minimal.cx

Categories

Site Acceleration by:

© 2025 minimal.cx.

Powered by WordPress.

Theme by Anders Norén.

aperture 1.5 hack

It seems as though the minimum system requirements are still in force in {Aperture} 1.5, which means that although 1.25GHz PowerBooks are supported, my dual 867GHz MDD isn’t, which is rather odd. Still, the hack for Aperture 1.1 still works on 1.5, but the offsets have (unsurprisingly) moved a little.

Using a hex editor (I found 0xed very useful), try changing the following:

0×0b548: 40 9E 00 88 -> 48 00 00 88
0×0b5e4: 40 9E 00 88 -> 48 00 00 88
0×17390: 40 9E 00 E0 -> 48 00 00 D8

The updated binary has been tested on both an 2GB MDD 867GHz PowerMac and also a 768MB 1GHz 12″ PowerBook, but note that the Info.plist file might still need tweaking to remove the minimum RAM check.

Enjoy !

← Previous Post

Next Post →

12 Comments

  1. paul

    October 19, 2006

    Hi as a first time hacker i am having trouble finding the correct strings
    how do i search for “0×0b548” etc

    and does this counter the graphics card problem on a powerbook?

    thx

  2. ian

    October 19, 2006

    Hi Paul,

    I’ve already sent some instructions to another user via email, so here’s an almost cut-n-paste job from that. Apologies if this starts off too slow for your experience, but I feel it’s helpful to start at the very beginning for people who’ve just come over from the Windows world. If this doesn’t sort things for you, please get in touch directly and I’ll try to help out.

    The biggest difference from Windows in this case is that nearly all Mac applications are in fact directories, and the name actually ends in .app The reason for this is that there is very little need to have .DLL files in the main system directory, so the equivalent of the .EXE and all associated helper files an application requires are all kept in one place, and can be moved around more easily.

    Right, open up a Finder window, go to the Applications directory, and find the Aperture icon. Right click (or, if you only have a one button mouse, hold down CTRL and click) and choose the ‘Show Package Contents’ option. This opens the directory called Aperture.app and you’ll see another directory call Contents. Open that directory, and then open the directory called MacOS and you should see a file called Aperture (a black/grey gradient icon with small green writing in the top left).

    That’s the file you need to modify: this is the actual .EXE and the one that the hex offsets refer to. You can drag this file to the 0xED application icon, or you can navigate directly to this file from within the File > Open menu item in 0xED (Applications > Aperture.app > Contents > MacOS > Aperture).

    Open up the Preferences menu in 0xED, and in the General tab change the Writing Mode to Overwrite: this just makes it easier for this set of changes.

    Once this file is open, type the offset into the box with Go To Offset under it: b548 in the first case. This will move the cursor to that byte in the file, so then it’s simply a case of typing in the new values: 48000088 you don’t need to press space or move the cursor whilst typing in the four values.

    Then type the next offset into the box in the top bar, and repeat. Save the file once done (you might want to make a backup of the original before you start, just in case things go wrong).

    This makes the application run on my 1GHz 12″ Powerbook: I did also edit the Info.plist file to allow it to run with less that 1GB of RAM too, but the .plist edit doesn’t remove any of the video or CPU checks.

    HTH

  3. Chris

    November 4, 2006

    This hex crack doesnt work with a fresh copy of 1.5.1. Some people updating from a hacked 1.5 claim that Aperture is continuing to work without further hex edits. But if you are starting with a fresh copy of 1.5.1 it seems like new offsets and hex values are needed.

  4. ian

    November 4, 2006

    No, I have some new values for 1.5.1 that you might like to try: for my 1GHz 12″ PowerBook I only needed a single edit, which was nice.

    HTH

  5. Steve

    November 5, 2006

    I must be an idiot but 0xed does not allow me to type an “x” in the “go to offset field” am I missing something here?

  6. ian

    November 5, 2006

    Hi Steve: yes, the 0x is simply a prefix to show humans that the value is in hexadecimal, but 0xED is expecting hex, so you don’t need that bit. Have a look at the guide above in the comments in the second to last paragraph: it has an example of what you need to type. After you’ve done the first, then just use the next offset in the list (again, without the 0x) and carry on.

    Do note that the values here are for Aperture 1.5 – if you have 1.5.1 then you need to alter different locations, as described in my more recent post.

    HTH

  7. Dean

    November 8, 2006

    Has anyone managed to hack the 1.5 Aperture Demo to install on unsupported hardware?

    I have in iBook G4 1GHz 1152MB connected to a 20″ wide flat panel and I’m dying to try out Aperture.

    I’d buy it next payday if I could run this demo and make sure it works for my workflow.

    Please help! 🙂

  8. Neil

    November 28, 2006

    I have just downloaded the 1.5 trial on my 12″ 1.33 Powerbook and installed it using Pacifist.
    It works fine with no other hacks!

  9. Tony

    December 6, 2006

    None of the above strings match up to what I’m seeing in OxED.
    Neil, Can you give some details of what you did in Pacifist?
    I’ve got a Quicksilver that has been upgraded with a 1.8 GHz processor, 1.5 GB RAM and a Radeon 9800. I really think it should run Aperture reasonably well if I could only get past the check.

    If I could ever see that it runs, I would happily buy a copy, but not until then. 😕

  10. Matt Schinckel

    January 3, 2007

    I found that the offsets were wrong – just search for the first and second occurrences of the first hex string, and replace, and then the next occurrence of the other string, and replace.

    And make sure you are working on a backup of that file, so you can go back and try again if it fails.

  11. Mike

    March 1, 2007

    I’ve done the Aperture hack on a G4 PowerBook (Titanium) 1 Ghz with 1 GB of RAM. I’m trying to do this hack on a Dual 1.25 MDD G4 tower.

    I’ve installed Aperture and upgraded to 1.5.2.

    Using OxED, I can’t find the Hex Offsets listed (40 9E 00 88). They don’t appear to be in there at all. I’ve done this fine on my TiBook, and it’s driving me nuts as to why I can’t seem to find the appropriate offsets to do it on my Dual 1.25 MDD G4

    Can anyone give me a play by play to get this done? Please?

    Many thanks!

  12. ian

    March 1, 2007

    Hi Mike,

    First off – you do realise that this post is for Aperture 1.5, and not 1.5.2 don’t you ? The values for 1.5.2 are in this post. Having said that, if you have an Aperture.app file that is patched don’t beat yourself up doing it a second time: just drag and drop the file from one Mac to the other: the licence key is 100% separate from the application itself, so when you run it on the machine you’ve just copied it to manually it’ll ask for your key then.

    Note that there are some support packages that are probably best installed, but you can simply use the ‘Show Package Contents’ on the original installer and then go inside to find the individual installers. Only the Aperture Application installer bothers to check compatibility; all of the support packages just go in.

    HTH,