Hacker News Reader

Comment by kristofferR | Hacker News Reader

I've got a Hackintosh as my main system, I love it.

I dual boot macOS (default) and Windows 10 on it. A nice feature is that I can use my Windows installation while I'm using macOS through virtualization (Parallels), yet boot natively to the same Windows installation when I need the full performance.

Getting the Hackintosh working properly was hard as hell though, although I kinda enjoyed it since I'm a geek. Now that I've got it working, it works flawlessly. Recommended for people who want to save money/maximize performance and don't mind the grueling effort required.

View on HN

How much effort was required?

I'm curious because I've been considering building one for a while, but the reports from idly skimming eg tonymacx86 are all over the place. Some say as long as you buy from their build guide it's very easy, and some people seem to have tons of problems anyway.

It's fun if it is the project itself. Don't plan on using it for real work unless you like uncertainty or pain with every update, though. I would never use one outside of a hobby as things currently stand.

I use mine every day for work.

If you build using Clover only, you can upgrade as soon as Nvidia releases new web drivers (for point updates) straight through the App Store.

The only issue is SceneKit based apps.

Do you know if SceneKit apps also fail if you only use the integrated GPU?

Sounds like things have improved since I last built one. I personally still wouldn't use something with 'works except for...', but I'm glad it's working for you. And I hope the hackintosh community can push Apple to release something more oriented to the tech crowd.

My main desktop is a hackintosh.

It took maybe an afternoon to build, and then a few more hours to get running. It's been running solid ever since.

Everything works (thunderbolt 3, usb 3, sound, airdrop, iMessage, handoff, etc) except you can't use apps that use SceneKit. So iBooks, Xcode instruments and SceneKit editor don't work. You can get them to work, by using Apple's drivers, but its a pita.

Some people claim the new nvidia pascal drivers work for SceneKit, but I've not upgraded to a 1080 yet so I can't confirm.

This is my build: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/gwV6qk

SceneKit apparently works if you enable the Intel iGPU. The issue is related to driver signing; it happens on real Mac hardware too and Nvidia has acknowledged the issue.

Virtualization (e.g. https://github.com/kholia/OSX-KVM) can help a lot by reducing your dependence on specific parts. If you stick with an Intel CPU and a motherboard with an IOMMU and a well supported graphics card you're pretty likely to be okay. IOMMU support has gotten to be super common, even on lower end processors and motherboards.

yeah. i see the same thing.

another option besides buying from Apple or building one yourself: go on craigslist and search for hackintoshes.

you may find an experienced hackintosher who can build one for you. it's still a little dicey, but there are individuals out there who can create reliable beasts far more powerful than anything Apple sells today. (i'm certainly not one of them. much too conventional. i just buy from Apple.)

Mind sharing your build?

Gigabyte Z270X Ultra Gaming

Intel Core-i5 7600k (4,6Ghz OC)

32GB 3200MHz DDR4 RAM

Nvidia Gefore 970 GTX

Samsung 960 Evo 500GB NVMe SSD

~10TB HDDs

Nice rig, everything work? You have a BT 4.0 for Handoff?

Yup, stuff works great now. I just ordered a BT 4.0 USB a couple of days ago actually, looking forward to it arriving.

What was most frustrating about turning that into a hackintosh?

Another hackingtosh user here. There are various glitches sometimes. For example, my displays down turn on after waking up from sleep.

Also, I still haven't upgraded to Sierra, since the process is a bit more delicate than with regular macs.

All things considered, it's totally worth it for me.

How is it when it comes to OS updates?

Usually, you don't update and wait to see what people say and wait until things are supported and tested. That said, missing out on OS X updates isn't a big deal. In fact, a lot of people prefer staying in older versions until forced to.

It is a big deal when you want fixes for security vulnerabilities. As far as I understand, minor updates can also break a Hackintosh.

Definitely could happen, but it would have to be a confluence of driver and security updates in one.

I usually wait a few days and check the forums for minor updates, but haven't had any issues in 2 years. Major updates can be a bit more work, but not too much if you're careful and do your research.

Security updates and minor upgrades(Example: 10.12.1 to 10.12.2) are generally fine. I keep a checklist of the things that get nuked on OS upgrades.(Internal audio driver gets nuked; just requires reinstalling it.)

Will you be able easily upgrade OS X? for either point updates or major versions?

The last time I built a hackintosh (5 years ago), you had to go through kext hell that took about one day of hacking. I just gave up and bought a Mac.

Sometimes it's easy, sometimes Apple breaks drivers. In general I just wait for tonymac to tell me... I really should use his affiliate links or donate.

I've upgraded the same 2010 hardware from 10.6 to 10.12. Installed a GTX 1060 and now I have a 4k-capable machine. You couldn't really do that (either install 10.12 or drive 4k) with a 2010 mac mini or imac, but you would have saved yourself the cummulative ~2 weeks of installation I've put into this over the years.

It's really easy nowadays (if you have the right hardware), you can directly install the official combo update and then it usually only requires one extra reboot to update the graphics driver and possibly repatch sound driver for me, but that whole thing is automated and takes 2 mins extra for every point update every 2 months.

I've been running a 4790k + 980Ti since 10.9 came out, always kept it at the newest release and it's given me much less trouble than Windows in that timeframe.

As long as you have the typical well supported desktop hardware it works really well (intel + nvidia or select amd cards), only if you want it on a laptop or officially unsupported hardware then it quickly becomes a giant pain.

What were the biggest hurdles in getting it running?

You can read about some of the problems here:

http://reddit.com/r/hackintosh

All the dumb little stuff.

For example - I couldn't get my GPU to work so I spent hours troubleshooting it until I discovered a random post on page 45 in thread where someone casually mentioned that his Z170 Gigabyte Motherboard couldn't store NVRAM natively. I have a Z270 Gigabyte MB, so I figured his suggestion would be worth a try. I had to inject a module for my bootloader to add NVRAM support. That should have worked, but I edited my bootloader config.plist file with a text editor so I accidentially corrupted it. Then I had to boot to Windows, find out how to mount my EFI partition, open my bootloader settings file properly and fix the corruption.

Another example - This is how you enable proper USB 3.0 support. As you can see it's not that simple. https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/guide-creating-a-custom-s...

Thankfully people are extraordinarily helpful, especially some of the moderators.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com