Hey m8s ;-)

Yesterday I took the final decison: I want to make a pure system install of OS X on a PC. No patching. No hacking.

Since I can't know everything I am going to need you to share your impressions on which pieces of hardware work best with OS X and are closest to the original Mac components.



I think this will become a good list that will be useful to anybody who decides to go further with this matter or who wants to solve some hardware problems. I am searching the forums right now too and will share with you my findings later.

No patching. No hacking.??

Buy a MAC for that... for all other hardware you need a patched DVD...

I just built a cheap hackintosh last week after searching the forum for a while. Here is my spec:

CPU: Intel Pentium D 805
MB: GIGABYTE GA-8I945GZME-RH (with GMA950)
Memory: Kingston ValueMem 512M (KVR533D2/512R)
Harddrive: WD 160GB 7200rpm IDE (used as external hd for one year)
DVD: LG DVD-DL burner got on sale
Ultra V 600W PSU + Ultra V case (deal from frys)
Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse
Monitor: I don't have monitor so connect to 42'' LCD/TV with 1360x768 resolution
OS: JaS.10.4.8.AMD.Intel.SSE2.SSE3 with ppf1 patch

Everything works out of box except the sound and lan which have simple patch available. No manual patch needed.

After complete installation and reboot, use "-X" to enter safe mode for post-installation setup. Then system runs perfect. Thanks the help from this forum

Yeah since I use my PC mainly for Internet browsing, a Mac Mini will come cheaper than this project. But I still want to try it. Just out of pure enthusiasm.

If we assemble a machine which components are supported by OS X fully or are as close as it could be to to the original parts there should be no problem to install the OS on it. The only patch we will need to ever apply will be the patch that prevents OS X from searching for the Apple chips that identify your computer as a Mac.

msll thanks for your reply. It will come useful.

As for the LAN a Realtek RTL8139 NIC works perfectly for me. It gets recognised without additional fixes. I am using the same release as yours.

Anybody esle?

The basic problems are:

1) The encrypted binaries.
2) EFI
3) Protections in the kernel.

All else being equal, those are the major differences between a mac and a 'very similar' machine.

To get around EFI, we're still using the bootloader from the devkit machine (which was a BIOS-based P4 PC). To get around the encrypted binaries, we're using some code which can decrypt on the fly, just as a real Mac does (though using a different method). To get around the kernel protections, we use a modified 8.8.1 kernel.

At home, I can install the real 10.4.8 Combo updater from Apple (which should contain all changes since the first intel build), then replace only the kernel and one kext (kernel extension) and have a fully-working system. A plist edit gets my onboard LAN working. A tweaked kext gets my onboard sound working. If I use my X1800 instead of my GMA950 I need another tweak, and I lose Sleep/Wake, but otherwise its a perfect mac-clone. This machine was built from the ground up to be as compatible as possible.

Spec:

- Intel D945GTPLR motherboard with onboard SATA, LAN, audio out and video (GMA950) fully working.
- Intel Pentium D920 (dual-core 2.8Ghz, 2Mb cache per core, both cores fully working)
- 2x512Mb Corsair Value Select DDR2-667 RAM (operating in dual-channel mode)
- GeCube ATI Radeon X1800XL PCI-E (fully working, res change, fully accelerated CI, QE, OpenGL BUT I lose system Sleep/Wake)

As I said, things I needed tweaks for:

Onboard LAN - required plist edit
Onboard Audio - required a kext from the forum. There's another version of this board with audio which works out of the box.
X1800XL - requires Natit / Titan / Borisbadenov to work

Missing functionality:

Audio IN - I dont use it anyway
Sleep / Wake - I think this is linked to graphics drivers. I dont really miss it, as the machine boots in seconds. (Weirdly, it does go to sleep correctly, and even wakes on a keypress / mouse click etc, but the screen never wakes. If anyone has any ideas on this....)

Hope this helps.

Alright but if we make OS X believe it is being installed on an iMac / Mac Pro / Macbook or something all the other protections / encryptions / problems maybe should go away? Right?

EDIT:

From Apple's site I noticed that some of the MAC videocards are available for PC platforms as well:

Here they are together with links and characteristics:



Later I will sort everything in a list in my first post. For now I continue my search.

Well, in a manner of speaking, thats what the patches do. For example, Natit / ATIInject and other similar solutions 'inject' entries into the IO Registry, to make OS X 'beleive' that EFI is working properly, and thus allows it to enable video drivers etc.

If it was as simple as 'just' making it 'beleive' it was on a real Mac, dont you think people would have done it that way?

Munky what board do you mean wich has audio 'out of the box'?

So you mean that even if my VGA is natively supported by OS X, I won't be able to use it without Natit/AtiInject?

What do you mean under "Real Mac"? Macs are devided into models so if you tell OS X it is running on an iMac, it will expect a certain configuration and hardware and if yours is drastically different you will simply not be able to run it at all.

Maybe that's one of the reasons why nobody attempts to "lie" to OS X it is running on a MAC - simply very limited number of people have a close enough configuration. With a little more research on that we could achieve some results.

Fooling OS X is difficult. Patching the hardware checks is less difficult. With one, you're operating within the well-designed protection, and with the other you're just bypassing it.

I'd like a "native" Apple PC. My PCs do OS X poorly and have PC tasks to do anyway. I have an actual slow Macintosh G4, I can't afford a Mac Pro, and I don't like the consumer-oriented Apple PCs since they're very limited for the cost.

Apple has to be using common chips for sound/lan/SATA/etc. The interesting motherboard would have the same ones Apple uses, since Apple will have to continue support for them. Taking a EFI/etc patched OS X and installing it to such a motherboard would mean instant and "native" support for the hardware. Less of the driver patching, unreliability, and "the latest update broke the driver hack" that I've been getting. By building a cheap PC, I can try to ensure some future support, as long as OSX86 continues on with the amazing kernel acrobatics.

The interesting motherboards I've come across in a quick search are the:
Intel D945PVS
Intel D945GNTLKR
Intel D945GNTLR
Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3

SATA is the important one since OS X compatibility for those PCI cards seems poor. Video is important since PCI-E card compatibility seems somewhat sketchy, and GMA950 is simple. Sound is somewhat important, though a Audio Advantage Micro can fix that with spdif out. LAN isn't that important since there are inexpensive ethernet cards that appear to be compatible (though I don't see my favourite in the lists, the Intel Pro/1000 GT which works with OS X PPC natively). Still, the closest similarity to Apple hardware could mean that the hardware won't need driver hacks, and will continue to work after EFI/Protection patched updates.

What would be the most compatible video card for a hackintosh?
A NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT? Is anyone using it?

My guess is that its Intel Integrated GMA950. My GMA900 works (once booted, yuck), but GMA950 was actually used in the macbook IIRC. I've been impressed with integrated video lately, playing MAME and Quake 3 at great fps. Not many games in OS X, and I'm OK with that. IIRC Apple used that 7300 GT, so it should probably have similar support to the GMA950.

Same problem here with my GMA900 (it refuses to work sometimes - I have to reboot my system until it works). On top of that, I can't run PPC apps due to Rosetta's incompatibility with OpenGL... That's why I'm thinking in buying a new video card...
Thanks for your opinion!
Anyone else?

Exactly. I was smart and lucky, I bought a laptop with two videocards, but its one of a kind AFAIK. I can boot OS X with my nvidia MXM card, but only in 10.4.8, and 10.4.8 doesn't support speedstep, so the fan is loud and constant, and it would be anyway with the hot nvidia card in use since Titan doesn't support Powermizer. Similar to another of my PCs, SATA doesn't work so its limited to the few legacy ATA drives I have left. It's amazing what the osx86 community has done, but I need a G4 replacement and I don't like Apple's hardware. By buying parts specifically and with OS X in mind, I believe we'll be able to build <500$ CAD hackintosh computers with few future problems. We just need to select the right hardware. The motherboard is critical, and I'm looking for suggestions and info on that.

As an aside, the problem with the GMA900 is the blue screen after the grey apple bootscreen. You can get around that by having an external monitor hooked up. There's also a dongle/pin-jumper solution that didn't work for me. If you have a PCI-E slot, all I can say is that the 7600GT works with Titan in 10.4.8, and the 6600 MXM on laptops sometimes doesn't find the monitor on boot with that same software setup.

Hello .
Time ago that I continue the theme to create a hackintosh. This year I have thought to buy a MacBook 13'3, but before I want to bring up to date the PC and to test the Mac OX. Which of the following motherboards is the best for you?

- MSI 975X Platinum PowerUp Edition
- Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 rev 2.0

The Gigabyte with the chipset P965 functions with patches, for which is quite recommendable, but I do not know if the MSI with the chipset 975X will function well.

Greetings to all and pardon by my very bad English.

Hey Nathan Brody!

The 965 needs a lot of work to make it function well.

I recommend the MSI 975x motherboard.

afaik the 5-channel audio version of my board has working audio out of the box. mine is the 7-channel 9223 and needs a kext.

i could be wrong, however.

the point is, its not like Mac OS X boots on, say, an iMac and says to itself 'right, im on an iMac... lets go enable all those hardware features I know are going to be here, since this is an iMac'. it doesnt work that way. nobody in their right mind would design an OS like that.

instead, the OS does what any sane OS would do - it does basic bootstrapping, brings all the hardware online, then enumerates the available hardware, and matches the unique hardware IDs to available drivers (kexts) and initialises them.

what IS an iMac, after all, other than a 945-based Intel motherboard with a Core (2) Duo processor, intel northbridge and southbridge, a PCI-Express bus...etc etc etc...

the snag is when the kext expects certain things, like EFI variables which are set by the video card's firmware to be present. this is how Titan / Natit / ATIInject work - they inject those values the EFI firmware is supposed to input.

It looks like munky is talking about the other variants of the D945GTP, which all use the Sigmatel 9220 5.1 sound instead of munky's STAC9223. Not much reported about those motherboards, except in 10.4.3 and no sound/lan in 10.4.5. Munky, how is your motherboard's integrated video working?

Willem De Koning was asking in another thread what gigabit ethernet cards just work in OS X. I'll find out later some of the hardware that Apple is using and look up OS X86 compatibility.

Edit: supposedly apple used the SigmaTel STAC9221 in the MacBook Pro, which works in osx86 but needing a kext edit with a product ID. The GeForce 7300GT was used in the Mac Pro, which also used a Realtek sound chip but I can't find which one.

my integrated GMA950 worked perfect, but I use my radeon X1800XL now, which works 99% (no wake from sleep, otherwise fine).

my onboard LAN works fine btw, but it needed a device id tweak in a plist somewhere. i forget where, cos i installed a GigE card (D-Link card).

So the current ideal motherboard should have GMA950. Even if a better videocard works, its a good backup plan if something breaks or there's a new update.

Munky, when you say that the kexts sometimes expect things like EFI variables, is this still true of non-video devices? If a chip is supported in Apple's machines, it should still be supported without changes in a generic PC, no? A kext edit was needed at some point to get Sigmatel 9221 to work, which confuses me since its used in the MBP.

I'm told that Apple uses the Intel 945 chipset in all machines. I'm told they use only Sigmatel audio. I'm told they use the Broadcom BCM4311 wireless in the iMac, and the Atheros AR5008 elsewhere. The Marvell Yukon 88E8053 ethernet has been used in the consumer macs. For such basic information, its surprisingly hard to find online. Apple has used in the first Intel iMacs, "an Intel Core T2500 family CPU, an Intel 945 Series (945GM Express, 82945GM) northbridge chip, and an Intel 82801GBM (NH82801GBMSL8YB) southbridge chip.", which I researched when I found there was variety in the 945 chipsets (to reiterate, it was the 945GM Express). Anyone with access to Intel macs, and knowing how to get this information (Ultimate Boot CD didn't work for me on a macbook...), please post more info!

That ethernet chip is used in boards like the msi ms-7058, the ASUS a8v-e deluxe, and for the secondary ethernet on the MSI k8n diamond. It is "often installed on i925/i915-based motherboards". It was reported to not work on the Asus P5AD2-P way back in 10.4.3, but since has been reported to work in 10.4.6 with the A8N32-SLI Deluxe, in 10.4.4 with the Asus P5GD1 Pro (and the P4GD1 at some point), working "out of the box" with 10.4.5 on the K8N-NEO4-Platinum-SLI, and both controllers working in 10.4.7 on the MSI 915GM Speedster. I don't know if it supports Jumbo Frames since google is insane with it's "Search term appears only on pages linking to this page". The 88E8053 is the default value in the kext, and people change that number to support other Marvell ethernet chips; It seems like we've found a good natively supported gigabit ethernet chip now!

I've hit a small roadblock. I can't find what sound chips Apple uses. It's supposedly Sigmatel, but they seem to have trouble anyway. Other than USB soundcards, like the Turtle Beach Micro, I can't find any soundcards that are known to work without editing anything (and the USB one needs the Sblive USB package, which I know nothing about). User DaemonES is working on getting Envy24HT-S support, so that has great potential (Envy cards have great sound quality and are cheap, like a 20$ Chaintech AV-710).

I've been doing some studying and catching up. As was said before, some drivers require EFI, a hack, or a rewrite for BIOS hardware, and that is what is stopping much hardware from working easily. Some Intel motherboards and perhaps others have EFI already and emulate the BIOS, so a way for them to run Apple's firmware is being worked on. Non-EFI boards can run an EFI-for-legacy setup, "emulating" EFI (running it off a disk partition), and that is being worked on as well.

The motherboard I was about to choose, the Intel D945GNTLKR, appears to have been the right motherboard, but it isn't compatible with Core 2 duo. It may be "perfect" because Apple uses old chipsets as well. In any case, that may be the best OS X board, and others are saying the Bad Axe 2 is best, but I believe I'll wait. EFI compatibility will mean drivers will just work, and can't be broken with updates since Apple has to support their old hardware. The "native hardware" stuff is still interesting since it'll work without additional drivers, but support for it could still be broken unless EFI is running. Any opinions on that?

I don't like Apple's hardware, IMO it's far too limiting and incompatible for being off-the-shelf PC hardware already. I don't even like Intel's hardware, but PC hardware is PC hardware as long as DRM doesn't play a part. I'm happy to buy special PC equipment to run OS X in a 'native' and reliable way. Until then, I'm stuck on a machine of less than a quarter of the MHZ of my closest PC, running the most PC-standardized PPC Macintosh Apple ever made.