I read multiple articles about mountain lion dropping support for this and that machine but i guess it's still up in the air. I'm running a macpro 1.1, a beast that gets the job done, hopefully my machine is supported. I see a few gems in mountain lion.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
OS X Mountain Lion Drops Support for Many 2006-2008 Macs with Integrated Graphics
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
This is a bad sign. What's keeping Mountain Lion off of some 64-bit Macs? Ars investigates. http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2...tm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss
Last edited:
I am not "defending" Lion, but of the 25% of my company running Macs, over half are on Lion, and no one has any problems with it. Of those that were upgrades, no one wants to go back to SL.
Perhaps not a scientific study, and surely anecdotal. But I don't think it's a bad OS at all. I think the vocal minority posting about it on the Internet is just that; a minority.
Well that's an interesting article stating that the current list of supported platforms is for the development release and holding out hope that it might be expanded at general availability time. I would tend to doubt there will be any differences, but you never know.
Mountain Lion comes out this summer (four months at the soonest, seven at the latest), you will not be left out in the cold on things like Adobe Flash, Safari, and iTunes for at least three months to the launch of OS X 10.9. You have time. Even so though, if you wanted to repurpose that SSD, it's not like you can't do that.
Windows 7 dropped support for that because ATI (AMD) stopped updating the drivers for the Radeon X1xxx series. This is also why Radeon X1xxx series GPU-equipped Macs don't support running Windows 7 as part of Boot Camp. It was assumed that Apple didn't even update the drivers themselves when moving from Leopard to Snow Leopard (and thusly from Snow Leopard to Lion), they just did the bare minimum to ensure that the pre-existing drivers would continue to work and that was that.
No, they're dropping support for X1600 Macs too. And the reason why GMA 950 cards support Windows 7 with Boot Camp (which is all that Lion offers, itself, aside from pre-existing XP and Vista set-ups) and Radeon X1xxx cards don't is that Intel made Windows 7 drivers for the GMA 950, whereas ATI (AMD) didn't for the Radeon X1xxx.
Given that it's barely be two years old, I'd imagine it would. Apple doesn't drop support for Macs that are less than five years unless there's a single part that doesn't support a required technology (i.e. the Intel Integrated cards from 2006-2008 being weak, and the Radeon X1600/X1900 not having driver support anymore. The 320M is superior in performance to the GeForce 8600M GT that is still supported with Mountain Lion; so I'd say you have at least one more version of OS X before you're left out in the cold.
If it's Aluminum, yes. If it's plastic, no.
If you're running Lion, you'll easily last another 12 more months. If you're running Snow Leopard, you might start to feel the burn of lack of Apple support, but even then, you should be fine for at least a month or two after Lion's out.
This means that OS X Cougar is fair game.
It probably won't be long until their next new release won't be compatible with any C2D's either
I'd say we have one more release before C2Ds are left out. My guess is that the next one will be limited to Penryn and the Core i CPUs (or to Macs with a miniDP port, for the sake of simplicity), and then the one thereafter will be Core i and newer.
It absolutely is AMD and not Apple. The X1600 isn't much worse (if at all) than the GeForce 8600M GT and the latter is still being supported. Though I'd figure with the failure rating of the latter, Apple would want to drop support for it ASAP.
Windows 8 will run like crap on a laptop purchased in 2004. Windows 7 would even run like crap on such a laptop. You do not want a Pentium 4 running anything higher than XP as your experience will suck. Apple sees that and would rather not have people feeling that kind of a burn. Also, it is rare that any OS reigns as long as Windows XP did. So all of this "why are they not supporting my five year old hardware; Microsoft doesn't have that problem" arguments are kind of stupid as they only pertain to one odd-ball example. Do I think that said example should become more of the norm in the computer world? Hell yeah! But it's not.
Your machine wasn't listed as one of the excluded models. You should read the beginning of the post before you worry.
That may be the case, but the Intel HD 3000 on the current low-end Mac mini (as well as the current Mac mini Server), 13" MacBook Pro, and both MacBook Air models wouldn't be compatible as it doesn't support OpenCL. Those machines will HAVE to be supported, so OpenCL can't be the deciding factor. Unless Apple will design something to enable some form of intermediary support to work for those machines, which, I suppose is entirely possible.
How long have you been using Macs? They USED to release a new OS every year, and at $129. Then they slowed that down, to every other year or so in 2006.
Just looking at OS X:
Public Beta Kodiak, September 13, 2000
10.0 Cheetah, March 24, 2001
10.1 Puma, July 18, 2001
10.2 Jaguar, May 6, 2002
10.3 Panther, June 23, 2003
10.4 Tiger, May 4, 2004
10.5 Leopard, June 26, 2006
10.6 Snow Leopard, June 9, 2008
10.7 Lion, October 20, 2010
10.8 Mountain Lion, February 16, 2012
So you can see they had a major revision every year (two in 2001) since the release of OS X, until they got to Leopard. Then it was every two years. Now it's going back to every year. And at $29, I don't see a problem!
I've used every version of Mac OS starting with 7.1.2. I skipped the public beta of OS X, but installed Cheetah the day is was released. Had to do a lot of dual booting back then.
In the time between 7.1.2 and OS X 10.0, I've used 23 different versions of Mac OS, ending with Mac OS 9.2.2.
I bought a PowerMac 6100 in 1994. So in the seven years from that machine running 7.5 to Mac OS X 10.0 in 2001, Apple released 21 OS updates. That's three updates a year!
That release date chart you've put there is wrong past 10.2 as from that point on, you are posting announcement dates, not release dates. That being said, even with Mountain Lion on the horizon, Lion is still the most recent release of the OS until Mountain Lion comes out to officially succeed it.
You're kind of wrong there. Snow Leopard only seems like a service pack on the surface because very little changed on the surface. That being said, it wasn't at all about above the hood, it was about undernearth. Just about everything in Leopard was recoded and retooled for (a) streamlined performace and (b) setting the stage for the OSes to come thereafter. Grand Central Dispatch, OpenCL, 64-bit kernel, plus everything recoded from Carbon to Cocoa (finally), that's not a freakin' Service Pack, it's a freakin' redesign from the bottom up. Not to mention the reclamation of up to 14GB of hard drive space. If more OS updates could be like that one, we would have a better computer.
Yes, because OpenCL is really needed to run a simple GUI....
Exactly what benefit do I get from having OpenCL calls in the GUI? What eye candy does Mountain Lion feature that I simply cannot live without it in a preference setting (like lower feature levels in Windows for eye candy)? With Apple's level of resources and cash, there is simply no excuse for their poor level of support compared to Microsoft after the sale.
I can put Mountain Lion on my late 2008 Macbook Pro which is still running Snow Leopard, but I don't think I want to. I still use Rosetta for a couple of things like Diablo2 and Office '04 (see no reason I should pay to upgrade when I use it so little these days so it would be just one more cost to this "upgrade") nor do I need any of these iOS-centric features. I like Screens just the way it is in Snow Leopard and Leopard, not like Mission Control has it. Apple doesn't provide nearly enough customization and options for people that prefer the previous setups for things like that.
Despite all the rhetoric about making OSX more efficient and optimized, the FACT remains that Snow Leopard made my Macbook Pro SLOWER than it was with Leopard. The only noticeable improvement was a slight decrease in hard drive space used on install (due to erasing PPC support stuff), but then the drive I have in that machine is quite large and so it really wasn't worth it. But I HAD to upgrade to keep certain programs' newer versions working (as developers typically dump older OS support when it inconveniences them more than a few seconds).
I ran Snow Leopard on three Macs, an Early 2006 iMac (2.0GHz Core Duo; 2GB RAM, Radeon X1600), an Early 2006 Mac mini (1.5GHz Core Solo [in theory the slowest Intel Mac ever released next to the first MacBook Airs], 2GB of RAM; GMA 950), and a Late 2006 MacBook (1.83GHz Merom Core 2 Duo; 2GB of RAM; GMA 950); Snow Leopard made all three machines run faster than any of them ever did in Leopard. You must have some weird issue or your upgrade didn't go smoothly.
All 13" MacBook Pro models are supported. Unless you bought yours in 2011 (or 2012, for that matter), if you look at the bottom of the machine, the copyright year will tell you if it's a Mid 2009 or a Mid 2010. At least, that was the trick I always used for IDing 13" Pros at work.
You should still be able to change it back; though Apple has been slowly putting to rest the F9/F10/F11 Expose convention introduced in OS X 10.3 Panther. I miss it too; though given that I'll be buying a MacBook Pro on the sooner side of things, I imagine that I'll be forced into using shortcuts built into the earlier F keys.
First off, chill out, bro. Second off, GeForce 9400M Macs will be supported. If you have a white MacBook from early 2009 and it has a GeForce 9400M, you can go to the Mountain Lion party. Don't expect an invite to the 10.9 party, but still, you're good for now.
It's MacRumors. Most people here don't look for answers before complaining about not knowing them. That said, I'm probably a little guilty of that in some of my "does anyone on here know about x" posts, but at least, it's not common problems or concerns to which there really is an easy solution or easily found answer to things. I do like to Google things first.
You can still run Windows 7 with the Radeon X1xxx and Intel GMA 950, but you'll need the drivers for Windows XP. Windows Vista and 7 can fallback to the older driver models if you install the XP drivers. However, you'll lose some benefits by not using the proper WDDM video drivers in Windows 7 (the desktop composition manager with GPU acceleration). Nevertheless, you CAN still run Windows 7 with these graphic cards.
The person you're responding to says he can't run ML with his 2007 Mac Mini. You made a strawman by saying that Windows 8 will run like crap on a 2004-era computers. It probably does, but a Mac Mini in 2007 uses a Core 2 Duo. That's more than enough to run Windows 8 like a champ. Unfortunately for him, he won't be able run ML on his 2007 Mac Mini. But Apple doesn't really give a damn about that. They would rather want you to upgrade your Mac Mini if you want to run ML (i.e. pay $500-$600 instead of $30).
Intel has a specific native Windows 7 driver for the GMA 950. ATI/AMD does not have such for the Radeon X1xxx GPUs/cards. Older drivers should work, but again, as you said you mis out on WDDM, but even more importantly, as far as Apple is concerned, it's not officially supported by the manufacturer and thusly, from a legal standpoint, Apple can't officially support it either. Obviously, it's not that rigid of a technical limitation, but nevertheless it is a limitation.
I honestly, don't know how Windows 8 would run on a 2007 Mac mini. I'd imagine, it wouldn't run optimally either given that Windows 7 barely runs smoothly on the GMA 950 as is, and I can't imagine that Windows 8 improves upon that. That said, Apple's platform evolves faster than Microsoft's does. It took forever for them to move from XP to 7 because XP supported legacy software that is still relied upon today that 7 didn't, and to push the OS forward despite this, they released Vista. The primary reason why 7 was better performing than Vista is that they abandoned all of that legacy support in the OS to push it forward and left the legacy software customers with Windows XP compatibility mode, which, much like the OS 9 Classic layer in OS X 10.0-10.4, worked for those needing to run an old and otherwise un-updated program. I digress, but the point is that Apple is pushing its software forward, and in doing so, it needs to eschew support for older (and, in the case of the GMA-equipped Macs, weaker) hardware. That also being said, while we know Mountain Lion's surface features, who the hell knows what changes are being made under the hood. Every single version of Mac OS X to date has introduced a crap-ton of under-the-hood changes.
Having run both Windows XP and (PowerPC) Mac OS X 10.4 on respective machines running the respective OSes with the minimum required hardware, I can tell you that running an OS on a machine with minimum system requirements sucks. Having booted a Late 2006 iMac with a GMA 950 (in theory, the weakest Mac capable of running Lion) into Lion, the experience was definitely usable, but no way in hell would I want to push that thing past it. Again, blame the software for evolving as it's the only reason we ever need new hardware.
Last edited:
Now with so much of Apples revenue coming from those who buy the latest iPhones & iPads, it's only natural for Apple to expect their laptops to be equally as disposable & profitable. Their strong marketing has had a very significant impact on buyers of iOS devices, thus Apples simply giving a nudge to their computer users to follow the example set by the iOS crowd. It's a new concept that only Apple could pull off. Separating Apples customers from their money has always been one of their strengths.
I agree with you, but notice how you even get downvoted on here for suggesting that Apple should provide better support for their products. In other words, you have people on here that want LESS value for their money. I guess the large corporations have done a good job with subliminal brain washing or something to program people to want less for their money.
Being locked into a single vendor is not my choice. The software I use in my profession is written, and has ever only been written, for one OS--OS X (and OS 9 before that). There is no comparable software, so the choice is not mine to make.
What is particularly troubling is Apple's desire to use protocols that its hardware doesn't even support at the lowest common denominator. Let me explain. To quote the aforementioned article:
Mountain Lion, according to Apple, includes a revamped graphics subsystem with additional reliance on OpenCL. "A new graphics infrastructure underpins OpenGL and OpenCL," and "new video APIs deliver modern 64-bit replacements for low-level QuickTime APIs," according to Apple's press release.
A major overhaul to OS X's graphics capabilities has been a long time coming. Macs were stuck on OpenGL 2.1 for far too long, though some Snow Leopard updates added extensions that supported functions from OpenGL 3. Lion finally added support for OpenGL 3.2, but that was after OpenGL had been updated to 4.1 and was already supported on Windows and Linux.
Comment deleted because it was incorrect.
Our own Dave Girard noted last year that Lion's OpenGL 3.2 support "is playing catch-up to Windows and Linux, and it's pretty sad that we were stuck with 2.1 for as long as we were." He did say, however, that "the good news is that we won't be waiting as long for OpenGL 4.1 support," suggesting that Apple had plans to accelerate support for newer versions of OpenGL.
Whatever improvements Apple is making to the graphics subsystem in Mountain Lion, though, support for OpenGL 4.1 isn't there yet. A source with access to the developer preview told Ars that API calls are still limited to targeting "legacy" (OpenGL 2.1) or "3.2core." Developers using GLKit, an API that originated on iOS 5 for simplified OpenGL development, will require OpenGL 3.2 support, however.
Comment deleted because it was incorrect.
Intel's HD 3000 DOES support OpenGL 3.2 as of OS X 10.7.2. However, I don't expect support for the HD 3000 to extend beyond three years because Apple seems to be aggressively pursuing newer versions of OpenGL. Consequently, I doubt I will ever buy another Mac which relies solely on Intel's integrated graphics.
Last edited:
...Or their OS just doesn't run on six year old hardware or lower-end 4-5 year old hardware...'cause, y'know, that's always a possibility too.
Apple does seem to suck when it comes to using in-house/specialized software as they move way faster than the developers when it comes to keeping things up to date. While I hate to say it, this does seem like an area that Microsoft is better with, albeit, at the cost of timely innovations.
The Intel HD 3000 supported OpenGL, it's OpenCL that it didn't and still doesn't support. The Intel HD 4000 apparently solves that, but yeah, on the whole, I agree. As a long-time GMA 950 veteran, I too, will never get another Mac that only has an Intel IGP, unless it's purely for business/work/basic internet use and not my personal machine.
I really doubt at this point in time there even is a profession that requires a specific software package that only runs on OS X. Name that profession, and I bet we can find a few options.
Anyway, again, not the topic, we were discussing old hardware that is EOL'd and EOS'd by a vendor. Linux is perfect for that.
No, my 08 macbook have x3100 which disqualified for Mountain Lion. I am pirating Mountain Lion for a reason. Dude, i paid well $1300 plus additional upgrade cost for this Macbook. And 4 years later, Apple turn around telling me that your computer is too old, you need either give us more money for a new machine or screw you. So, do you think Apple justified for doing that? Just abandoning all those Macs that are less 4 or 5 years?
Also, keep mind that Apple is moving to release new OS annually. Even if we pay $30 per OS, 3 years down the road, you are paying $90s for very minimal upgrades. While Microsoft releasing their OS every 3 years or so and you can get Home Premium well under $100. Cost are almost same.
This is Apple's business model. Sell your laptop for a decent amount and get yourself a nice new Windows laptop if it bugs you that much. It really sucks, I know... but it's not going to change anything Apple does. I honestly think that after all this transitioning is done we'll start seeing a little more innovating in the desktop department... or not. We'll know in the next year or so where this road is going.
While the actual language of the licensing will disagree, I have no moral qualms whatsoever with pirating an OS for the purposes of getting it to run on otherwise unsupported hardware such as an older Mac (though I usually avoid that because it ends up running like ass) or a Hackintosh. If it is supported, then unless I am buying a Mac that will come preloaded with it, I have no qualms about paying the $30. If I am buying a Mac with it preloaded, I'm definitely pirating it if I'm to use it on a second older Mac, because screw paying twice for software.
His problem is legitimate and should require the "switch to Windows" suggestion in order to fix. Apple shouldn't have stuck to either GMA IGP for as long as they did, especially if they were only going to drop support for it four years later. Five years, fine; that I can support. Four is too soon. And no, that's not Apple's business model as far as its Mac product line is concerned. With iOS, absolutely, hence why my first generation iPod touch is useless as far as third party apps are concerned and is otherwise hanging out in my closet. But with Macs, you are usually given five to six years before you can't run the latest OS and six to seven before you can't run the latest versions of basic stuff like the latest Adobe Flash Player because the OS you're capped on won't run it.
Exactly, multitouch is the biggest diffence. I have a late 2007 MB white, and i have a 2009 MBP 13''.
Both are beefed up (64 GB SSD + 500GB HDD, 6 and 8 GB ram, respectively)
and the late 2007 just turned 50 months old. It is still a great machine, have tons of extras for it, mini DVI adapters for everything, 2 batteries and so on and i hate to see it go down like this. Especially since it runs Lion just fine, as well as a 64 bit Lion with a hack, but you lose some graphics performance because the 64 bit x3100 drivers are not that great. But it is still a powerful machine, and if it keeps functioning it can go another 3-4 years with no problems.
Go ahead and report back to apple that "ScottishDuck" leaked that it's "far more pleasant". I'm sure they'll find that very useful.
ML running on Mac Pro 1,1
My Mac Pro 1,1 has an ATI Radeon HD 5770 video card, replacing the failed original. This was key in the ability of my machine to run Mountain Lion. That and the instructions and files found here: http://goo.gl/cFGKM
It installed, booted and ran fine for a brief check. Good luck to all users of old but useful Macs still in service to satisfied owners.
My Mac Pro 1,1 has an ATI Radeon HD 5770 video card, replacing the failed original. This was key in the ability of my machine to run Mountain Lion. That and the instructions and files found here: http://goo.gl/cFGKM
It installed, booted and ran fine for a brief check. Good luck to all users of old but useful Macs still in service to satisfied owners.
Good point. Hadn't taken that into consideration. Therefore he was completely wrong.
