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OS X Mountain Lion Officially Drops Support for Some Older 64-Bit Macs

This sucks. After upgrading to Lion from Snow Leopard on my wife's white macbook, my sister-in-law's mac mini... I realised it perhaps wasn't the best thing to do. Lion seemed to only run 'well' on my macbook pro.

That's ok -- I thought. I'll just wait for Mountain Lion... which is everything Lion (aka the paid Beta of Mountain Lion) should have been.

Looks like I'll have to go back to Snow Leopard (aka the paid Beta of Leopard) after all. Meanwhile, only my macbook pro can upgrade to Mountain Lion.

Ah well. Come to think of it... my wife and her sister never took advantage of Lion's features like Launchpad, multi-gestures etc. etc. Snow Leopard will be perfect for them.
 
GekkePrutser said:
My old plastic MacBook is also out of luck (and the generation that came after it, the Santa Rosa kind with X3100 graphics is even unsupported).

However, I wonder how true the statement is about not being able to run 32-bit kexts. Some people have had success running Mountain Lion on old systems, like here by simply installing the old kernel extensions. (Edit: This actually seems to originate from a thread on MacRumors here)

If those are 32-bit then it must, after all, support 32-bit ones. They say there that the HW acceleration is even working.

I might give it a try but not until I have a replacement for my MacBook first. I don't want to risk an update breaking a machine I use for programming (I just hope Xcode will be supported on Lion until the 13" retina macbook pro comes out ;) ).

I totally understand Apple dropping older systems and I don't hate them for it, though I do think it's often mostly marketing rather than technical reasons. And if some clever tricks manage to get around that then great.

Edit: I've just been reading through this thread and I see in this post it being said that DP2 did require 64-bit kexts where DP1 did not. It may well be that the article I quited is about DP1 as it's way back from February (Not sure when what came out as I'm not on the Mac developer program). So in this case it may well be technical and not marketing.

But anyway, there's no compelling features in Mountain Lion that I absolutely need to have on my portable (it's my least used machine anyway). In fact there are very few new features in it that I'll use at all.

Lion will be just fine as long as it's still supported with security updates.
Click to expand...


You want to know the most interesting bit? At least up to DP2 if not later, 32-bit mode can be booted up!

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driceman said:
Good call! I had a Toshiba Satellite and have had a much better user experience with OS X (although to be fair, the Satellite was running Vista). :p

As for your two-button mouse problem: as someone else said, you don't really need to right click on a Mac. And if you really feel the need to, if you click down with two fingers at once that equates to a right click on a Windows PC.
Click to expand...


Don't forget that you can control-click :D:D:D;)

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driceman said:
Also, I understand people's complaints. It sucks that 5-year-old computers aren't supported by Mountain Lion, although it's not all that unreasonable for the most part.

I'm not so sure that means the current MacBooks won't support the latest OS in five years, though-we don't know how much the technology will change and what will support what. I'm sure in five years our current computers will look like dinosaurs, but the fact iOS 6 supports the 3GS (a pretty dated phone, as smartphones go) shows me that there's no definitive cutoff.
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Especially since the iPad (original) doesn't support it.
 
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bedifferent said:
How much effort does it take to upgrade a kext/driver? I would guess less effort than working on "Game Center".
Click to expand...

Well, it is a driver. But it's possible a third party will do it for you, allowing you to run ML on your older macs. I mean people are running Leopard on their Beige G3s which were rated for a max of 10.2.8....

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alent1234 said:
what about my Powerbook? that was 64bit, i should be able to run it on that
Click to expand...

There was never a 64-bit PowerBook. They were 32-bit PPC7400-7457 G4 CPUs. The G5 was 64-bit.

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fishmoose said:
Good thing I upgraded from my early 2008 MacBook (plastic) to an early 15" MBP 2011 last summer. Don't want to miss out on Mountain Lion.
Click to expand...

Okay... why?COLOR="#808080"]

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[/COLOR]
hobo.hopkins said:
People can't legitimately expect to receive the newest updates on machines that are 3+ years old.
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I know! That would be like Windows 7 running on.... wait, nevermind.

3 year old hardware isn't very old. I mean, come on. 2009? That was what, like yesterday?
 
Anyone remember iOS 4? They gave it to the iPhone 3G but not to the 2G. Sure it ran like crap on the 3G, but still. The ONLY hardware difference is that the 3G had 3G capability. They both had the same RAM, CPU, and GPU.
 
The Mac Plus was released in 1986. It ran up to System 7.5.5. That was released in late 1996. That's 10 years!!!
 
I agree that some Macs needs to be cut off, this way ML can run smooth and older code can be stripped from the OS. Anyway it is no sense imho (at least with my knowledge) to don't support older Mac Pros. Maybe the one who upgraded graphics card!

Beside this i always appreciate that Apple is supporting old configuration and usually with a Mac you can upgrade 3-4 operating systems!
 
So my mom 's PC has lasted longer than my macbook (early '08).

Will my next mac last 4 years?
 
Why does apple have to cut 4 year old computers off?

Thats stupid man,

I have a xp tower going and it still gets all of the updates it needs.

I can't understand why apple will drop 10.6 I may be on 10.8 now but by god I want 10.6 to be geting updates.
10.5 can not even run the latest itunes.
 
JordanNZ said:
Does the 7300 support OpenGL 3.2? ;)
Click to expand...

According to Nvidia, it supports OpenGL 4.2 on the 7300GT with the 301.42 driver.

http://www.geforce.com/drivers/results/44967

Other Details
•Installs PhysX System Software v9.12.0213.
•Installs HD Audio v1.3.16.0.
•Supports OpenGL 4.2
•Supports DisplayPort 1.2 for GeForce GTX 600-series.
•Supports multiple languages and APIs for GPU computing: CUDA C, CUDA C++, CUDA Fortran, OpenCL, DirectCompute, and Microsoft C++ AMP.
Click to expand...
 
lilo777 said:
Why? Models that are 3.5 year old were still being sold 2.5 years ago and those are still under AppleCare.
Click to expand...

Models released 3.5 years ago are supported (early 2009).

bedifferent said:
Yes, it is very true, as others have stated. Research a bit on the matter :)
Click to expand...

What research do I need to do other than looking at the list in the original post? Would you care to give an example?
 
BaldiMac said:
Models released 3.5 years ago are supported (early 2009).



What research do I need to do other than looking at the list in the original post? Would you care to give an example?
Click to expand...

Read the thread, it's too much time to quote every post that states these examples (and I don't mean that sarcastically, sorry if my tone seems such, not my intention :) )
 
bedifferent said:
Read the thread, it's too much time to quote every post that states these examples (and I don't mean that sarcastically, sorry if my tone seems such, not my intention :) )
Click to expand...

I've read a bunch of the thread, but I'm not going to read 600 posts to prove your point. :)

I'm not asking you to quote every post. Just list a single model that proves your claim. According to the original list, early 2009 was the most recent cutoff for updates. Anything available starting in early 2009 is supported. That was 3.5 years ago.
 
Lion was great for aluminum MacBooks due to the awesome multi-touch trackpad. Gestures are meaningless on the plastic models. I wouldn't bother to even install Lion on a plastic MacBook. I don't see any problem with the list of supported models.
 
AidenShaw said:
Windows is quite modular (see "server roles") so "shrinking" doesn't imply removing anything from desktop/server systems, it means not including unnecessary subsystems on the mobiles.
Click to expand...

Yes. What I was referring specifically to is the kernel. They having been moving code out of the kernel memory space and placing it in user space. This doesn't require removing anything from the operating system. Microsoft has been actually adding more application and server roles with each version. It just makes the kernel smaller for the system to be more modular, as you put it. This allows for a single kernel that can be ported to all sorts of hardware including, lower end and mobile devices.



AidenShaw said:
In other words, devices will continue to work with Win8, and no driver changes are needed for the most part. (And it's not strictly the overall major revision - some XP drivers work in Win7, but the graphics driver API model changed with Vista so no graphics drivers from XP will work.)
Click to expand...

Yep. As you long as you are a geek that knows how to obtain drivers for an older OS and install them (ie, download Windows XP 32-bit drivers to install on a Windows 8 x86 computer), the device will probably work. Your average computer user is not going to know that is possible, so they will just figure it is time to get a new computer or continue to run the older operating system.
 
AidenShaw said:
According to Nvidia, it supports OpenGL 4.2 on the 7300GT with the 301.42 driver.
Click to expand...

http://www.kludx.com/card.php?card=28

No it doesn't. The generic Nvidia driver you're linking to supports 4.2 on capable cards. The 7000 series is not one of those.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compar..._processing_units#GeForce_7_.287xxx.29_series

http://www.nvidia.com/page/7300_features.html

You're stuck with 2.1 on that series of cards. 3-3.3 support came in the 8000 series.
You can't add hardware support with a video driver.

;)
 
Frixo Cool said:
I sent an email too... To mr. Tim Cook and to Erik Lammerding (Senior Manager Worldwide Developer Relations) as I consider this a developer issue too.

What do they expect for us developers to do? We have a dozen of Mac Pro workstations and we have to use ML because we develop everything on them... we bought them because they were advertised as true 64-bit machines. Now what?
Click to expand...

The G5 was a true 64-bit machine too =)

..And the G3 was promised to be supported for 10 years after its intro in late 1997. It didn't quite make it to Leopard (try Jaguar).
 
bedifferent said:
Wasn't 10.8 a complete re-write of Lion, as 10.6 was for 10.5?
Click to expand...

A complete rewrite would have taken many years. 90% of the source remained the same. At the kernel level, much of what happens at Apple mirrors the activity that we see with the linux kernel. New API/ABIs are created, and drivers are migrated over the course of several releases. Take for example the UMS to KMS changeover. Another example is MM to TTM to GEM. Whether or not you believe that these changes occurred gracefully is a matter of perspective. Another example is when MS changed the graphics API for Vista. A lot of hardware that was supported under XP was dropped.

I'm not saying that 10.8 cannot be made to run on older pseudo 32-bit machines, just that the effort involved was probably more than what Apple was willing to handle. Perhaps we'll see them tackle the issue later on. Perhaps they will extend the 10.7 supplemental releases as a compromise.

As I said in my earlier post, 3 years seems a bit short, especially for Apple. At the very least, I hope that they make a statement regarding the issue.

F
 
JordanNZ said:
http://www.kludx.com/card.php?card=28

No it doesn't. The generic Nvidia driver you're linking to supports 4.2 on capable cards. The 7000 series is not one of those.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compar..._processing_units#GeForce_7_.287xxx.29_series

http://www.nvidia.com/page/7300_features.html

You're stuck with 2.1 on that series of cards. 3-3.3 support came in the 8000 series.
You can't add hardware support with a video driver.

;)
Click to expand...

Actually, you can emulate hardware support in a video driver - note that Windows has OpenGL support for cards with no OpenGL acceleration at all (or at least did in XP).

For older drivers, Nvidia qualifies by saying something like

Adds support for OpenGL 4.2 for GeForce 400 series and 500 series​

For 301.42, they simply say

Supports OpenGL 4.2;​

so either their language is inconsistent or the latest drivers have software support for 4.2.

Nvidia's developer site is down now, so it's hard to figure out which.
___________
 
I never thought I'd say this, but I have lost confidence in Apple. I can't feel good about buying anything from them if what they sell me is not at all what I'm getting.

They sold me a 64-bit Mac Pro, turns out it's only 32-bit and not for any real hardware limitation- they just refuse to update the EFI to 64-bit. What exactly did you mean by "64-bit Under the Hood" Apple? And after reading about the other cases where Apple has artificially limited other products in this thread- I have lost all confidence in Apple.

Artificial limitations leave a bad taste in my mouth- and if they are doing this now, they'll do it again and again. I don't like it when someone tells me when I should be done using something or when it's time for me to upgrade.

I guess I was naive to think that Apple really cared about their customers.

I think they should trade in the blue shirts at the Apple store for plaid blazers with elbow patches- because their honesty and business ethics level are right on par as a bunch of used car salesmen.

I'm done with Apple.
 
AidenShaw said:
Actually, you can emulate hardware support in a video driver - note that Windows has OpenGL support for cards with no OpenGL acceleration at all (or at least did in XP).

For older drivers, Nvidia qualifies by saying something like

Adds support for OpenGL 4.2 for GeForce 400 series and 500 series​

For 301.42, they simply say

Supports OpenGL 4.2;​

so either their language is inconsistent or the latest drivers have software support for 4.2.

Nvidia's developer site is down now, so it's hard to figure out which.
___________
Click to expand...

Emulating GL 4.2 in software is not the same as the card supporting it. The 7300 is an Opengl 2.1/D3D9 Card. You're not going to get D3D 11 or Opengl 4 in hardware on that card. The entire purpose is hardware acceleration.

When I pointed out that the 7300 didn't support Opengl 3.2, that is what I was trying to get across. Apple have dropped support for any card that doesn't support it in ML. The 7300 and 7600 being two of those.
 
Release next wednesday

the release of Mountain Lion will be next wednesday. Staff has to work earlier in the shops.
 
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