OS X Mountain Lion Officially Drops Support for Some Older 64-Bit Macs - Mac Rumors (http://www.macrumors.com/2012/07/11/os-x-mountain-lion-officially-drops-suport-for-some-older-64-bit-macs/)

Your Mac must be one of the following models:

- iMac (Mid 2007 or newer)
- MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)
- MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)
- MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)
- Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)
- Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)
- Xserve (Early 2009)

Nothing I thought even the 2007 iMacs would be unsupported because of the video card. :) I knew the 2006 iMac would not support Mountain Lion before I bought it, but it would just be something for my son to use and act as an iTunes server anyway.

I am a little surprised that minis older than 3 years aren't supported. That seems kinda short to me.

But I had heard that it was a case of video drivers and that may be easily fixable. Will be interesting to see.

Long story short, they're ditching legacy graphics in favour of OpenCL. The old Intel GMA graphics which were horrible to begin with (What was Steve Jobs thinking?) and don't support OpenCL. Even my 2006.5 iMac's ATI Radeon Mobility X1600 doesn't support OpenCL.

Also, the EFI needs to be 64 bit. My 2006.5 iMac has a 64 bit processor but a 32 bit EFI.

I am a little surprised that minis older than 3 years aren't supported. That seems kinda short to me.

But I had heard that it was a case of video drivers and that may be easily fixable. Will be interesting to see.

That's cause the minis were stuck with GMA950 video card for FAR too long, while they languished without an update from Aug '07 - Mar '09.

Any Intel card (GMA950 or X3100) or the original ATI Card (X1600) are the ones that don't work. But that's only 'cause Apple never bothered to update the Kexts for those cards to 64-bit.

I wonder if the "hackintosh" community might have updated kexts for these machines that one could use to run Mountain Lion. I have a late-06 17" iMac that runs Lion perfectly, but it'd be nice to have Mountain Lion on it.

OS X Mountain Lion Officially Drops Support for Some Older 64-Bit Macs - Mac Rumors (http://www.macrumors.com/2012/07/11/os-x-mountain-lion-officially-drops-suport-for-some-older-64-bit-macs/)

Quite frankly personally I am fine with that as I want to stay with SL as long as I can and that means staying with hardware that supports it as long as I can.

Quite frankly personally I am fine with that as I want to stay with SL as long as I can and that means staying with hardware that supports it as long as I can.

Any plans to upgrade to the latest and greatest SL compatible Mac Pro while they're still abundant?

I'm glad that my late 2009 iMac will support OS X Mountain Lion. However, I think support for it will likely drop in 10.9 or the next iteration of OS X after that. I'm glad I got the RAM upgrade for my iMac to 12 GB.

Any plans to upgrade to the latest and greatest SL compatible Mac Pro while they're still abundant?

Not for a while yet as I upgraded my CPU myself, video card, RAM and upgraded to an OWC SSD boot drive. My needs aren't as intense as they once were so I can stick with my Gen 1.1 Mac Pro for quite a little bit yet as the "bang for the buck" just isn't there for me relative to my needs...

This is the longest I have ever had any computer and the longer I have it before I have to upgrade the whole computer the less the cost of ownership becomes.

As far as an abundance of Mac Pros that are compatible with SL... so far there are none that aren't due to Apple's lack of upgrading them... a mixed blessing I guess. ;)

Not for a while yet as I upgraded my CPU myself, video card, RAM and upgraded to an OWC SSD boot drive. My needs aren't as intense as they once were so I can stick with my Gen 1.1 Mac Pro for quite a little bit yet as the "bang for the buck" just isn't there for me relative to my needs...

This is the longest I have ever had any computer and the longer I have it before I have to upgrade the whole computer the less the cost of ownership becomes.

As far as an abundance of Mac Pros that are compatible with SL... so far there are none that aren't due to Apple's lack of upgrading them... a mixed blessing I guess. ;)

After that, maybe buy a gutted 2008 Mac Pro, and move parts over?

-M

No plans on ditching my upgraded MacPro1,1 so no mountain lion for me.

My two MacBook pros are compatible but will keep all my Macs running the same OS for now.

I hate to say it but when this type of thing happens it tends to be upgrade time for me. Which i'm sure is what they are hoping even if there are also technical reasons for it.

After that, maybe buy a gutted 2008 Mac Pro, and move parts over?

-M

Nah, still not worth the cost to performance boost ratio for me. Plus all the time and energy... if I could get a couple of matching quad core 3.0s at a reasonable price (which is next to impossible) that would be my next upgrade on this machine.

Long story short, they're ditching legacy graphics in favour of OpenCL. The old Intel GMA graphics which were horrible to begin with (What was Steve Jobs thinking?) and don't support OpenCL. Even my 2006.5 iMac's ATI Radeon Mobility X1600 doesn't support OpenCL.

Also, the EFI needs to be 64 bit. My 2006.5 iMac has a 64 bit processor but a 32 bit EFI.

Say goodbye to a whole bunch of decent 32 bit programs then. Again.

Say goodbye to a whole bunch of decent 32 bit programs then. Again.

32-bit programs run just fine on 10.8.

The one thing I was looking forward to on ML was the ability to Airplay anything to ATV. And I read somewhere that even though some 64-bit Macs would run ML, it's not all of them that would be able to Airplay. Has anyone else heard this and do you know anything about it?

I have a 2010 MBPro and I am sure it can run ML, but I am worried it may be one where AirPlay is not supported. If that is the case, then I shall not be upgrading.

Cheers

I have a 2010 MBPro and I am sure it can run ML, but I am worried it may be one where AirPlay is not supported. If that is the case, then I shall not be upgrading.

You should upgrade regardless, especially if you're running Lion today.

AirPlay Mirroring
Requires a second-generation Apple TV or later. Supports the following Mac models:

iMac (Mid 2011 or newer)
Mac mini (Mid 2011 or newer)
MacBook Air (Mid 2011 or newer)
MacBook Pro (Early 2011 or newer)

You should upgrade regardless - it's even more pointless not to, especially if you're running Lion today.

AirPlay Mirroring
Requires a second-generation Apple TV or later. Supports the following Mac models:

iMac (Mid 2011 or newer)
Mac mini (Mid 2011 or newer)
MacBook Air (Mid 2011 or newer)
MacBook Pro (Early 2011 or newer)



*sad face*

My late 2006 iMac and late 2008 MacBook are still working fine, so no upgrading for the sake of upgrading for me. Lion will be good enough.

My late 2006 iMac and late 2008 MacBook are still working fine, so no upgrading for the sake of upgrading for me. Lion will be good enough.

Ahhh... but SL is better. ;)

Ahhh... but SL is better. ;)

To each their own, Screatch. Like the song says… there's someone for everyone – and Tommy's love was Becky.

To each their own, Screatch. Like the song says… there's someone for everyone – and Tommy's love was Becky.

Truer words have never been spoken...

You should upgrade regardless, especially if you're running Lion today.

AirPlay Mirroring
Requires a second-generation Apple TV or later. Supports the following Mac models:

iMac (Mid 2011 or newer)
Mac mini (Mid 2011 or newer)
MacBook Air (Mid 2011 or newer)
MacBook Pro (Early 2011 or newer)



That's a let-down. My iMac is a 2009 I believe, and AirPlay Mirroring was the main feature that had me contemplating ML. Can't help but wonder though, why the older computers are incapable of handling AirPlay. My iPad can do it, I figured it'd be easy for my iMac. :(

You should upgrade regardless, especially if you're running Lion today.

AirPlay Mirroring
Requires a second-generation Apple TV or later. Supports the following Mac models:

iMac (Mid 2011 or newer)
Mac mini (Mid 2011 or newer)
MacBook Air (Mid 2011 or newer)
MacBook Pro (Early 2011 or newer)



Rather sad that there isn't a Mac Pro in existence that supports AirPlay.

As for the reason, it could be something as innocuous as the WiFi chipset used. Intel has a similar feature on Windows machine, but only on recent 6000-series WiFi chipsets.

from what i understand its the lack of on GPU h.264 encoding

older macs can't do it and would need to use more CPU. which would bog down the machine and increase heat/fan noise etc

“For the modern [Intel and AMD] chipsets Apple has written drivers to access the on-GPU H264 encoding,” says Stanfill. “Since the image of whatever is on screen is already in your graphics’ frame buffer, all Apple needs to do is the scaling (the most expensive part of AirPlay Mirroring, which is why you have ‘Best for AirPlay’ resolutions that are 1:1), the color conversion (H.264 video needs YUV color space vs. RGB), and the actual encoding itself right on the GPU. Then, Apple only has to transmit the relatively small encoded video stream to the Apple TV.”



The Real Reason Why Macs Before 2011 Can’t Use AirPlay Mirroring In Mountain Lion [Feature] | Cult of Mac (http://www.cultofmac.com/178460/the-real-reason-why-macs-before-2011-cant-use-airplay-mirroring-in-mountain-lion-feature/)