I recently succeeded in upgrading a 2008 iMac to Catalina. It was fine as long as I didn’t try to actually do anything. I quickly went back to El Capitan, which is officially the latest version this machine will support. Maybe Apple were right after all.
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The only factor on Windows was Windows 11’s TPM2 requirement. Short of that, it would run on any machine Windows Vista would run on. PC users do not face this issue, because there cannot be planned obsolescence with the way Windows is distributed.
Most people on old versions of Windows are there by choice.
Had a laptop here from 2012 running Windows 10, and ran as well as it did on Windows 7 or 8.x.
2013 iMac was dropped completely after High Sierra… maybe it got Mojave. I can’t recall. Any software that moved its requirements beyond that dropped support for that machine de facto. Software and frameworks tend to be less shackled to Windows versions than macOS versions. I ran into a lot of issues when getting a new Mac where I had to pay for software upgrades that I simply wouldn’t have to if I opted for a Windows PC - even if I had chosen to continue using Windows 7, 8.x or 10 on a previous machine.
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Why would I buy a new PC when I can upgrade my CPU, RAM, GPU, and Storage and as need arises instead of buying a whole new PC?
PC sales are always going to be like this, because there is less need to buy a whole new PC than there is to buy a whole new Mac, due to how much easier they are to service and upgrade. Also, with how much Apple charges for component upgrades, it’s probably more economical for people to buy a lower end machine and then upgrade in a couple of years when their needs grow.
Paying $1,500+ for upgrades in a 16" Intel MBP wasn’t a great value proposition when you could have gotten something less overpowered and gone to a 14" M1 MBP for a comparable price a couple of years later.
The component upgrade prices at Apple mean that it is considerably more expensive to pay at point of sale for “safeguard specs/breathing room” vs. getting PC parts when prices drop and slotting them into a desktop (or laptop - RAM, storage). Especially when you can repurpose parts that you’re upgrading.
This ultimately affects PC sales… The PC sales benefits aren’t in system purchases, but in component purchases. You can hardly find a GPU or CPU on the shelf at a Best Buy around here. People are buying the components and upgrading their systems in lieu of buying new PC systems - increasingly.
Huge desktop boxes with interchangeable components are an increasingly small slice of the PC market.
The history of micro-electronics is one of integration. Things that used to be separate becomes integrated into one component. This has benefits in terms of performance, power consumption, reliability, manufacturing process, etc.
Many PC manufacturers use soldered RAM in laptops now. Dell XPS 13 also has soldered storage. And if you look at the prices that companies like HP and Dell charge to increase the spec, it’s not that different from Apple’s (like for like). While they might all be pushing the limits of what the market will bear, comparisons to retail components don’t factor in all the costs.
I do have sympathies with the ‘right to repair’ movement, though inevitably, repairing “the board” itself, rather than jut replacing it, will be increasingly difficult or impossible, just as its already impossible to repair a defective CPU.
That’s due to competition to provide cheap machines, so that everyone can afford one. 30 years ago, lots of people would have to use the laundrette. The market for a ‘high-end’ washing machine is non-existent.
Still: buy cheap, pay twice:
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According to the compatibility list, Mojave still supports iMacs from 2012. Catalina still supports 2013 iMacs. Support is dropped with Big Sur.
Paolo
Is there anyone here with a 2010 Windows machine that can still run Dorico 4? Mac users be happy. 
Here’s the system requirements:
I am not sure what you mean by a ‘2010’ machine, the OS version and CPU being more important, but Dorico will run on anything back to an i5 mid 2013 CPU, Windows 10. That means systems up to ten years old are fully supported.
I was referring back to some earlier posts, that’s all.
I was seriously curious how many users of older PCs there might be running Dorico vs users of older Macs running Dorico, since older Macs were dominating the conversation.
I get what you’re saying on the Specs, it’s just that in the PC world there are lots of subpar consumer products put out on the market, compared to the quality that goes into even the cheapest Mac. I was running a 2011 17” MacBook until 2020, and the reason the GPU fried was mostly my fault for upgrading the memory to double Apple’s specs and that caused the machine to overheat.
If the rest of Steinberg’s products are like Dorico, then I’m giving Cubase a serious look. I’m eyeing a Steinberg UR-RT4, too, because of its Rupert Neve Designs transformers. The UR-RT2 and RT4 might just be the best audio interfaces in their class.
I’m running Dorico 4 on a Windows PC from 2012 with an AMD FX 6100 at its core.
Given it was a pretty nice system at the time (you might call it a “Gaming PC” 
), Dorico is still running smoothly in 2023.
This is, if I don’t activate condensing on larger projects, of course. But that’s a different story, and I’m already looking out for a new system every now end then.
I like your choice. AMD was my preferred CPU back then over Intel. I spec’d 2 Sun Servers for the EE Lab of a large state university, one with Sun SPARC processors running Solaris and the other with AMD processors running RedHat Linux. We all owe a bunch to the gamers for their software advances. It was no surprise when I learned that NASA took a game program and modified it to control the Mars Rovers.
I’m waiting for the M2 iMacs to come out. Since Dorico and other music apps I use (forScore) run on iPad, I’m not interested in lugging around a MacBook anymore. I won’t settle for just 8Mb of RAM. Been reading that the M1 machines with 8Mb RAM are hard on the SSD drives—enough to shorten their life—from so much memory swapping to disk. So, 16Mb of RAM is what I’m after along with, at least, the M2 chip.
You can order 16Gb RAM in the M1 iMacs. (Though fears of SSD’s wearing-out are largely exaggerated. The TBW on modern SSDs is much larger than most people will ever get close to.)
But yes, it’s worth waiting for an M2 update.
The base M2s now come with 8, 16 or 24Gb. The M2 Pro has 16 or 32Gb. I’d suggest 24 as a minimum, particularly if you’re using big sample libraries.
I’m sorely tempted to get an M2 Pro Mini, which would be a beast of a machine!
Yes, that would be!
I put one into a cart last night just for the fun of it. My wife would likely “pull the trigger” long before I could, however LOL.
I take great solace in the fact that even my M1 mini is way more capable a machine than even certain “pro” machines were even a few years ago, and I would have loved to have one of those at the time. So to think that I’m wielding that much power in a tiny machine that I’ve literally never heard make a noise in over a year is quite satisfying in its own right.
I also have and fully use a 2010 Mac Pro that would be quite difficult to replace due to compatibility issues with certain legacy equipment that would be very expensive to replace. I’ve only been able to update it to High Sierra. Please tell me how you were able to get it to run Mojave. A graphics card replacement perhaps?
Hi, Steffen. When I get home from babysitting my grandkids, I’ll get back to you with the graphics card that I bought. The original graphics card in the mid-2010 Mac Pro doesn’t support Metal, and High Sierra was the last Mac OS version that didn’t require Metal. Upgrading the graphics card to one that supports Metal is what allows you to install Mojave on that machine.
—Howard
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An alternative solution might be to keep the 2010 Mac Pro to run your legacy equipment as part of a LAN in your house or business. A legacy gear workstation (or server) with data and/or control coming from a newer Mac. Might that be an option?
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Hello again, Steffen. Please see this thread: Note Performer 3.3
When NotePerformer 3.3 first came out, it required a graphics card that supports Metal to draw the NotePerformer mixer. Arne Wallander later changed the code so that Metal wasn’t strictly required, but I decided to upgrade the graphics card anyway. The graphics card I bought is a Radeon RX 580, 8 GB, as you will see in the linked thread.
The graphics card works great, but there is one weird thing about it when used in a Mac. The card lacks Apple’s special ROM that draws the Apple Logo and progress bar while the Mac is booting up. The screen stays black while the Mac is booting up (for about 50 seconds in my case), and you see only a very brief glimpse of the logo and status bar just before the Mac draws the desktop. After you first install the new graphics card, you’re not really sure if everything is working until those 50 seconds elapse. Not a big deal, just something you need to be aware of.
I have a machine with an AMD APU from 2011 that runs it. I just checked, though I only checked with the stock sound libraries. Obviously, it will choke if trying to run anything heavier (8GB RAM, SATA SSD, and the CPU will crumble).
Machine has Windows 10 on it.
A machine with an Intel Pentium from back then ran circles around this AMD APU, though. It’s one of AMD’s “Fake” Quad Core designs. So, I reckon even an i3 from that era would run fairly well if your needs aren’t intensive.
I’d probably just run Notion or MuseScore on something like that, though. Better sounds and good enough notation without the higher system requirements. Performs better.
Only tried to check. It’s deauthorized, removed now. I have too many computers in here, Lol, but I take good care of hardware so it feels bad to chuck them in the bin I’ll probably repurpose as a Resolve project server or something… That seems viable. 
I do have one question:
Is it possible to install only Dorico itself on macOS (not HALion or the sound sets) and just use NotePerformer for sounds… or will that create some issue due to the non-existence of HALion Sonic SE?
I’d really like to drop Cubase for Logic or Studio One, and would like to get as much unnecessary bloatware off of my systems. 10GB is a lot of space waste on libraries that sound this bad.
Yes, that should be fine: just set your default playback template to Noteperformer in Dorico’s preferences. At worst, you’ll load a file and you’ll get the “!!!–HALion–!!!” thing, showing that the VST can’t be found.