16 ms·

OpenCore bootloader – open-sourced Apple UEFI drivers, enabling Hackintosh

342 points by reimertz 6y ago

djmobley 6y ago
Have been using OC without issue for around six months on my Hackintosh. Throughout initial set up and upgrading through different releases, I have been very impressed by the quality of the documentation.
nhojb 6y ago
I'll give a big vote of thanks to the OpenCore developers. Clover had constant stability problems during boot on my hardware (Coffee Lake, Z390), but OC has been stable since day one (v0.5.6 IIRC). I've not had a single issue since switching. Also the documentation is second to none.
read_if_gay_ 6y ago
What are everyone’s thoughts on the future of Hackintoshes now that Apple is switching to ARM?
- breakfastduck 6y ago
  I imagine it will continue to work as it does now while the macOS versions still support intel macs - what happens once we're past that is a huge unknown
- brujoand 6y ago
  Would you like some Apple Pie?
- nutjob2 6y ago
  It's probably 2030 before Intel Mac are no longer usable, which is forever in tech time. ARM seems to be spreading its wings when it comes to high end CPUs at the moment (for example, the 96 core 4 thread ThunderX3) and it's not a big stretch to think that they will become commodity parts for desktops and servers in the near future, especially if Microsoft follow Apple's lead. Given brisk competition and open ARM licencing is quite likely to give x86 a run for its money and takes substantial market share. Some people suggest that Apple will do some special custom hardware in the CPU that will mean Hackintoshes are impossible, but any hardware can be emulated in software, so it then becomes a performance issue. Maybe your ML workloads will suck compared to Apple hardware, for instance. I think the biggest danger is that Apple ARM hardware doesn't support non-Apple GPUs, but even then some enterprising hacker will probably accept the challenge and enable a Linux driver bridge or the like.
  - my123 6y ago
    macOS arm64 can run on non-Apple hardware using a relatively lightly changed KVM (and the Qemu-side changes are even less intensive than the iOS on Qemu project). However, it doesn't come without compromises on most hardware. What I can enumerate as risk factors for running macOS arm64 in a VM: - ARMv8.1 atomics are mandatory. This excludes Cortex-A72 devices, like the RPi4, and earlier generations. - 16KB page support are mandatory, excludes the RPi4 and other devices too. - Rosetta uses an MSR to switch the memory model, this makes x86 threads have to all run only at one core at once on Arm CPUs where there isn't a stronger memory model. Notably, some Arm server CPUs provide TSO, making this a non-issue, and Nvidia's Tegra Xavier CPUs provide sequential consistency, making it a non-issue. - PAC, not a big risk factor, trap once and then patch to the non-PAC variant at worst for instructions that aren't in the NOP space. - FP16/dotproduct: provided in HW from quite some other manufacturers, and even when it isn't, you could feasibly emulate those fast enough. On GPUs, Metal paravirtualization exists in macOS 11, maybe would be better to target that for reverse-engineering purposes.
    - aidenn0 6y ago
      How long before Apple has even 1 proprietary extension to arm64 without which macOS won't run? As soon as hw without that extension is EoL, no more hackintoshes.
      - my123 6y ago
        For virtualization not an issue, you could feasibly JIT those away.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      > Rosetta uses an MSR to switch the memory model Even if you give up on Rosetta, there’s all the other MSRs you’ll need to patch–there’s not a huge number of these, but since EL0 has direct access to at least one of these you can’t just patch the kernel. > PAC, not a big risk factor, trap once and then patch to the non-PAC variant at worst for instructions that aren't in the NOP space. You know, I don’t think Apple really uses the backwards-compatible encodings at all. Probably since they don’t need to?
- tw04 6y ago
  I think it'll be a while (if ever) before the Mac Pro moves to an ARM CPU. It's not that I think Apple can't build a CPU to compete in that space, it's that I don't know that there's a large enough market to justify building that CPU. ECC memory, lots and lots of PCIe lanes, dual CPU capable, etc. etc. You can take the iPhone CPU and make it into an ARM CPU for a laptop that can compete with Intel and AMD (somewhat) easily. That same architecture is in no way reflective of what people expect out of a workstation. Unless Apple is going to start running all of their own internal workloads ("Apple Cloud") on their own CPUs, I don't see it happening. And in order to do that, they're going to have to get mainline OS support for it, which again is a very different path to market than doing everything in-house with OSX.
- darwingr 6y ago
  Apple Silicon is not ARM. Same architecture but this is all about the silicon and what extra hardware accelerated features can apple build into the OS by adding modules to their SoC. That will have little to do with the fact that it's using the ARM architecture in relation to getting those features to work on non Apple Silicon devices.
francis_t_catte 6y ago
I use OpenCore, on my 2010 27" iMac of all things. Needed to enable target display mode and native brightness control on the new K610m GPU. So in essence, my actual Macintosh is now a Hackintosh in Apple's eyes. If you have a 2010 or 2011 iMac with a dead GPU btw, check out this thread on the MacRumors forum: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2011-imac-graphics-card-upgrade.1596614/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2011-imac-graphics-card...
- drewg123 6y ago
  I did something similar.. I had an original Mac Pro, which didn't support 64-bit MacOS because Apple's UEFI ran in 32-bit mode and Apple's boot loader / kernel never supported switching into 64-bit mode from 32-bit mode. So to use that machine for 64-bit driver development, I had to make it into a "hackintosh", where they had a UEFI that would run in 64-bit mode..
- PostThisTooFast 6y ago
  A friend gave me his dead iMac, and I mostly gutted it and turned it into a monitor with an LCD driver board off eBay. Kept the stock power supply and put my own PWM module in to control brightness, since some reviews said it wasn't as bright as it was originally.
reimertz 6y ago
I bought an EGPU 1.5 years ago with the idea of replacing my gaming computer with my MacBook Pro running Windows. But due to the limitations of Thunderbolt 3 and the throughput from my enclosure, I cannot get consistent frame rates which is critical for playing fast-paced competitive games like Apex legends. It really sucks and this point, my $1000 EGPU is currently acting as a fancy adapter + charger + enabling smooth scrolling when surfing the webz. But I have been exploring the idea of converting my gaming computer to a Hackintosh instead. This looks very promising since I require stability and security. I just wished there was a combination of above solutions; no need to compromise between stability and performance. Finally, some might say; just buy a Mac Pro! Well, I cannot motivate $6000 Just because I want to game every now and then.. :)
- Synaesthesia 6y ago
  There’s no compromise. Hackintosh is stable and secure now. It’s totally worth doing, and quite fun to boot.
  - throwaway234101 6y ago
    Clover was stable. OpenCore isn't. It'll take a few years yet before it gets to the same level of ease of use and stability Clover achieved. Source: I installed Catalina via OpenCore on a new machine last weekend. It's very similar to installing Arch Linux for the first time.
    - jonfw 6y ago
      Ease of use and stability are very different things, which often have conflict between each other
    - aikinai 6y ago
      I installed Catalina with OpenCore earlier this year and it was the smoothest Hackintosh experience yet, especially with their accurate, clear, and up-to-date documentation.
    - kristofferR 6y ago
VWWHFSfQ 6y ago
I never understood the appeal of Hackintosh. Linux has a hard enough time getting touchpad, display, suspend/resume, etc working on regular PC laptops. Does any of that stuff have hope for working well on reasonably modern MacBooks? Maybe this is more for reviving a 10+ year old Apple computer with Ubuntu? I understand that it's kind of fun and interesting but I feel like you're just punishing yourself if your goal is to actually try to use it day-to-day. Just get a Dell. edit: I now realize this is for running macOS on PC hardware. I remember that I had a coworker back in like 2008 that booted his Dell Mini 10v Netbook with Mac OS X and it was fun to look at but comically non-functional. But he forced himself to use it..
- throwaway234101 6y ago
  Hackintosh: because Apple doesn't offer a $1000 Mac Pro.
  - whywhywhywhy 6y ago
    I honestly would have been fine with a $2500 Mac Pro before I switched my performance computing over to Windows. I'm not looking for a cheap machine, I'm just looking for good value performance and expandability for what I'm paying.
    - throwaway234101 6y ago
      > I honestly would have been fine with a $2500 Mac Pro The cheapest mac pro you can get with modern hardware is $6000. My hackintosh is $1500 because I do like a fast machine that I can play games on every now and then.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  It's the other way around, Hackintosh is Mac OS on non-Apple hardware (for example, a Dell).
- rangibaby 6y ago
  Hackintosh means running MacOS on non-Apple hardware, which can be a nice way to avoid the Apple tax. I run Ubuntu on my 2013 MacBook retina. Everything works!
dopu 6y ago
It was incredibly worth it for me to turn my gaming PC into a hackintosh, if only for the experience of running macOS on strong hardware without needing to spend thousands of dollars. Unfortunately, I can't upgrade higher than High Sierra, since I'm using an Nvidia GPU. So I'll have to switch to AMD GPUs at some point down the road. I suppose that's what I get for using proprietary software.
- hashmymustache 6y ago
  You definitely can use later OS releases just need to manually install the drivers using something like https://github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/nvidia-update https://github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/nvidia-update
  - acorad 6y ago
    There is no support for newer nvidia gpus on Mojave and newer; not even this script can help, correct me if i'm wrong.
runjake 6y ago
Hackintoshes are very stable if: - You buy the right hardware. Intel CPU and AMD GPU. Choose Ryzen if you like those and like tinkering and hacking on your OS a lot. And no, it's very unlikely your Nvidia GPU will ever work with a recent macOS. - You use the vanilla method of macOS install. The dortania guides along with /r/hackintosh are all you need. Avoid tonymacx86, insanelymac, and any software with the word "beast" in the name. Run screaming from them. Do not mess with the OS install, do not put any kexts into the OS install. Put everything into EFI. - You set aside the occasional day for OS updates (and possibly updating OpenCore). You do not want to update willy-nilly and you definitely want to wait a day or few for the more brave to guinea pig any issues. I've been using a 8700K/RX580 hackintosh for years now, and in many ways, it's been more stable than my actual Macs -- and certainly more modular and expandable.
- ssijak 6y ago
  Dont use Ryzen, virtualization does not work, including Docker and some other apps like Adobe ones are buggy. Other than that I agree. I made a hackintosh a month ago for half the price of what I would need to pay Apple and it is rock solid. Everything works including all wireless features like sidecar, airdrop, etc. Sleep, thunderbold, rx5700xt, everything is working well.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - breakfastduck 6y ago
    I've been tempted before but am super wary of the fact I may suddenly become stuck on a certain version of macOS because updating it breaks everything. I imagine you're knowledgeable as you've built one - is that a genuine risk? Or do all versions become hackable eventually?
    - katmannthree 6y ago
      I'm not the person you replied to but I've used hackintoshes since the Snow Leopard days. Generally if you set it up properly as was described at the beginning of this thread minor updates will work fine without any user input. Some major updates will be the same, with others you might end up needing to change some kexts to fix audio or wifi but it'll generally boot. With major updates that change a lot you might be better off backing up your data and doing a fresh install. So far all versions have become hackable (generally in a matter of days or weeks) but with Apple's transition to their own silicon I imagine the last version they put out that supports x86_64 will be the final hackintoshable build.
Abishek_Muthian 6y ago
The bootloader development in Hackintosh scene never cease to amaze me. I remember the lead developer of Clover bootloader[1] Slice, still developing it on his old Dell with 32 bit Snowleopard when it was being used for Mountain Lion and later. But the interest in Hackintosh seems to be slowing down[2]? , it's not like Macs have become affordable, if anything Mac Pro is prohibitively expensive and hackintosh generally made more sense to those struck with underpowered Mac Pro. Most of all, what will happen to the Hackintosh scene due to Apple Silicon? Will the community take up the challenge and make macOS work on Raspberry Pi 10(I understand that Apple Silicon is not vanilla ARM spec) or fizzle out? [1]https://sourceforge.net/projects/cloverefiboot/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/cloverefiboot/ [2]https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=Hackintosh https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=Hackinto...
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  I can't explain those Google Trends and I won't blame you for trusting them over the feelings of some guy on the internet, but it doesn't match my own experience at all. On the contrary, Hackintosh feels like it has become bigger and more mainstream, relatively speaking. (Mind, I still think the scene's days are numbered due to Apple Silicon.)
  - tinco 6y ago
    Maybe running Hackintosh has become so easy you need less Google queries to achieve it!
- tinco 6y ago
  I think the answer is simply that Ubuntu has become good enough. The whole point of running MacOS was to get POSIX compliance with a polished GUI. No Windows, pretty terminals smooth fonts good UX. Now MacOS has no edge over Ubuntu in any sense. Ubuntu runs Docker natively and Cuda. It has an insanely user friendly installer, it runs on a wide range of hardware with no issues and its default GUI is great.
  - kochthesecond 6y ago
elagost 6y ago
As someone who used to do this myself, I don't quite understand why people still go through all the effort to run macOS. In the past I've built Hackintoshes on desktops and laptops, and it was fun to accomplish (audio through HDMI was especially tricky!), but in the end it was slower, less stable, and not nearly as useful as running Linux on the same hardware. I run Linux on everything these days. What's the draw? Better off buying a mac if you want the "Apple Experience" anyway. If you don't, I don't imagine why you'd want anything to do with this.
- jtchang 6y ago
  Price, flexibility, control are some of the top things that come to mind. Yes there can definitely be stability issues but if you are in some country where you want to develop iOS apps but can't really afford a high end Mac this makes sense. Also as a stepping stone into their ecosystem. Also it is hard to underestimate the amount of polish that Apple puts into their UI. Overall it is a pretty good experience especially compared to some of the windowing systems on various flavors of linux. Polish is something that does not come easily in the open source world.
- paulpan 6y ago
  It's largely (if not entirely) due to the cost-to-performance ratio. Apple's cheapest Mac configuration, the Mac Mini, starts at $799 for a measly i3 4-core processor and 8GB of RAM with no dedicated GPU. For the same price, I can put together something of at least 2X the performance: i5 6-core, 16GB RAM, and an RX 570/580 GPU. Granted for Hackintoshes you're on your own for debugging but as others below have said and on r/hackintosh, the end product is oftentimes very stable. So tradeoff can be worth it, especially as you go up the product stack.
- kitsunesoba 6y ago
  I switched away from a hackintosh tower to a real Mac recently because things lined up for that to make sense, but previously I hackintoshed because nothing came as close to checking all of my boxes for a desktop environment as even just out of the box macOS. No amount of effort spent on customizing Windows does the trick because of things about it that are unchangeable (like its terrible text rendering), and while a Linux setup can get close (especially if eschewing a monolithic DE), it requires pouring countless hours into it to get it there, and even then many details are wrong and random things are flaky.
steveharman 6y ago
My new Ryzentosh is faster (single core Geekbench results) than any of Apple's hardware (iMac Pro, Mac Pro...) Yet it cost less to build than the Apple charges for Mac Pro wheels.
eddyg 6y ago
Is there a current "most compatible"/"recommended" hardware list somewhere so if you wanted to buy parts for a new Mac Pro-like Hackintosh you'd have the best chance of "everything working"?
- MarioMan 6y ago
  tonymacx86 has maintained a recommended hardware list that gets regularly updated here: https://www.tonymacx86.com/buyersguide/building-a-customac-hackintosh-the-ultimate-buyers-guide/ https://www.tonymacx86.com/buyersguide/building-a-customac-h... Another useful guide from r/hackintosh lists hardware to avoid: https://dortania.github.io/Anti-Hackintosh-Buyers-Guide/ https://dortania.github.io/Anti-Hackintosh-Buyers-Guide/
atum47 6y ago
is a hackingtosh the cheapest way of developing apps for iOS? should I anticipate any problems in case I go that way? I'm working on some games and apps but only publishing it for Android, cause I don't own a mac.
- skrowl 6y ago
  I build iOS apps using Visual Studio 2019 + Xamarin on Windows, then running macOS in a VMWare VM that basically just functions as a build server (Windows communicates with it via SSH). You can find lots of YouTube videos describing how to do it. It's technically against the macOS terms of service, but the macOS terms of service are likely illegal anyways (monopoly bundling of hardware + software, etc).

342 points by reimertz 6y ago

Have been using OC without issue for around six months on my Hackintosh. Throughout initial set up and upgrading through different releases, I have been very impressed by the quality of the documentation.

nhojb 6y ago

I'll give a big vote of thanks to the OpenCore developers. Clover had constant stability problems during boot on my hardware (Coffee Lake, Z390), but OC has been stable since day one (v0.5.6 IIRC). I've not had a single issue since switching. Also the documentation is second to none.

read_if_gay_ 6y ago

What are everyone’s thoughts on the future of Hackintoshes now that Apple is switching to ARM?

breakfastduck 6y ago
I imagine it will continue to work as it does now while the macOS versions still support intel macs - what happens once we're past that is a huge unknown
brujoand 6y ago
Would you like some Apple Pie?
nutjob2 6y ago
It's probably 2030 before Intel Mac are no longer usable, which is forever in tech time. ARM seems to be spreading its wings when it comes to high end CPUs at the moment (for example, the 96 core 4 thread ThunderX3) and it's not a big stretch to think that they will become commodity parts for desktops and servers in the near future, especially if Microsoft follow Apple's lead. Given brisk competition and open ARM licencing is quite likely to give x86 a run for its money and takes substantial market share. Some people suggest that Apple will do some special custom hardware in the CPU that will mean Hackintoshes are impossible, but any hardware can be emulated in software, so it then becomes a performance issue. Maybe your ML workloads will suck compared to Apple hardware, for instance. I think the biggest danger is that Apple ARM hardware doesn't support non-Apple GPUs, but even then some enterprising hacker will probably accept the challenge and enable a Linux driver bridge or the like.
- my123 6y ago
  macOS arm64 can run on non-Apple hardware using a relatively lightly changed KVM (and the Qemu-side changes are even less intensive than the iOS on Qemu project). However, it doesn't come without compromises on most hardware. What I can enumerate as risk factors for running macOS arm64 in a VM: - ARMv8.1 atomics are mandatory. This excludes Cortex-A72 devices, like the RPi4, and earlier generations. - 16KB page support are mandatory, excludes the RPi4 and other devices too. - Rosetta uses an MSR to switch the memory model, this makes x86 threads have to all run only at one core at once on Arm CPUs where there isn't a stronger memory model. Notably, some Arm server CPUs provide TSO, making this a non-issue, and Nvidia's Tegra Xavier CPUs provide sequential consistency, making it a non-issue. - PAC, not a big risk factor, trap once and then patch to the non-PAC variant at worst for instructions that aren't in the NOP space. - FP16/dotproduct: provided in HW from quite some other manufacturers, and even when it isn't, you could feasibly emulate those fast enough. On GPUs, Metal paravirtualization exists in macOS 11, maybe would be better to target that for reverse-engineering purposes.
  - aidenn0 6y ago
    How long before Apple has even 1 proprietary extension to arm64 without which macOS won't run? As soon as hw without that extension is EoL, no more hackintoshes.
    - my123 6y ago
      For virtualization not an issue, you could feasibly JIT those away.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    > Rosetta uses an MSR to switch the memory model Even if you give up on Rosetta, there’s all the other MSRs you’ll need to patch–there’s not a huge number of these, but since EL0 has direct access to at least one of these you can’t just patch the kernel. > PAC, not a big risk factor, trap once and then patch to the non-PAC variant at worst for instructions that aren't in the NOP space. You know, I don’t think Apple really uses the backwards-compatible encodings at all. Probably since they don’t need to?
tw04 6y ago
I think it'll be a while (if ever) before the Mac Pro moves to an ARM CPU. It's not that I think Apple can't build a CPU to compete in that space, it's that I don't know that there's a large enough market to justify building that CPU. ECC memory, lots and lots of PCIe lanes, dual CPU capable, etc. etc. You can take the iPhone CPU and make it into an ARM CPU for a laptop that can compete with Intel and AMD (somewhat) easily. That same architecture is in no way reflective of what people expect out of a workstation. Unless Apple is going to start running all of their own internal workloads ("Apple Cloud") on their own CPUs, I don't see it happening. And in order to do that, they're going to have to get mainline OS support for it, which again is a very different path to market than doing everything in-house with OSX.
darwingr 6y ago
Apple Silicon is not ARM. Same architecture but this is all about the silicon and what extra hardware accelerated features can apple build into the OS by adding modules to their SoC. That will have little to do with the fact that it's using the ARM architecture in relation to getting those features to work on non Apple Silicon devices.

francis_t_catte 6y ago

I use OpenCore, on my 2010 27" iMac of all things. Needed to enable target display mode and native brightness control on the new K610m GPU. So in essence, my actual Macintosh is now a Hackintosh in Apple's eyes. If you have a 2010 or 2011 iMac with a dead GPU btw, check out this thread on the MacRumors forum: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2011-imac-graphics-card-upgrade.1596614/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2011-imac-graphics-card...

drewg123 6y ago
I did something similar.. I had an original Mac Pro, which didn't support 64-bit MacOS because Apple's UEFI ran in 32-bit mode and Apple's boot loader / kernel never supported switching into 64-bit mode from 32-bit mode. So to use that machine for 64-bit driver development, I had to make it into a "hackintosh", where they had a UEFI that would run in 64-bit mode..
PostThisTooFast 6y ago
A friend gave me his dead iMac, and I mostly gutted it and turned it into a monitor with an LCD driver board off eBay. Kept the stock power supply and put my own PWM module in to control brightness, since some reviews said it wasn't as bright as it was originally.

reimertz 6y ago

I bought an EGPU 1.5 years ago with the idea of replacing my gaming computer with my MacBook Pro running Windows. But due to the limitations of Thunderbolt 3 and the throughput from my enclosure, I cannot get consistent frame rates which is critical for playing fast-paced competitive games like Apex legends. It really sucks and this point, my $1000 EGPU is currently acting as a fancy adapter + charger + enabling smooth scrolling when surfing the webz. But I have been exploring the idea of converting my gaming computer to a Hackintosh instead. This looks very promising since I require stability and security. I just wished there was a combination of above solutions; no need to compromise between stability and performance. Finally, some might say; just buy a Mac Pro! Well, I cannot motivate $6000 Just because I want to game every now and then.. :)

Synaesthesia 6y ago
There’s no compromise. Hackintosh is stable and secure now. It’s totally worth doing, and quite fun to boot.
- throwaway234101 6y ago
  Clover was stable. OpenCore isn't. It'll take a few years yet before it gets to the same level of ease of use and stability Clover achieved. Source: I installed Catalina via OpenCore on a new machine last weekend. It's very similar to installing Arch Linux for the first time.
  - jonfw 6y ago
    Ease of use and stability are very different things, which often have conflict between each other
  - aikinai 6y ago
    I installed Catalina with OpenCore earlier this year and it was the smoothest Hackintosh experience yet, especially with their accurate, clear, and up-to-date documentation.
  - kristofferR 6y ago

VWWHFSfQ 6y ago

I never understood the appeal of Hackintosh. Linux has a hard enough time getting touchpad, display, suspend/resume, etc working on regular PC laptops. Does any of that stuff have hope for working well on reasonably modern MacBooks? Maybe this is more for reviving a 10+ year old Apple computer with Ubuntu? I understand that it's kind of fun and interesting but I feel like you're just punishing yourself if your goal is to actually try to use it day-to-day. Just get a Dell. edit: I now realize this is for running macOS on PC hardware. I remember that I had a coworker back in like 2008 that booted his Dell Mini 10v Netbook with Mac OS X and it was fun to look at but comically non-functional. But he forced himself to use it..

throwaway234101 6y ago
Hackintosh: because Apple doesn't offer a $1000 Mac Pro.
- whywhywhywhy 6y ago
  I honestly would have been fine with a $2500 Mac Pro before I switched my performance computing over to Windows. I'm not looking for a cheap machine, I'm just looking for good value performance and expandability for what I'm paying.
  - throwaway234101 6y ago
    > I honestly would have been fine with a $2500 Mac Pro The cheapest mac pro you can get with modern hardware is $6000. My hackintosh is $1500 because I do like a fast machine that I can play games on every now and then.
StavrosK 6y ago
It's the other way around, Hackintosh is Mac OS on non-Apple hardware (for example, a Dell).
rangibaby 6y ago
Hackintosh means running MacOS on non-Apple hardware, which can be a nice way to avoid the Apple tax. I run Ubuntu on my 2013 MacBook retina. Everything works!

dopu 6y ago

It was incredibly worth it for me to turn my gaming PC into a hackintosh, if only for the experience of running macOS on strong hardware without needing to spend thousands of dollars. Unfortunately, I can't upgrade higher than High Sierra, since I'm using an Nvidia GPU. So I'll have to switch to AMD GPUs at some point down the road. I suppose that's what I get for using proprietary software.

hashmymustache 6y ago
You definitely can use later OS releases just need to manually install the drivers using something like https://github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/nvidia-update https://github.com/Benjamin-Dobell/nvidia-update
- acorad 6y ago
  There is no support for newer nvidia gpus on Mojave and newer; not even this script can help, correct me if i'm wrong.

runjake 6y ago

Hackintoshes are very stable if: - You buy the right hardware. Intel CPU and AMD GPU. Choose Ryzen if you like those and like tinkering and hacking on your OS a lot. And no, it's very unlikely your Nvidia GPU will ever work with a recent macOS. - You use the vanilla method of macOS install. The dortania guides along with /r/hackintosh are all you need. Avoid tonymacx86, insanelymac, and any software with the word "beast" in the name. Run screaming from them. Do not mess with the OS install, do not put any kexts into the OS install. Put everything into EFI. - You set aside the occasional day for OS updates (and possibly updating OpenCore). You do not want to update willy-nilly and you definitely want to wait a day or few for the more brave to guinea pig any issues. I've been using a 8700K/RX580 hackintosh for years now, and in many ways, it's been more stable than my actual Macs -- and certainly more modular and expandable.

ssijak 6y ago
Dont use Ryzen, virtualization does not work, including Docker and some other apps like Adobe ones are buggy. Other than that I agree. I made a hackintosh a month ago for half the price of what I would need to pay Apple and it is rock solid. Everything works including all wireless features like sidecar, airdrop, etc. Sleep, thunderbold, rx5700xt, everything is working well.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- breakfastduck 6y ago
  I've been tempted before but am super wary of the fact I may suddenly become stuck on a certain version of macOS because updating it breaks everything. I imagine you're knowledgeable as you've built one - is that a genuine risk? Or do all versions become hackable eventually?
  - katmannthree 6y ago
    I'm not the person you replied to but I've used hackintoshes since the Snow Leopard days. Generally if you set it up properly as was described at the beginning of this thread minor updates will work fine without any user input. Some major updates will be the same, with others you might end up needing to change some kexts to fix audio or wifi but it'll generally boot. With major updates that change a lot you might be better off backing up your data and doing a fresh install. So far all versions have become hackable (generally in a matter of days or weeks) but with Apple's transition to their own silicon I imagine the last version they put out that supports x86_64 will be the final hackintoshable build.

Abishek_Muthian 6y ago

The bootloader development in Hackintosh scene never cease to amaze me. I remember the lead developer of Clover bootloader[1] Slice, still developing it on his old Dell with 32 bit Snowleopard when it was being used for Mountain Lion and later. But the interest in Hackintosh seems to be slowing down[2]? , it's not like Macs have become affordable, if anything Mac Pro is prohibitively expensive and hackintosh generally made more sense to those struck with underpowered Mac Pro. Most of all, what will happen to the Hackintosh scene due to Apple Silicon? Will the community take up the challenge and make macOS work on Raspberry Pi 10(I understand that Apple Silicon is not vanilla ARM spec) or fizzle out? [1]https://sourceforge.net/projects/cloverefiboot/ https://sourceforge.net/projects/cloverefiboot/ [2]https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=Hackintosh https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=Hackinto...

Wowfunhappy 6y ago
I can't explain those Google Trends and I won't blame you for trusting them over the feelings of some guy on the internet, but it doesn't match my own experience at all. On the contrary, Hackintosh feels like it has become bigger and more mainstream, relatively speaking. (Mind, I still think the scene's days are numbered due to Apple Silicon.)
- tinco 6y ago
  Maybe running Hackintosh has become so easy you need less Google queries to achieve it!
tinco 6y ago
I think the answer is simply that Ubuntu has become good enough. The whole point of running MacOS was to get POSIX compliance with a polished GUI. No Windows, pretty terminals smooth fonts good UX. Now MacOS has no edge over Ubuntu in any sense. Ubuntu runs Docker natively and Cuda. It has an insanely user friendly installer, it runs on a wide range of hardware with no issues and its default GUI is great.
- kochthesecond 6y ago

elagost 6y ago

As someone who used to do this myself, I don't quite understand why people still go through all the effort to run macOS. In the past I've built Hackintoshes on desktops and laptops, and it was fun to accomplish (audio through HDMI was especially tricky!), but in the end it was slower, less stable, and not nearly as useful as running Linux on the same hardware. I run Linux on everything these days. What's the draw? Better off buying a mac if you want the "Apple Experience" anyway. If you don't, I don't imagine why you'd want anything to do with this.

jtchang 6y ago
Price, flexibility, control are some of the top things that come to mind. Yes there can definitely be stability issues but if you are in some country where you want to develop iOS apps but can't really afford a high end Mac this makes sense. Also as a stepping stone into their ecosystem. Also it is hard to underestimate the amount of polish that Apple puts into their UI. Overall it is a pretty good experience especially compared to some of the windowing systems on various flavors of linux. Polish is something that does not come easily in the open source world.
paulpan 6y ago
It's largely (if not entirely) due to the cost-to-performance ratio. Apple's cheapest Mac configuration, the Mac Mini, starts at $799 for a measly i3 4-core processor and 8GB of RAM with no dedicated GPU. For the same price, I can put together something of at least 2X the performance: i5 6-core, 16GB RAM, and an RX 570/580 GPU. Granted for Hackintoshes you're on your own for debugging but as others below have said and on r/hackintosh, the end product is oftentimes very stable. So tradeoff can be worth it, especially as you go up the product stack.
kitsunesoba 6y ago
I switched away from a hackintosh tower to a real Mac recently because things lined up for that to make sense, but previously I hackintoshed because nothing came as close to checking all of my boxes for a desktop environment as even just out of the box macOS. No amount of effort spent on customizing Windows does the trick because of things about it that are unchangeable (like its terrible text rendering), and while a Linux setup can get close (especially if eschewing a monolithic DE), it requires pouring countless hours into it to get it there, and even then many details are wrong and random things are flaky.

steveharman 6y ago

My new Ryzentosh is faster (single core Geekbench results) than any of Apple's hardware (iMac Pro, Mac Pro...) Yet it cost less to build than the Apple charges for Mac Pro wheels.

eddyg 6y ago

Is there a current "most compatible"/"recommended" hardware list somewhere so if you wanted to buy parts for a new Mac Pro-like Hackintosh you'd have the best chance of "everything working"?

MarioMan 6y ago
tonymacx86 has maintained a recommended hardware list that gets regularly updated here: https://www.tonymacx86.com/buyersguide/building-a-customac-hackintosh-the-ultimate-buyers-guide/ https://www.tonymacx86.com/buyersguide/building-a-customac-h... Another useful guide from r/hackintosh lists hardware to avoid: https://dortania.github.io/Anti-Hackintosh-Buyers-Guide/ https://dortania.github.io/Anti-Hackintosh-Buyers-Guide/

atum47 6y ago

is a hackingtosh the cheapest way of developing apps for iOS? should I anticipate any problems in case I go that way? I'm working on some games and apps but only publishing it for Android, cause I don't own a mac.

skrowl 6y ago
I build iOS apps using Visual Studio 2019 + Xamarin on Windows, then running macOS in a VMWare VM that basically just functions as a build server (Windows communicates with it via SSH). You can find lots of YouTube videos describing how to do it. It's technically against the macOS terms of service, but the macOS terms of service are likely illegal anyways (monopoly bundling of hardware + software, etc).