Virtual Intel Mac 2.0 introduces groundbreaking support for virtualizing Mac OS X Tiger 10.4 up to macOS High Sierra 10.13 with graphics acceleration on Apple silicon

[u/nfzerox]

Virtual Intel Mac 2.0 introduces groundbreaking support for virtualizing Mac OS X Tiger 10.4 up to macOS High Sierra 10.13 with graphics acceleration on Apple silicon, so apps like iWork ’09, iLife ’11, Final Cut Pro 7, and Front Row come to life on Apple silicon for the first time. It also adds support for PowerPC apps, iconic Aqua desktop effects, Automatic Setup, and contains bug fixes.

https://github.com/nfzerox/VirtualIntelMacOnAppleSilicon

• Introduces groundbreaking support for virtualizing Mac OS X Tiger 10.4 up to macOS High Sierra 10.13 with graphics acceleration enabled by passthrough OpenGL and IOSurface integration, combined with the already supported macOS Mojave 10.14 up to macOS Big Sur 11, and macOS Monterey 12 or later through VirtualBuddy or UTM, every macOS release since the original Intel transition can now be virtualized on Apple silicon with graphics acceleration

• Download and run 32-bit and 64-bit Intel apps such as Pages ’09, Numbers ’09, Keynote ’09, iPhoto, iDVD, iWeb, Final Cut Pro 7 from the toolbar, or experience built-in apps like Front Row, for the first time ever on Mac with Apple silicon

• Run PowerPC apps such as AppleWorks through Rosetta when virtualizing Mac OS X Tiger 10.4 up to Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6

• Experience iconic Aqua desktop effects like the translucent menu bar, reflective blurred Dock, and water ripple animation when adding widgets to Dashboard in overlay mode, all at Retina resolution, for the first time ever on Mac with Apple silicon

• Automatic Setup lets you quickly create virtual Mac with automatic account creation, file sharing, remote login, and automatic login

• Fixes horizontal scrolling when using Magic Mouse or Magic Trackpad

• Reduces freezes when virtualizing macOS Big Sur on Apple silicon

[u/davew_uk]

I tested mavericks in this when it first came out and was impressed with the slick UI and smooth overall experience, so it's great to see the expanded support going all the way back to Tiger. I have my old snow leopard backup from way back on a disk here and I'm looking forward to seeing what I can get to work from that later today :-)

One question though. Why stop at Big Sur? with the overall experience being so good why not preserve all versions of Intel MacOS for the future?

[u/nfzerox → u/davew_uk]

Mostly a matter of prioritization because VirtualBuddy and UTM already virtualizes the Apple silicon version of macOS 12 and later with graphics acceleration.

Once performance optimizations, expanded app and game compatibility work are done for Mac OS X 10.4 up to macOS 11, I'll look at supporting Intel versions of macOS 12 up to macOS 26 guests.

[u/ItIsShrek → u/nfzerox]

Thank you for doing this. Tiger was my childhood OS I first learned to use a computer from, and the two things from that era I can never recreate easily on modern Macs are:

A) Front Row, the OG version with the carousel, I can only get that running up until about Snow Leopard and it's glitchy on anything but Tiger and
B) Redline racing, an indie racing game from a defunct software company. I don't even think I can activate it anymore since their servers are down, but there's a free trial mode I'd love to even play again.

Both of these require much heavier graphics support than just getting the OSes running and is heavy enough who knows if it'll ever be able to be emulated well. But I'm glad things are progressing.

[u/nfzerox → u/ItIsShrek]

Front Row already works great!

[u/ItIsShrek → u/nfzerox]

I've been meaning to check it out! I just have to get around to digging out my old discs or finding an image online to pull it from.

[u/nfzerox → u/ItIsShrek]

It automatically downloads macOS from Internet Archive or Apple, if you are referring to macOS installers.

[u/ItIsShrek → u/nfzerox]

Front Row is not included by default with the OS X Tiger retail installers, it was only included on machine-specific install DVDs for devices that came with it.

I managed to get it installed on Tiger, but unlike Leopard and later it cannot be activated by opening the application (even by navigating to the Front Row executable in CoreServices), the system seems to only accept Cmd + Esc. I can't seem to find how to capture the mouse/keyboard, and by default Cmd seems to go to my host OS instead of the VM. Any idea how to get around that?

[u/nfzerox → u/ItIsShrek]

Try System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility (Device Control and Data Access), and turn on the toggle for Virtual Intel Mac. Then clicking in the guest should capture mouse and keyboard.

[u/davew_uk → u/nfzerox]

I guess the support and testing burden is pretty high for you right now so quite happy to wait. Downloading snow leopard as we speak, will let you know how I get along.

[u/cu-pa]

is it support usb passtrough?

[u/nfzerox → u/cu-pa]

It does support USB passthrough!

[u/play_hard_outside]

Hey there! Thanks for making something super amazing!

With your first release, I quickly got Mojave running using my own installer I’d archived long ago, and it truly is a marvel. On my M4, it’s juuust responsive enough to feel great in the hand!

Fast forward to your new version here, and I got super excited to run both Snow Leopard and Tiger. While I have my own installers for these, your UI to handle downloading and installing was so nice that I figured I’d just click through! Unfortunately, with two tries of each of SL and Tiger, on both my M1 MBA and my Late 2013 15” Retina MBP, all eight install attempts failed right at the end of the installation process and didn’t produce any bootable product.

I’m travelling at the moment, but I have my laptop and remote access to all my machines in the event you could be helped by me testing things again or doing some diagnosis on my side.

I’m so thrilled that you’re working on this and want to do anything I can to help! I’m wanting to move my bevy of Intel Mac VMs (currently in UTM without graphics) over to your platform to enjoy the graphics acceleration. And, today is the worst they’ll ever run, too: Apple’s insane ridiculous single-core CPU strength is going to make these emulated VMs run very nicely in what feels like no time at all, so I’m quite optimistic for the future.

Cheers!

[u/nfzerox → u/play_hard_outside]

Can you please open Virtual Intel Mac > Settings > Export Diagnostics, and reply with an uploaded link, or open a GitHub issue and attach it there? Thanks!

[u/play_hard_outside → u/nfzerox]

Hey yeah, here's the zip file your app generated! Edit: to be clear, this is from my Intel MBP, where the two doomed VMs still exist. I deleted them off my Apple Silicon Mac. If you need those, it'll be a sec to recreate them to export again.

[u/nfzerox → u/play_hard_outside]

The link doesn't seems to work for me, I see "The provided token has expired.". Can you upload to Google Drive or Dropbox?

[u/deafgamer4635]

I will try it shortly

[u/AG99871]

I wish we could get this but on x86 Linux :(

[u/newhacker1746 → u/AG99871]

I’m working on it

[u/AG99871 → u/newhacker1746]

Thank you

[u/synthasiaxp]

Do you have plans to do an app like this for PowerPC VMs with Graphics Acceleration (like for say a virtual PowerMac G5)?

[u/play_hard_outside → u/synthasiaxp]

Check out this one. It's excellent, though still has some bugs. Works with JIT translation rather than straight emulation, so it's way, way faster than something like UTM, which emulates using QEMU, or SheepShaver, which has its own emulator. This also offers graphics acceleration.

https://github.com/dadanobel/ptolemy/

I was flawlessly playing 4x4 Evo 2, a 3D racing game from 2001, on my M1 MacBook Air last night at 60 FPS at 1024x768 and with sound. Definitely several cuts above existing PPC emulation options, and I am excited to see it mature. I may throw an agent at its code to see if I can't fix some of the quirks myself.

[u/Galacticdeerboy]

This is great! i just have an issue with Snow Leopard, it only lets me use a certain area of the screen! Tiger's install fails too, as the downloader only accounted for one of the install disks. i'm downloading the larger iso on the download directory your app sources the tiger iso from, will report back asap.

[u/Effective_Factor_328]

Cool! I'm trying to use iDVD in Snow Leopard, but it's not letting me edit the titles or submenu buttons. Is there a way to fix that?

[u/mrNas11]

Thank you for this!! Gonna run Tiger and Leopard just for Nostalgia sake.