OpenCore Legacy Patcher
Over the last weekend I have updated my aging and dented Mid-2014 MacBook Pro from Big Sur to Monterey with the help of OpenCore Legacy Patcher.
https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/
It’s a fantastic piece of software I cannot write enough good things about. The entire process is well documented and went almost effortless. If you have any older Mac hardware you’re looking to continue to use, this is it. There’s no permanent firmware patching, everything happens in memory. Even features that are natively disabled are now available, like Universal Control and Sidecar. The latter has some performance issues though, so I can see why Apple chose to disable the feature.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212757
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210380
My model did not make the cut between the OS versions. It’s also the lone model featuring an Nvidia GPU, complicating things further. Under Big Sur, Safari often suffered from GPU-related display issues, distorting its content in weird triangular shapes.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/weird-black-triangular-graphics-disruption-ad-related.2222160/
Since upgrading, I have not observed similar glitches. As a bonus, the machine even feels snappier, though I couldn’t say why.
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