What Macs are compatible with Mojave?

Per what Apple has published on this topic, "macOS Mojave will be available this fall as a free software update for Macs introduced in mid-2012 or later, plus 2010 and 2012 Mac Pro models with recommended Metal-capable graphics cards. Some features may not be available in all regions or languages."

It's possible to check whether Metal is supported using the System Report tool and its Graphics / Displays section. Launch that tool from  > About This Mac.

Here's a Swift tool metalcheck.swift that can (probably) show whether a particular Mac Pro has a Metal-capable graphics card. I don't have that combination available to test the tool, but the tool does show correct behavior on a Mac Pro that lacks a Metal-capable graphics controller, and a second test on a different Mac that does have Metal-capable graphics...

$ xcode-select --install # install the command-line tools, if that's not already been done

$ cat metalcheck.swift # show the source code

import Foundation

import Metal

print("showing devices available to Metal...")

if #available(macOS 10.11, *) {

let devices = MTLCopyAllDevices()

for device in devices {

print(device.name)

}

} else {

print("macOS 10.11 or later required...")

}

print("...done")

$ # now build the source code

$ swiftc -target x86_64-apple-macosx10.11 -o metalcheck metalcheck.swift

$ # Invoke the tool on a Mac without any Metal-capable graphics...

$ ./metalcheck

showing devices available to Metal...

...done

$ # Invoke the tool on a Mac that does have Metal-capable graphics...

$ ./metalcheck

showing devices available to Metal...

Intel HD Graphics 4000

NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M

...done

$

(More general comment on optical media problems, alternatives and tools, and not specifically to Kurt Lang...)

Apple hasn't included an optical disk reader in any of the new Apple Mac systems for a number of years now, and which can certainly be inferred to indicate how Apple views the future of optical media.

Apple wants folks to use downloaded software and downloaded content. Not optical disks. Because optical disks have issues. And optical disk readers and optical media are on the wrong trend, billions of disks or not.

Optical disks were a wonderful idea, though with a problematic and flaky and error-prone and repair-intensive implementation; optical disk readers and polycarbonate disks. Having spent more than a little time performing low-level read and write I/O and direct control of SCSI, ATA, ATAPI and USB devices from within playback and recording tools and related device drivers I've written, optical disk readers are a mess.

As for the hardware, optical disk readers require maintenance and replacements. Having worked with these devices for many years, it's still somewhat surprising that they work as well as they do. But then audio and video are also a whole lot less sensitive to transient errors than is data storage.

What's wrong with optical recording? The optical disks scratch, and the phase-change and photosensitive substrates used in the media routinely degrade, the disks and the drives both routinely have read errors, and the optical disk reader mechanisms and optics get filled with gunk, dust, hair and whatever, and they then fail to work reliably or fail to work, and those failures require warranty service. Some of the drives are amazingly bad at basic operations, even when new, and I've seen more than a few firmware errors in brand-name optical devices. Simple media preservation and archival storage is a problem, too.

There's a whole 'nother discussion of the "fun" involved with digital rights management (DRM) and content protection lurking here, too. That adds to the complexity and cost of the implementation, and to the costs of product support.

If y'all want to use optical media — and there are most certainly good and valid reasons for still using it — then there are add-on optical disk authoring tools that can and do work with macOS. The cdrtools open-source package is one that can be used to write optical media on macOS, and there are others. The cdrtools package is available via homebrew, as well as via source code and other distribution mechanisms. The VLC package can play video, and the VLCMC package can be used to create movies and other content. VLC and VLCMC and other packages are available for macOS and other platforms. Apple offers GarageBand and iMovie and other production tools, though that's all moving away from CD and DVD recording.

If you'd like to see Apple shift their emphasis back to optical media here, then the Apple feedback web page is your best next step.

Whew! Looks like I'm coming in just under the wire. These were the minimum Metal requirements for El Capitan.

• Intel HD 4000 from Mac mini (Mid 2012) or MacBook Air (Mid 2012)
• ATI Radeon HD 5770 from Mac Pro (Mid 2012)
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M (aka: GK107 N13P-LP) from iMac (21-inch, Late 2012)

Assuming this list also applies to Mojave, the 5770 in my 2010 Mac Pro should allow it to install.

We will have to wait and see the tech specs for specifics—these details where not addressed today at WWDC.

You can read more here: https://wccftech.com/all-macs-compatible-with-macos-10-14-mojave-find-out-if-you rs-is-compatible/

I wonder where they found that announcement? Says it's directly from Apple's site, but I couldn't find it.

No matter that I couldn't. Just glad to see my 2010 Mac Pro survives the cut (probably the last time).

It looks like our 2012 Mac Pros meet the requirements. However, it remains unclear if 64-bit versions of apple's 'DVD Player' and 'iDVD' will be included with 10.14 Mojave. ( Apple's 'DVD Player' and iDVD are still 32-bit programs. )

If not, we will be forced to continue with 10.13.

Ziatron wrote:

It looks like our 2012 Mac Pros meet the requirements. However, it remains unclear if 64-bit versions of apple's 'DVD Player' and 'iDVD' will be included with 10.14 Mojave. ( Apple's 'DVD Player' and iDVD are still 32-bit programs. )

If not, we will be forced to continue with 10.13.

DVD Player, probably; iDVD certainly not.

iDVD has been abandoned many years ago.

Since Mojave is not going to be 64 bit only (limited 32 bit support), the OS supplied DVD Player may still be 32 bit. Doesn't matter if it still runs. Whatever comes after Mojave will be required to be 64 bit. At that time, Apple will either have it rewritten as 64 bit, or they may simply drop it.

iDVD has been abandoned many years ago.

Yes, in our movie editing lab they are using Macs 'frozen' to 10.9.5. This is the last Mac OS that works with iMovie HD 06 and iDVD with no fuss.

We have tried every Mac DVD authoring program and nothing is remotely as good as iDVD. So going forward, we are stuck with OS 10.9.5, or Windows 10 😢.

Technology moves on. Keeping old machines, or separated drives with older versions of OS, is the natural thing to do if one needs to maintain access to old technologies - and in this era of HD and UHD, of big screen tv and streaming, DVD is old technology - and has been old for years, too.

DVD is old technology - and has been old for years, too.

Yup. As many DVD and Blu-ray disks that sell each week, it's nothing compared to 8 or so years ago. It's why Adobe abandoned Encore, and why Apple abandoned iDVD and DVD Studio Pro. They saw no reason to spend any more time developing disk authoring software.

Personally, I don't agree. It's not that dead yet. But we don't run these respective companies, so we have no say (or, very little) in their decision making process.

Technology moves on. Keeping old machines, or separated drives with older versions of OS, is the natural thing to do if one needs to maintain access to old technologies - and in this era of HD and UHD, of big screen tv and streaming, DVD is old technology - and has been old for years, too.

I'm in the industry, and I can assure you DVDs are popular. The sale of DVDs peaked in the year 2015, and today, the sales rate is about 10% below that peak. That's Billions of DVDs (and Blu-rays) in 2017.

We also do Blu-rays. Our authoring tool is Toast. Toast is "OK", But not nearly as flexible as iDVD. A lot of what we do is instructional or educational, not "Hollywood". So DVD quality is usually just fine.

When one is looking at storing data for long periods of time, nothing will last longer than a M-Disc DVD, Blu-ray, or 100GB UHD disc (1000 years).

I'm in the industry, and I can assure you DVDs are popular. The sale of DVDs peaked in the year 2015, and today, the sales rate is about 10% below that peak. That's Billions of DVDs (and Blu-rays) in 2017.

Thank you for that info! It is harder than heck to find useful unit sales numbers.

Knowing that, it really doesn't make sense why software companies are in such a rush to make it appear optical disks have already gone the way of the Do-Do.

Have developers not noticed that every single feature release movie goes to disk within 6 months? Or, is it just that they think software that is closer to consumer level is dead because they think every video shot by novices or semi-pros now go directly to YouTube, or other social media site?

Most likely still unknown. There's still a lot of time for Apple to add, remove or enhance features, all of which may affect which Macs will be able to run the general release.

Nothing? Adobe's Encore is excellent. Bad news, CS6 was the last version. It is 64 bit, but who knows how long before changes to the OS break it anyway.