Was iMovie updateable with H Sierra, compared to the usual Sierra, or same version?
Click to expand...

iMovie 10.1.12 is the last version that runs on High Sierra (download link can be found here). I'm not sure if there was much difference in previous versions for Sierra.

On a side note: On a previous Mac I had High Sierra on a second bootable partition on the SSD especially for use with Final Cut Pro 7 and Motion. The OS could boot up within a few seconds from SSD and the workflow for regular HD editing it didn't require the latest blasting GPU cards anyway - only fast storage (SSD or network) and using ProRes video files.
 
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Powerbooky said:
iMovie 10.1.12 is the last version that runs on High Sierra (download link can be found here). I'm not sure if there was much difference in previous versions for Sierra.

On a side note: On a previous Mac I had High Sierra on a second bootable partition on the SSD especially for use with Final Cut Pro 7 and Motion. The OS could boot up within a few seconds from SSD and the workflow for regular HD editing it didn't require the latest blasting GPU cards anyway - only fast storage (SSD or network) and using ProRes video files.
Click to expand...
Thanks. I was going to try HS on a bootable Sierra clone external SSD that I use as a backup drive so I can still use the older Photoshop/Word on internal Sierra, which I can start using the MBP, but it's 'really' slow, despite being the same SSD that is internal.
 
Peter Franks said:
Thanks. I was going to try HS on a bootable Sierra clone external SSD that I use as a backup drive so I can still use the older Photoshop/Word on internal Sierra, which I can start using the MBP, but it's 'really' slow, despite being the same SSD that is internal.
Click to expand...

That sounds like a slow SSD drive enclosure. There are many (cheap) cases around that have a USB3.x interface but an extremely slow controller inside. In worst case it is an USB2.0 enclosure. You might be better off with a Thunderbolt drive enclosure.
 
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I have an old Macbook Pro (2009, I think -- the year they were released with Snow Leopard) and it would be kinda nice to get some use out of it again. Will this Legacy Patcher make it somewhat useful once again?
 
Powerbooky said:
That sounds like a slow SSD drive enclosure. There are many (cheap) cases around that have a USB3.x interface but an extremely slow controller inside. In worst case it is an USB2.0 enclosure. You might be better off with a Thunderbolt drive enclosure.
Click to expand...
Exactly what it is yep! Thanks
 
brgjoe said:
I have an old Macbook Pro (2009, I think -- the year they were released with Snow Leopard) and it would be kinda nice to get some use out of it again. Will this Legacy Patcher make it somewhat useful once again?
Click to expand...

It will work, but the performance will be bad. It is better to run a slightly older OS which still has good software support, such as Catalina (10.15). Dosdude's installer for Catalina works great.
 
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Powerbooky said:
8GB probably will work; 16GB will be smoother. iMovie won't be any faster than before though as it depends mostly on the GPU.
Click to expand...

Of course, 16GB will always be better than 8GB, but in most cases of using OCLP the CPU will be a far bigger bottleneck than the RAM. Upgrading RAM will not really solve the issue of slower performance on older Macs, at least in most use cases.
 
ResPublica said:
Of course, 16GB will always be better than 8GB, but in most cases of using OCLP the CPU will be a far bigger bottleneck than the RAM. Upgrading RAM will not really solve the issue of slower performance on older Macs, at least in most use cases.
Click to expand...

One of the things that's always been a contention is the fans on these old MBP. From new, when running Snow Leopard, the fans were always a pain. Most videos and anything not straight forward brought the fans on. Small price to pay for a machine you can update RAM and SSD, oh and batteries. Anything over and above that, I'd struggle to replace.
 
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