Mission3D Posted July 12, 2011 Share Posted July 12, 2011 Hello all. Quick one for all you techies out there. I'm a long time PC user, but have been working for a studio with a Mac environment for some time now. We've decided that we'd like to investigate Hackintoshs rather than invest in a new Mac. We need power, especially VRAM as we are a 3D firm and the reason we need to upgrade at the moment is that our current Macs aren't performing well when using 3D software. I've been looking at the recognised graphics cards listed on the main site of this forum and it appears that they all have very low VRAM specs. e.g. 512. Does anyone know whether we would be able to use a card with VRAM in the region of 2048mb? If not, why not? Is it not neccecary? Can anyone recommend a system spec for a powerful Mac? As I said we need graphics processing power! I've been trying to convince them to buy PC's but they are dead set on macs. Look forward to your replies! Thanks Mission3D Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/262194-need-help-figuring-out-a-system-build/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
iBdb Posted July 13, 2011 Share Posted July 13, 2011 Hi Mission3D, Despite many hacks being reasonably stable they are still hacks. In your work environment it is much better to stick with real Mac's. That said if you have an interest & time there is nothing stopping you from building one up at home then doing some homework Most 5000, 6000 ATI & nVidia cards have reported working to some degree. Then some problems e.g display connection have been further been solved by 'editing custom personalities' As an example my system absolutely nothing I did would get my 4870x2 to work with my monitor connection's in 10.6 - 10.6.2, after apple graffix & 10.6.3 update it work & was able to update all the way to 10.6.7 with just simple audio patch. Now 10.6.8 is more complex & simply updating will send my unit into kernel panic. I'm away helping a sick family member & have had to leave instruction's to family to not update. In a work environment if someone did update you could well waste quite a few hrs or more sorting this out providing someone there has some idea what to do.. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/262194-need-help-figuring-out-a-system-build/#findComment-1713753 Share on other sites More sharing options...
smartie77 Posted July 13, 2011 Share Posted July 13, 2011 Hi Mission3D, Despite many hacks being reasonably stable they are still hacks. In your work environment it is much better to stick with real Mac's. That said if you have an interest & time there is nothing stopping you from building one up at home then doing some homework Most 5000, 6000 ATI & nVidia cards have reported working to some degree. Then some problems e.g display connection have been further been solved by 'editing custom personalities' As an example my system absolutely nothing I did would get my 4870x2 to work with my monitor connection's in 10.6 - 10.6.2, after apple graffix & 10.6.3 update it work & was able to update all the way to 10.6.7 with just simple audio patch. Now 10.6.8 is more complex & simply updating will send my unit into kernel panic. I'm away helping a sick family member & have had to leave instruction's to family to not update. In a work environment if someone did update you could well waste quite a few hrs or more sorting this out providing someone there has some idea what to do.. In my Laptop is a 1024MB ATI mobility 4650, fully working QE/CI after only a few software hacks( kexts,patched frame buffer and personality to Shrike for LVDS output at 1366x768 ) reported via Systemprofiler with correct size and parameters. It uses the 4670 render engine and is a relative speedy thing I would say ( except openCL ) - . So mac can handle more then 512Mb at no problem. and the personalities stuff for ATI is only needed for Laptops. Apple uses not LVDS connectors but DisplayPort - also the Ati mobility card ( 4670 ) by Apple is not in a MacbookPro but in the iMac ... so iMacs don't use Laptop-screen technique. For example the Shrike frame buffer from Ati which is shipped in Apple next to a handful of other frame buffer names can output via LVDS but this Shrike FB is simple not activated for 46xx cards as iMac uses different FB in Apples kexts. By simply switching some numbers around in the hex editor, one can reverse what Apple has done to the Kext.. Displayport vs LVDS switched around, and voila it works on OEM Laptops screens . the magic and importance of where a 1 and 0 is written is very true for that hack . I needed weeks until I figured that out , but when it worked it worked absolutely reliable. I have done that to 10.6.6,10.6.7,10.6.8 and now also to Lion. So I guess it is "solved".. All these OSX'es work with the card and their specific kexts. I only need to patch the ATI4600controller one time with "my" values whenever Apple updates their kexts, which happened in SL only 8 times ( 10.6.0 to 10.6.8 ). So I would say the amount of work to invest is foreseeable, and the risk minimal. Just have always a backup of working modded kexts at hand. ( for example in 10.6.8 I could also use the 10.6.7 kexts, one or two version below does not hurt until you have the new ones made ready ). Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/262194-need-help-figuring-out-a-system-build/#findComment-1713805 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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