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I get this is probably a dumb question (well I'm posting it) that's almost impossible to answer as it's dealing with future OSX compatibility issues that no one can foresee, but for those of you who have had Hackintoshes for a few years at least, how have you fared with new OSX releases? Have you had to change/update hardware, add new .kext's often etc to keep your Hackintosh running? Have interim combo updates broken your setup on occasion? I really need a Mac with a semi-decent GPU for some work and I'd like to not keep hooking up my Macbook, which even though it's a 2019 model can't animate Keynote presentations at 60fps on my 4k screen and the fans spin up doing anything stressful to boot. So I'm looking to build a mini ITX rig about half the price of an equivalent Mini but with a dedicated GPU, but don't want to be tinkering too much as a regular practice - is this an unrealistic expectation once it's all setup and running?
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Jan 27, 2020 20:17
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Have you considered using an eGPU?
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Jan 27, 2020 23:02
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Also has to be an AMD GFX card as the Nvidia / Apple not talking phase of the relationship continues. Nvidia GPUs are only supported to 10.13.6 and up to 1080ti. It requires massaging to get working if you require the web drivers but there is a script for that. Also HDMI audio is roll some dice I last checked.
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Jan 28, 2020 00:14
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HDMI audio better compatibility on AMD's and usually works if card manufacturer uses something close to reference card design. Doesn't help that AMD is still feeling its way with 5600/5700/XT cards, they have the potential to have more bang for the buck than the 580s but they are slow in optimizing the drivers on the Mac side. An RX 580 is playing it safe as most seem to be Mac compatible, but they're cheaper today for a reason
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Jan 28, 2020 00:34
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KOTEX GOD OF BLOOD posted:Have you considered using an eGPU? Well yes, problem is the price goes from double an equivalent PC to almost 3x. I mean I may have to do it but drat that stings, especially when the equivalent PC system I could keep more up to date over the years.
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Jan 28, 2020 00:39
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I was surprised how cheap the Sonnet box is, if you just want better video performance this seems like the way to go https://www.sonnetstore.com/collections/egpu-expansion-systems/products/egfx-breakaway-box-550
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Jan 28, 2020 00:50
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Happy_Misanthrope posted:I get this is probably a dumb question (well I'm posting it) that's almost impossible to answer as it's dealing with future OSX compatibility issues that no one can foresee, but for those of you who have had Hackintoshes for a few years at least, how have you fared with new OSX releases? Have you had to change/update hardware, add new .kext's often etc to keep your Hackintosh running? Have interim combo updates broken your setup on occasion? I just went through this and the main thing I've realized is that the bulk of the build centers around how your GPU plays with stuff. Years ago, having an Nvidia card was fine. Now, it's entirely a no-go. Getting an AMD card makes things painless; I recently went from High Sierra to Catalina (had a 1060 and upgraded to an 5700 XT) and had to add some boot arguments and other random stuff, but when it came to updating, it was just as normal. I updated my kexts to their newest version and everything was fine. If anything, I'd recommend looking into wifi and bluetooth cards that run native to macOS. That's the only real "special" component I have in my build. Everything else is the same as building your everyday computer. LODGE NORTH fucked around with this message at 06:49 on Jan 28, 2020 |
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Jan 28, 2020 01:31
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KOTEX GOD OF BLOOD posted:Have you considered using an eGPU? eGPUs on the Mac have become VERY affordable and pretty much pain free. Getting one of the TB3 models will do you well for years. I had one for work for awhile and it was great.
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Jan 28, 2020 01:45
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LODGE NORTH posted:I just went through this and the main thing I've realized is that the bulk of the build centers around how your GPU plays with stuff. Years ago, having an Nvidia card was fine. Now, it's entirely a no-go. Getting an AMD card makes things painless; I recently went from High Sierra to Catalina (had a 1060 and upgraded to an 6700 XT) and had to add some boot arguments and other random stuff, but when it came to updating, it was just as normal. I updated my kexts to their newest version and everything was fine.
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Jan 28, 2020 06:42
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At the beginning, there's a bit of tweaking, but as far as daily or even consistent, tweaking, it's almost none existent. Something I've been saying a lot recently when helping people is that getting on macOS is easy - it's the whole figuring out how to fix what either does work or misbehaves that's "hard." But once you figure that stuff out, you're golden. Just as an example, I have a boot argument solely so Safari lets me play Netflix, Hulu, Amazon videos and make the Apple TV app work. It's usually just weird things like that. But since I have it working now, I never need to revisit it.
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Jan 28, 2020 06:57
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As I was reading through the posts I started thinking about how I am so much not that thrilled with Catalina. I feel like hackintoshing has gone downhill, not to mention the overall macos experience. None of the software that I used regularly on Sierra is well supported. On the Windows side it's really easy to find something to convert video and author DVDs and Blu-Ray discs. On MacOS it's now frustrating especially since the support for 32 bit software got murdered. Toast 18 promises that it works, but that's another $120 for the update including the Blu-Ray "add on" which is BS to begin with. But reports are that it doesn't even really work that well and I am sure as hell not spending that money to have it MAYBE work. My printer doesn't work (thanks, Canon) and instead of getting a new printer I ended up getting a $27 core2duo mac mini off Shopgoodwill.com to run my printer/scanner. If I need to print or scan, I just use screen sharing on my Catalina box to my mini. Way cheaper than a new printer with no-aftermarket-cartridge-availability. For some reason my Toast 14 disc will not install on the mini so I don't even know what to do about that at this point. I guess we will see. TL;DR - Not super happy with Catalina. Consider maybe not switching if you don't really really need to.
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Jan 28, 2020 07:34
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Mojave 4 lyfe, then? At least it's still getting security updates if the point updates are frozen forever.
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Jan 28, 2020 17:29
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Mojave is this decade's 10.6.8.
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Jan 28, 2020 18:00
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I am sitting on Mojave even on my real Macs if for no other reason then to keep Safari 12. 13 is drat near worthless.
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Jan 28, 2020 18:39
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Catalina is a loving disaster of epic proportions. I've had a string of mac users asking me to downgrade their machines so they can run the software they paid for.
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Jan 28, 2020 18:42
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It's also about a bunch of Mac developers that are too lazy to recompile their code with the 64 bit flag enabled, or worse unwilling to rewrite their code so that it will work for 64-bit instead of 32-bit operation. Particularly nasty are all the printer/scanner Mac drivers stuck at 32-bit; since a lot of those drivers are programmed by third party developers, a lot of vendors aren't going to spend the money to go back to those guys and tell them to make 64-bit versions, especially for devices 3 years old or more.. unless a vendor realizes they have a customer base in full revolt, they're either not going to lift a finger (saves money) or just tell people to buy the latest version of their doodad (makes money.) Not to white knight Apple too far, but they did tell all their developers months ago to get ready for 64-bit or have their products blow up in their faces..
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Jan 28, 2020 19:44
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Binary Badger posted:It's also about a bunch of Mac developers that are too lazy to recompile their code with the 64 bit flag enabled, or worse unwilling to rewrite their code so that it will work for 64-bit instead of 32-bit operation. Well to play devils advocate here I think it was too early to kill 32-bit apps and more importantly I don’t think Apple realized how much 32-but software was still being used regularly and how much was not and likely never will be updated. I think someone there thought that MacOS would be like iOS in which the switch to 64-bit only for the most part be painless as anything not updated would be so old it wouldn’t be widely used anyway. They also made it 64-bit only in their dev tools for years prior to the switch. It was a grave mistake and one has to wonder how they will handle things going forward. If you have a large percentage of the user base holding off on a older version of the OS to be able to use the hardware/software they own and/or use it is not good for them.
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Jan 29, 2020 00:49
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Was there a compelling reason to drop 32bit?
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Jan 29, 2020 00:58
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oohhboy posted:Was there a compelling reason to drop 32bit? Not really at least to the consumer.
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Jan 29, 2020 01:55
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I've talked to a number of people with 32-bit versions of Office. That alone is not a cheap upgrade.
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Jan 29, 2020 02:11
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hey girl you up posted:I've talked to a number of people with 32-bit versions of Office. That alone is not a cheap upgrade. Doesn't help that 64-bit Office is poop and a lot of plugins don't work with it either.
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Jan 29, 2020 05:27
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Djarum posted:Well to play devils advocate here I think it was too early to kill 32-bit apps and more importantly I don’t think Apple realized how much 32-but software was still being used regularly and how much was not and likely never will be updated. It's more complicated than this. The main reason 32 bit is going away is that it's wiping away the last vestiges of the Classic to Mac OS X transition, Carbon. 32 bit x86 on the Mac still had active use of the Carbon APIs, and with the retirement of 32 bit executables, all of that API has gone away. From their perspective, that's a lot less testing and things to build against, and it is a LOT of cruft to be gone. There's also some other technical reasons. I think this is an excellent summary: https://pilky.me/apples-technology-transitions/ The last time we had a transition that broke stuff was in 10.7 when PowerPC went away, and before that 10.5 killed Classic. The first rumblings about 32 bit going away happened with 10.13 in 2017, but Apple didn't really get aggressive about warning people until the 2018 WWDC when 10.14 was announced and saying it would be the last version that would run 32 bit apps. If you were an active dev, you should have started your port at that time (and not like my devs, who ignored warnings and started it around the Catalina announcement and probably won't ship until March). Honestly, the Mac makes it very easy to have a 64 bit application, and one should have been cross-building IA64 for years. Fat binaries and the multiple ABI abilities of OS X makes this a lot easier, but I remember the day we dropped PowerPC support and I still had people trying to run things on G5s in 2012 call me and complain about it when they were three OS releases behind, and that's when Apple wasn't releasing yearly updates. I've lived through three major development transitions to account for (Classic to OS X, PowerPC to Intel, and now 32 to 64 bit) and they've all gone the same way. Users gripe and maybe wait a release, some software gets left behind, developers adapt. In two cases (PPC to Intel and ia32 to ia64) the software my company makes was ported at the absolute last minute because nobody ever heeds warnings, especially when those of us in QA/lower level development warn management and dev leads that "Hey, this is going to happen, it's bad, we should be ahead of it." When the first intel Macs were released, we should have started work on the Intel port, but it didn't get done in earnest until Lion was announced. By that time, Intel Macs had been on the market for three years! We had no one to blame but ourselves for not actually keeping up with the direction of the platform. TBH, it's been remarkable how long it's been since we last had a breaking transition. IA32 lasted on the Mac from 2006 to 2019, that's 13 years of general compatibility. Whether Apple dropped 32 bit this year or next year, we'd still end up with the same transition issues, which were exactly the same when PowerPC was dropped because people don't do things until they're forced. The exact same things were said back then, but devs and users adjusted and moved on. Does this gain anything directly for end users? Not really, ditching PowerPC apps didn't help end users either. But these kinds of transitions have been part and parcel of this platform for 25+ years since the first PowerPC Macs came out, and I'd expect one in another five to ten years. This is all aside from the bugginess of some Catalina apps, which is a separate issue not to be confused with the 32bitpocalypse.
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Jan 29, 2020 15:24
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I'm really liking Catalina. 
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Jan 29, 2020 15:43
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I wish I was. I have something somewhat fun / functional to share. I broke Lilu/Whatevergreen last night on my main machine. I had not updated it with hackintool or anything and the kext cache clear didn't take so my screen was black when I rebooted. "ugh" I thought. But then I went to the other room to watch tv with the wife and I opened my laptop and used VNC to access screen sharing to my mac mini that runs my scanner / printer and I had a thought... Can I still access my main machine? Turns out. YES. If you are stuck at a black screen and struggle to use command line tools to get through and redo your kexts etc, you can just use Screen Sharing / VNC to login to your blackscreened machine and fix it visually. This saved me a lot of time. It will hopefully help others.
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Jan 30, 2020 02:05
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(Crossposted from the hardware thread ‘cause I’m a moron) I have a question that perhaps this thread can answer - I’m updating a couple of my Hacks to High Sierra and am wondering what the best used video card is in terms of compatibility. I have been using Nvidia, but since the web drivers aren’t being refreshed anymore(and they always seem a bit janky), I’m looking at AMD. I’d like to spend about $100-$150 for each card, and my primary objective is to keep the install as vanilla as possible, with OOB compatibility being preferred. I’ve been looking at RX480/580 8gb cards - are there any particular models that have issues or any models THAT JUST WORK? Or should I be looking at a different card? Any advice is appreciated.
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Feb 1, 2020 18:58
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JnnyThndrs posted:I have a question that perhaps this thread can answer - I’m updating a couple of my Hacks to High Sierra and am wondering what the best used video card is in terms of compatibility. I have been using Nvidia, but since the web drivers aren’t being refreshed anymore(and they always seem a bit janky), I’m looking at AMD. I'm afraid you're wrong on the refresh part; nVidia just released new web drivers for High Sierra Security Update 2020-001. Can't speak to the janky part as I'm still using a generic GTX 770 2GB in HS and an EVGA Mac Edition GTX 680 under Mojave on two older Mac Pros 4,1 flashed to 5,1 with no real issues (but I don't game on them.) quote:I’d like to spend about $100-$150 for each card, and my primary objective is to keep the install as vanilla as possible, with OOB compatibility being preferred. I’ve been looking at RX480/580 8gb cards - are there any particular models that have issues or any models THAT JUST WORK? Or should I be looking at a different card? It's always best to get AMD cards that are as close to reference cards as possible; Gigabyte and XFX are baaaaad brands for this IMHO. Apple themselves recommend Sapphire Radeon Pulse 580s, new they're at sub-$200 levels, and they're considered the go-to card for actual Mac Pro 5,1s and yes they just work OOTB, no need to do any of that ROM flashing or undervolting poo poo.
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Feb 1, 2020 19:24
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Awesome, the Sapphire cards are exactly what I need, I just didn’t know if other cards would work or it was important to stick with the Sapphire. I’m not going to chance it. What I meant about the web drivers not being updated is that the GTX10x0 series seems to be the end of the line as far as card support.
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Feb 1, 2020 19:57
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JnnyThndrs posted:(Crossposted from the hardware thread ‘cause I’m a moron) I just bought an Asus Dual rx 480 from a dude in S/A Mart for $80. I can confirm that it was as easy as swapping cards, refreshing LILU/Whatevergreen and poof. It’s so nice not to have glitchy video anymore.
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Feb 2, 2020 09:54
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Posting this from an i5 Intel Nuc on Catalina, from clueless about everything hackintosh to up and running in a couple of hours. Was going to configure a mini-ITX system which admittedly for basically the same price ($750 cad) would have been far more impressive in CPU/GPU power, but then thought about what I would actually be using it for, my limited space and reports on how easy it was to get a Nuc going as a build so went this route and no regrets. Even going with third-party ram and avoiding Apple's markup there, an equivalent Mac mini with 500gb SSD+16gb was $1600, and doesn't even have hyperthreading like this does. Blows away my 2018 $1700 macbook in performance (which was a dual-core i7). Only drawbacks were expected - no bluetooth/wifi. I've ordered an Archer wifi USB to fix the latter (frankly I wouldn't bother as I'm right next to my router, but Apple's location services for maps/siri require Wifi, wtf?), but for bluetooth I have the supposed IoGear bluetooth USB dongle already that's reported as compatible, but nothing happens when I plug it in. From what I've read it's plug and play, do I need a kext for it to work with Catalina? I've also seen reports of other Nuc users getting internal bluetooth (but not wifi) to work - anyone know if this is possible with a NUC8i5BEK? Would like to avoid using another usb port if possible.
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Feb 5, 2020 21:57
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Oh was it your tweet I saw
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Feb 5, 2020 21:59
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Thanks Ants posted:Oh was it your tweet I saw that me
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Feb 5, 2020 22:00
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Happy_Misanthrope posted:Posting this from an i5 Intel Nuc on Catalina, from clueless about everything hackintosh to up and running in a couple of hours. Was going to configure a mini-ITX system which admittedly for basically the same price ($750 cad) would have been far more impressive in CPU/GPU power, but then thought about what I would actually be using it for, my limited space and reports on how easy it was to get a Nuc going as a build so went this route and no regrets. Even going with third-party ram and avoiding Apple's markup there, an equivalent Mac mini with 500gb SSD+16gb was $1600, and doesn't even have hyperthreading like this does. Blows away my 2018 $1700 macbook in performance (which was a dual-core i7). Does your build have space for an internal card? You'll more than likely be guided towards buying a card that just supports both wifi and bluetooth natively on macOS. I think people go with the Fenvi T919 now. I'm using a Broadcom BCM943602CS I got off eBay when it was around $30. You'll probably have better luck with he Fenvi. This is the card I have in my unit now. https://www.ebay.com/itm/253265796374
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Feb 5, 2020 22:22
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LODGE NORTH posted:Does your build have space for an internal card? You'll more than likely be guided towards buying a card that just supports both wifi and bluetooth natively on macOS. I think people go with the Fenvi T919 now. I'm using a Broadcom BCM943602CS I got off eBay when it was around $30. You'll probably have better luck with he Fenvi. No, it's a Nuc, the wireless + bt module is soldered in.
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Feb 5, 2020 23:19
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I have one of those Fenvi cards and I have a new problem that I’ve noticed. Ever since about a week ago every time I come back to unlock the computer after being away from it for a while the WiFi seems to lock up and my torrent traffic (Linux ISOs, calm down) is dead. It won’t seem to unlock with my Apple Watch anymore either, which seems to be tied to the WiFi deal- however the Bluetooth mouse and keyboard work just hunky dory. This has only happened since I installed my new video card. Might be a coincidence. Thoughts?
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Feb 5, 2020 23:24
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Happy_Misanthrope posted:No, it's a Nuc, the wireless + bt module is soldered in. The Nucs I've seen had that on a modular card, m.2 or whatever.
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Feb 6, 2020 01:00
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Not on the 8th gen ones - the antennas connect to the tiny little sockets by the silver square at the bottom of this image
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Feb 6, 2020 10:22
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Happy_Misanthrope posted:Only drawbacks were expected - no bluetooth/wifi. I've ordered an Archer wifi USB to fix the latter (frankly I wouldn't bother as I'm right next to my router, but Apple's location services for maps/siri require Wifi, wtf?), Bad news? It's not seen as a wireless adapter by Mac OS, just another network adapter. So Siri/Maps don't consider it a wireless connection, and thus still have no idea where my Nuc is located. 
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Feb 8, 2020 05:22
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Happy_Misanthrope posted:Posting this from an i5 Intel Nuc on Catalina, from clueless about everything hackintosh to up and running in a couple of hours. Was going to configure a mini-ITX system which admittedly for basically the same price ($750 cad) would have been far more impressive in CPU/GPU power, but then thought about what I would actually be using it for, my limited space and reports on how easy it was to get a Nuc going as a build so went this route and no regrets. Even going with third-party ram and avoiding Apple's markup there, an equivalent Mac mini with 500gb SSD+16gb was $1600, and doesn't even have hyperthreading like this does. Blows away my 2018 $1700 macbook in performance (which was a dual-core i7). Once that's done, I was able to get the Kinivo BTD-400 Bluetooth USB dongle to work out of the box. I had a previous IO Gear that wouldn't work with this machine, so IDK. The Kinivo is a Broadcom chipset, and those are usually widely compatible. Note this is on Mojave. I actually got the built-in BT to work, in the most roundabout way possible, and I definitely don't recommend bothering, since it won't survive if you have to ever shut the machine down or the power goes off.
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Feb 8, 2020 20:30
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Chris Knight posted:I've got an i3 NUC (NUC7i3BNH) and one of the big things you need to do is disable both the built-in WiFi and Bluetooth in the BIOS before trying to get them to work with replacement hardware.
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Feb 9, 2020 07:37
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Happy_Misanthrope posted:Posting this from an i5 Intel Nuc on Catalina, from clueless about everything hackintosh to up and running in a couple of hours. Was going to configure a mini-ITX system which admittedly for basically the same price ($750 cad) would have been far more impressive in CPU/GPU power, but then thought about what I would actually be using it for, my limited space and reports on how easy it was to get a Nuc going as a build so went this route and no regrets. Even going with third-party ram and avoiding Apple's markup there, an equivalent Mac mini with 500gb SSD+16gb was $1600, and doesn't even have hyperthreading like this does. Blows away my 2018 $1700 macbook in performance (which was a dual-core i7). Do you have any guides you used? I'm trying to get an Intel NUC up and running myself and failing spectacularly
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Feb 10, 2020 05:53
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