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I use OpenCore but have switched my Hackintosh system over to running in a VM (using GPU passthrough). It's easier for me to backup / make changes this way, and

I use OpenCore but have switched my Hackintosh system over to running in a VM (using GPU passthrough). It's easier for me to backup / make changes this way, and there is only a minor performance hit. This is a Geekbench run from my VM (Core i9 10940x with 4 cores passed through): https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/15395105 https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/15395105 I have a Windows 10 VM running on a same system too. It may not be suitable if you require virtualization inside macOS itself though. Nested virtualization doesn't work too well with the Android emulator, in my experience.

terhechte 6y ago
As I'm currently thinking about also going this route I do have some questions, if I may. Could you elaborate what your hardware setup is? Do you have two screens, and two powerful GPUs? Or do you use a HDMI Switch for one screen? Basically, how do you cope with the hardware limitations of GPU Passthrough (I briefly looked into using a single GPU for passthrough, which seems possible but involved rewriting the GPU rom and I'm not going to do that :)
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  You don't need to rewrite the GPU rom! I never set it up fully due to other issues, but I had High Sierra + GPU passthrough working quite well in ESXI last fall. I would still be using ESXI now, except my (unusual) goal was to run 10.9, and I couldn't for the life of me get GPU passthrough working in 10.9. The neat thing about ESXI, though, is that it is officially supported by macOS. Only on Apple hardware, of course, but with ESXI the motherboard is all fake anyway, so it works identically regardless of the host's hardware. All you need to do is patch out the Apple hardware check, which is easy.
  - weaksauce 6y ago
    do you have any resources to look at for setting this up?
    - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
      I don't! For whatever reason, there is precious little information on the internet for running macOS in ESXI. I got the original idea from another Hacker News comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17766016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17766016 And then, this is what you need to enable macOS on non-Apple hardware: https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/files/file/964-macos-unlocker-v30-for-vmware-esxi/ https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/files/file/964-macos-unloc... The rest is the same as setting up any other VM in ESXI with GPU passthrough, so you can read tutorials on that. High Sierra and an nVidia card "just worked" for me on ESXI. (Sadly, Mavericks did not—I could not get the GPU to output anything—and that was the only OS I cared about—but you probably don't care.) There's a lot more information on using KVM, so you may want to go that route instead. But of course, then then you need to use a Hackintosh bootloader like Clover or OpenCore. It was really cool having everything just install natively with ESXI.
      - weaksauce 6y ago
        well that's a start at least! thanks!
- x3sphere 6y ago
  One screen, two GPUs. For the screen I've got an LG 38GL950G, and the GPUs are a Radeon WX5100 (macOS) and RTX 2080 Ti (Windows). I run the Linux host (Ubuntu) headless. I have the macOS side connected via HDMI and Windows via DisplayPort. Then I switch inputs when through the monitor's OSD for changing the OS (I think there's a way to do this through DDC/CI commands depending on the monitor, in which case you'd be able to write a script to do this, haven't looked into that yet). I have a USB switch for moving all device connections to the OS of my choice. Also the board I have, an X299 Designare, has several USB controllers on their own IOMMU group so you can pass through each to their own VM.
  - Teknoman117 6y ago
    Does passing through the "boot" gpu work well these days? I remember it not working very well in the past.
    - x3sphere 6y ago
      It works fine here on Ubuntu 19.10 (kernel 5.3). I just run the following commands to stop gdm and X after booting: sudo systemctl stop gdm sudo systemctl stop systemd-logind sudo killall gdm-x-session Then start my VM. libvirt automatically unbinds it from the host and binds to the VM. You're right though, in the past this has been problematic. It is working fine though now at least on my Radeon WX 5100.
Hamuko 6y ago
That sounds pretty nice actually. Really the only pain that I feel with my Hackintosh is the updates (which is why I'm still on Mojave). However, I'm not really sure if I want to trade in performance since updates are a periodic pain but a performance hit is gonna always be there.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  OP didn't specify, but I assume they're using a type-1 hypervisor, likely either KVM or ESXI. If you're also using GPU passthrough, the performance loss is minimal—nothing like your standard Virtualbox VM. Now, whether its actually easier to set up than a bare-metal Hackintosh, I'm not so sure. I tried it last fall, and it took a lot of fiddling to get working. (It also flat-out didn't work for my very specific use case, but that's another matter.) Maybe it would be better at surviving updates, but it's not obvious to me that it necessarily would, especially when Clover/OpenCore are already pretty decent at it.
  - x3sphere 6y ago
    Yeah, KVM. Someone setup a repo here with a starter config: https://github.com/Leoyzen/KVM-Opencore https://github.com/Leoyzen/KVM-Opencore You'll need to build a bootable disk image with the EFI folder there, but that should mostly work out of the box. Only thing I changed was the serial numbers so iMessage, iCloud etc work properly. I think it would be easier to set up a working Windows install with passthrough first just so you know you have that portion setup properly, and then do macOS.
tdiggity 6y ago
I wanted to try this but was worried that the gpu pass through wouldn’t be smooth for basic video playback. How well do YouTube and Netflix play? How smooth does it feel overall? Could someone be fooled into thinking it was a native system?
- hrrsn 6y ago
  If you’re passing through an entire GPU, it feels just like a native system
  - omnimus 6y ago
    Can i run 3 screens if the gpu has enough outputs? I mean will it work as it would if it was not vm?
    - kdrag0n 6y ago
      Yes, the VM gets the entire GPU to itself as if it were bare-metal.
    - wtallis 6y ago
      Yes. The VM guest operating system's GPU drivers are not aware of the fact that they're running in a VM, and have full transparent access to all the hardware resources of the GPU that's assigned to that VM.
      - w0utert 6y ago
        I have another question about this. Can I also use the GPU that is passed-through to the guest from the host, once the guest is shut down? For example, say I build a linux host with IGP + powerful discrete GPU. Can I use KVM to pass the discrete GPU to Windows if I want to play a game (using the IGP for the linux desktop) but also use the discreet GPU for Linux CUDA programming after the Windows guest is shut down?
        wtallis 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
unixhero 6y ago
What's your hypervisor os?
- x3sphere 6y ago
  Ubuntu 19.10, using KVM+QEMU
Ecco 6y ago
Nice setup! Quick question: would you recommend getting a Core i9 10940x today or waiting for a 10900K?
rubatuga 6y ago
If you're looking to create a macOS VM (w/ GPU Passthrough), I've made a detailed guide here: https://github.com/yoonsikp/macOS-KVM-PCI-Passthrough https://github.com/yoonsikp/macOS-KVM-PCI-Passthrough I believe my guide is better at avoiding GPU driver initialization problems than others. I'll need to update it to support OpenCore however.
- MegaDeKay 6y ago
  Consider taking a look at this Opencore setup specifically configured for KVM and GPU passthrough. https://github.com/Leoyzen/KVM-Opencore https://github.com/Leoyzen/KVM-Opencore
- stefanwlb 6y ago
  Does nvidia work through GPU pass through as I know hackintosh didn’t support my 1660gti gpu when I tried it a few months ago.
- rubatuga 6y ago
  @stefanwlb I'm not sure if you know but you have been shadow banned. > Does nvidia work through GPU pass through as I know hackintosh didn’t support my 1660gti gpu when I tried it a few months ago. It most likely does not.
vbezhenar 6y ago
For Android I would try to run its emulator on a host machine and make it accessible via network (AFAIK adb works with emulator via TCP connection anyway).

terhechte 6y ago

As I'm currently thinking about also going this route I do have some questions, if I may. Could you elaborate what your hardware setup is? Do you have two screens, and two powerful GPUs? Or do you use a HDMI Switch for one screen? Basically, how do you cope with the hardware limitations of GPU Passthrough (I briefly looked into using a single GPU for passthrough, which seems possible but involved rewriting the GPU rom and I'm not going to do that :)

Wowfunhappy 6y ago
You don't need to rewrite the GPU rom! I never set it up fully due to other issues, but I had High Sierra + GPU passthrough working quite well in ESXI last fall. I would still be using ESXI now, except my (unusual) goal was to run 10.9, and I couldn't for the life of me get GPU passthrough working in 10.9. The neat thing about ESXI, though, is that it is officially supported by macOS. Only on Apple hardware, of course, but with ESXI the motherboard is all fake anyway, so it works identically regardless of the host's hardware. All you need to do is patch out the Apple hardware check, which is easy.
- weaksauce 6y ago
  do you have any resources to look at for setting this up?
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    I don't! For whatever reason, there is precious little information on the internet for running macOS in ESXI. I got the original idea from another Hacker News comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17766016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17766016 And then, this is what you need to enable macOS on non-Apple hardware: https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/files/file/964-macos-unlocker-v30-for-vmware-esxi/ https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/files/file/964-macos-unloc... The rest is the same as setting up any other VM in ESXI with GPU passthrough, so you can read tutorials on that. High Sierra and an nVidia card "just worked" for me on ESXI. (Sadly, Mavericks did not—I could not get the GPU to output anything—and that was the only OS I cared about—but you probably don't care.) There's a lot more information on using KVM, so you may want to go that route instead. But of course, then then you need to use a Hackintosh bootloader like Clover or OpenCore. It was really cool having everything just install natively with ESXI.
    - weaksauce 6y ago
      well that's a start at least! thanks!
x3sphere 6y ago
One screen, two GPUs. For the screen I've got an LG 38GL950G, and the GPUs are a Radeon WX5100 (macOS) and RTX 2080 Ti (Windows). I run the Linux host (Ubuntu) headless. I have the macOS side connected via HDMI and Windows via DisplayPort. Then I switch inputs when through the monitor's OSD for changing the OS (I think there's a way to do this through DDC/CI commands depending on the monitor, in which case you'd be able to write a script to do this, haven't looked into that yet). I have a USB switch for moving all device connections to the OS of my choice. Also the board I have, an X299 Designare, has several USB controllers on their own IOMMU group so you can pass through each to their own VM.
- Teknoman117 6y ago
  Does passing through the "boot" gpu work well these days? I remember it not working very well in the past.
  - x3sphere 6y ago
    It works fine here on Ubuntu 19.10 (kernel 5.3). I just run the following commands to stop gdm and X after booting: sudo systemctl stop gdm sudo systemctl stop systemd-logind sudo killall gdm-x-session Then start my VM. libvirt automatically unbinds it from the host and binds to the VM. You're right though, in the past this has been problematic. It is working fine though now at least on my Radeon WX 5100.

Hamuko 6y ago

That sounds pretty nice actually. Really the only pain that I feel with my Hackintosh is the updates (which is why I'm still on Mojave). However, I'm not really sure if I want to trade in performance since updates are a periodic pain but a performance hit is gonna always be there.

Wowfunhappy 6y ago
OP didn't specify, but I assume they're using a type-1 hypervisor, likely either KVM or ESXI. If you're also using GPU passthrough, the performance loss is minimal—nothing like your standard Virtualbox VM. Now, whether its actually easier to set up than a bare-metal Hackintosh, I'm not so sure. I tried it last fall, and it took a lot of fiddling to get working. (It also flat-out didn't work for my very specific use case, but that's another matter.) Maybe it would be better at surviving updates, but it's not obvious to me that it necessarily would, especially when Clover/OpenCore are already pretty decent at it.
- x3sphere 6y ago
  Yeah, KVM. Someone setup a repo here with a starter config: https://github.com/Leoyzen/KVM-Opencore https://github.com/Leoyzen/KVM-Opencore You'll need to build a bootable disk image with the EFI folder there, but that should mostly work out of the box. Only thing I changed was the serial numbers so iMessage, iCloud etc work properly. I think it would be easier to set up a working Windows install with passthrough first just so you know you have that portion setup properly, and then do macOS.

tdiggity 6y ago

I wanted to try this but was worried that the gpu pass through wouldn’t be smooth for basic video playback. How well do YouTube and Netflix play? How smooth does it feel overall? Could someone be fooled into thinking it was a native system?

hrrsn 6y ago
If you’re passing through an entire GPU, it feels just like a native system
- omnimus 6y ago
  Can i run 3 screens if the gpu has enough outputs? I mean will it work as it would if it was not vm?
  - kdrag0n 6y ago
    Yes, the VM gets the entire GPU to itself as if it were bare-metal.
  - wtallis 6y ago
    Yes. The VM guest operating system's GPU drivers are not aware of the fact that they're running in a VM, and have full transparent access to all the hardware resources of the GPU that's assigned to that VM.
    - w0utert 6y ago
      I have another question about this. Can I also use the GPU that is passed-through to the guest from the host, once the guest is shut down? For example, say I build a linux host with IGP + powerful discrete GPU. Can I use KVM to pass the discrete GPU to Windows if I want to play a game (using the IGP for the linux desktop) but also use the discreet GPU for Linux CUDA programming after the Windows guest is shut down?
      - wtallis 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

unixhero 6y ago

What's your hypervisor os?

x3sphere 6y ago
Ubuntu 19.10, using KVM+QEMU

Ecco 6y ago

Nice setup! Quick question: would you recommend getting a Core i9 10940x today or waiting for a 10900K?

rubatuga 6y ago

If you're looking to create a macOS VM (w/ GPU Passthrough), I've made a detailed guide here: https://github.com/yoonsikp/macOS-KVM-PCI-Passthrough https://github.com/yoonsikp/macOS-KVM-PCI-Passthrough I believe my guide is better at avoiding GPU driver initialization problems than others. I'll need to update it to support OpenCore however.

MegaDeKay 6y ago
Consider taking a look at this Opencore setup specifically configured for KVM and GPU passthrough. https://github.com/Leoyzen/KVM-Opencore https://github.com/Leoyzen/KVM-Opencore
stefanwlb 6y ago
Does nvidia work through GPU pass through as I know hackintosh didn’t support my 1660gti gpu when I tried it a few months ago.
rubatuga 6y ago
@stefanwlb I'm not sure if you know but you have been shadow banned. > Does nvidia work through GPU pass through as I know hackintosh didn’t support my 1660gti gpu when I tried it a few months ago. It most likely does not.

vbezhenar 6y ago

For Android I would try to run its emulator on a host machine and make it accessible via network (AFAIK adb works with emulator via TCP connection anyway).