# macOS 13: Ventura

# Table of Contents

# Prerequisites

# Dropped CPU Support

macOS Ventura drops support for pre-Haswell CPUs. Much of userspace now requires AVX2 support, along with AMD Polaris GPU drivers and some instances of AVX2 instructions in some kexts. Although the kexts can be patched (opens new window) or downgraded (opens new window), the Polaris GPU drivers and most of userspace rely on AVX2 too much to be able to be patched.

Apple has left a dyld cache that does not use AVX2 instructions in Ventura to support Rosetta on Apple Silicon machines, but this cache is not installed by default. You can use CryptexFixup (opens new window) to force this dyld cache to be installed, but:

  • Apple may remove this cache at any time in the future if they add AVX2 support to Rosetta
  • Delta updates (small 1-3GB updates) will no longer be available and you must install the full update (12GB), as delta updates only contain the non-AVX2 cache on Apple Silicon machines
  • Polaris GPUs remain unsupported on machines without AVX2

Because of these caveats, Dortania will no longer be supporting pre-Haswell CPUs for Ventura and above. The pages for these CPUs will remain updated for Monterey.

# Supported SMBIOS

SMBIOS dropped in Ventura:

  • iMac17,x and older
  • Macmini7,1 and older
  • MacBook9,1 and older
  • MacBookAir7,x and older
  • MacBookPro13,x and older
  • MacPro6,1 and older

If your SMBIOS was supported in Monterey and is not included above, you're good to go!

Supported SMBIOS
  • iMac18,x and newer
  • MacPro7,1 and newer
  • iMacPro1,1 and newer
  • Macmini8,1
  • MacBook10,1
  • MacBookAir8,1 and newer
  • MacBookPro14,x and newer

Click here for a full list of supported SMBIOS.

For those on architectures no longer supported by Ventura:

  • All desktops with dGPUs should use iMac18,2, MacPro7,1 or iMacPro1,1. Unsupported GPUs still require OCLP, while supported GPUs do not.
  • All desktops with unsupported iGPUs should use iMac18,1.
  • All unsupported laptops (Haswell, Broadwell, Skylake) should use MacBookPro14,1.

# Supported hardware

Dropped GPU Hardware:

  • Haswell (HD 4200/4400/4600/5000/P4600/P4700, Iris 5100, Iris Pro 5200)

  • Broadwell (HD 5300/5500/5600/6000/P5700, Iris 6100, Iris Pro 6200/P6300)

  • Skylake (HD 5xx/P5xx, Iris 5xx, Iris Pro 5xx/P5xx)

    • Skylake can be spoofed as Kaby Lake with WhateverGreen v1.6.1 and up
    • Change your device-id and AAPL,ig-platform-id to the most similar Kaby Lake model
    • If using the same EFI to boot Monterey and below, add -igfxsklaskbl to your boot args
  • You can use OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher (opens new window) to add back support

    • No support is provided for Hackintoshes using OCLP!
    • You will lose access to non-full updates (Small 1-3GB updates)
    • Requires SIP, Apple Secure Boot, and AMFI disabled.

# AMD Patches

For those on AMD CPUs, make sure to update your kernel patches (opens new window) for Ventura. Don't forget to update your patches as well with the core count of your CPU. The patches which need to be edited are all named algrey - Force cpuid_cores_per_package, and you only need to change the Replace value. You should change:

  • B8000000 0000 => B8 <core count> 0000 0000
  • BA000000 0000 => BA <core count> 0000 0000
  • BA000000 0090 => BA <core count> 0000 0090

Where <core count> is replaced with the physical core count of your CPU in hexadecimal. For example, an 8-Core 5800X would have the new Replace value be:

  • B8 08 0000 0000
  • BA 08 0000 0000
  • BA 08 0000 0090
Core Count => Hexadecimal Table
Core Count Hexadecimal
4 Core 04
6 Core 06
8 Core 08
12 Core 0C
16 Core 10
24 Core 18
32 Core 20
64 Core 40