Thinking About Mojave?

[HCMarkus]

Here's an in-depth article with a lot of good info about Mojave and the Mac:

https://arstechnica.com/features/2018/0 ... ica-review

[mikehalloran]

Here's an in-depth article with a lot of good info about Mojave and the Mac:

https://arstechnica.com/features/2018/0 ... ica-review

Good article!

[HCMarkus]

As I noted in another thread, I've pretty well decided to hold at Sierra until Mojave gets a few updates under its belt then, assuming MOTU Mojave support has arrived, experiment on a separate boot drive. Seeing as how Mojave is likely the last Officially-Apple-supported macOS update the cheesgrater (5,1) Mac Pros will get, it will probably be a good thing to ultimately get the studio running Mojave. But, then again, maybe not. Time will tell. As things now stand, Sierra is working almost flawlessly, with no show-stopping issues.

One thing for cheesgrater owners to keep in mind: to get to Mojave, the Mac must first install High Sierra 13.6 to get the firmware updates required to move to Mojave. The High Sierra update requires a Mac EFI GPU, like the good ol' GT120 or 5770. Once the firmware is updated, the Mac will need to get a Metal-Compatible GPU to install Mojave, at which time yet another firmware update will be performed.

A reminder that, if you are currently running a 4,1 Mac Pro, you can update the firmware to make your machine recognized as a 5,1 by Mac OS. The firmware update also allows hex CPUs to be used in the 4,1 Mac Pro. See this thread for details: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=58848

[mhschmieder]

Ooh, good info there, about the firmware upgrade that's a prerequisite! That will help a lot of people. Make this a sticky?

[mikehalloran]

Updates to my CRM database and the Chrome browser are forcing me to upgrade to Mojave sooner than later.

I'm trying to decide on what to buy. It will be an iMac i7 Retina but am deciding among the 2015, 2017 and Pro. Minimum will be a 2T blade—the 2015 can be updated to an NVMe PCIe quad with a system pull but that approaches the 2017 prices. Although I can make a 1T boot drive work, I prefer not with APFS.

I can install a 4T SATA SSD into a 2015–17 for a total of 6T but not into a Pro where the upcharge for a 4T blade is $2k. 32G RAM is the minimum and all can be upgraded but the Pro costs a fortune to do so.

On the other hand, a Pro has four USB C/TB3 ports while a 2017 has two and a 2015 has a pair of TB2 ports. I need to run a pair of external monitors so quad TB3 ports is looking mighty attractive with the other pair going to a TB interface and an external SSD for VIs. Yes, I know that USB3 is fine which is how I'll go if I select a 2017.

Right now, there's a Pro in the Refurb store that meets my needs under $5K while a 2017 is just under $4K. An external 4T SSD will run around $800 while a pair of 27" 4K monitors runs $900 (including adapters etc.)– $1,600 (USB C). 5K monitors will cost $2,600. The iMac Pro can handle a pair of 27" 5K while the 2015–17 are limited to 5K if running two externals.

So, I figure that I'm looking at least $6K for a 2017. It's a bit over $8K if the Pro stays available in the Refurb store—a little more than I paid for my Mac+ system in 1986. If I build a Pro to order, I'd go 64G RAM and the upcharge is another $1,500 over the refurb that's available now. Add in a new MOTU TB interface and I'm a little under the $12K that I paid for my Beige G3 system (1998?). Both times, I put it on a 5 year business lease with a $1 payoff at the end.

In the mean time, I'll be trying this over the weekend on my test SSD and will report if I can make it work or not.
https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/07 ... orted-macs

[HCMarkus]

Have fun, and good luck Mike!

[mikehalloran]

I installed Mojave on my test SSD following the instructions here:
http://dosdude1.com/mojave/

Mine is one of the many that come stock with an ATi GPU. Per the above link, Mojave will be almost UNUSABLE without graphics acceleration. Yep, I can confirm that.

So, even though the lack of graphics acceleration makes 10.14 impractical on my machine, I was able to do some testing.

The good news for me is that my DisplayLink USB monitor came back to life and Mojave solved my database issues with Chrome. However, browsers and no GPU acceleration ... it works but sloooow — yikes!

Oddly, the GPU issue doesn't have much of an effect on DP 9.52 which ran pretty well for me on a test project. It could be that some plugs will have a major issue but I wasn't thorough. Nice and snappy.

32Lives was one of the few apps of plugs that actually crashed. I expected that and haven't checked to see if there's an update. There were a few old VIs that wouldn't load but nothing I use anymore—possible that, when/if 32Lives is updated, they will work again.

Finale 25.5 ported over and fired up fine as did Office 2008 (!!!). Office 2011 installed and works well as did DSP-Q 5.

I didn't test too much else and had to go back to work so I booted back into my 10.13.3 drive.

Bottom line: if you have a graphics card that supports acceleration with the hack, you could try it. You need to be on High Sierra 10.13.6 first. I cannot recommend being on an SSD formatted APFS highly enough — this way, if you don't like it, you can go back to High Sierra in a few minutes using Snapshots instead of a Time Machine Restore that takes hours.


I was encouraged. Mojave has very few surprises so my biggest expense will be hardware.

I was looking at the current Mac Pro. I could certainly make one work with three 4K monitors but the cost to upgrade a used one to a 2T blade and add the monitors fall$ between a 2017 iMac and a Mac Pro — and I don't get a 5K screen (can't have one and a pair of 4K sides). If I found a used 6-core with DP700 GPUs cheap enough, I might go that route. I don't mind that it's slower (on paper) as it's still a lot faster than what I am using now.

[HCMarkus]

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mp ... ve.2142418

Explains it all well, for Mac Pro 5,1 Owners

[emulatorloo]

Hey HC:

This is a practical report confirming what you’ve written above about firmware updates and the process of installing.

I have a 2009 Mac Pro 4,1 that I flashed to a 5,1 using the info you provided in your great thread on that process a while back.


I have a music drive and a main drive. Music drive is staying at High Sierra for the time being.

However after testing Mojave a bit I decided I was ready to go all in with it for my main drive.

I decided to do a clean install and then migrate only my documents (mail, photos, iTunes music) etc and network settings from the main drive.

All went well.

- installed High Sierra, which required a firmware upgrade before installation. I had my Apple GeForce 120 card in the machine for that. Since that card provides boot screens, I could see the progress bar for the firmware upgrade. FWIW, the CD drive opens midway through the upgrade and then closes itself after a bit.

- installed Mojave. Mojave also required a firmware update before installing, I replaced my GeForce 120 with my PC GeForce GTX670, which is a Metal v1 card. Mojave install also required a firmware upgrade. This one I did “blind” because no boot screens on the GTX670. However I knew it was working as the CD drive opened and closed just like it did with the High Sierra upgrade.


Notes:

Only problem that cropped up is Apple dropped support for my Apple Extreme WiFi card, so I need to get a newer one on eBay, based on the Broadcom BCM94322MC. No big deal.

Discussion here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/wi ... t-26280586

I did decide to upgrade my video card to a Sapphire Radeon RX 560 4gb. The GeForce seemed good but didn’t render the Mojave transparency effects. But I think I could have held off on that.

My audio interface is a MOTU 2408 MKIII w a PCI-e 424. I installed the latest drivers from MOTU (which are certified for High Sierra) and all seems well. I’ve not tested recording yet, only playback.

[Gravity Jim]

Mojave ran every piece of my software without incident or glitch, save one that already been updated. DP, Logic, Word, Firefox, all the MOTU drivers... runs like a watch.

[HCMarkus]

Great to hear the positive reports gents. Especially great to hear understanding that Mojave may well be the final macOS update our cheesegraters support, at least officially.

[mikehalloran]

The firmware updates that the High Sierra and Mojave installers run do not prevent Macs from booting into earlier OS. My El Cap test drive still boots my iMac without a problem.

[rentadrummer]

I have a clone of my MacBook Pro, currently running Sierra, on an external drive. If I wanted to try out High Sierra or Mojave, can I upgrade the OS of the clone on the external drive, by either booting from it and accessing the installer online, or downloading the installer to my MacBook and upgrading the external drive? I have other clones of the drive so I'm not worried about trying to update this one, if I can, and it not working.

Thanks.

[mhschmieder]

Although I have not upgraded my work machine yet (waiting for I.T. to give the go-ahead), our SQA department has, and NONE of our software products have shown even the tiniest glitch or peculiarity now that we're using the official version vs. the beta. Given how complex our software is, and how hard it pushes the system, that's a really good sign. Quite a contrast to the High Sierra rollout.

I'm feeling confident enough to do a Mojave upgrade shortly after High Sierra, which I may get around to later this week (I have to find time to do thorough backups first).

[mikehalloran]

I have a clone of my MacBook Pro, currently running Sierra, on an external drive. If I wanted to try out High Sierra or Mojave, can I upgrade the OS of the clone on the external drive, by either booting from it and accessing the installer online, or downloading the installer to my MacBook and upgrading the external drive? I have other clones of the drive so I'm not worried about trying to update this one, if I can, and it not working.

Thanks.

Yes.

To boot back into a drive running an earlier OS, you will have to shut down completely, boot with the Option key held down and select your startup drive. Once you have booted successfully, go to System Preferences/Startup Drive and re-select your boot drive again.