So I decided to hackintosh my computer. Again. The short version is I needed access to Final Cut Pro on my desktop.
But this hackintosh is particularly interesting, as I had to install the final MacOS to support Nvidia graphics cards (High Sierra) to get my gtx 1060 working… and I had to install this deprecated macOS FROM a mac running the latest software (Catalina, at time of writing).
This presented a couple problems the complete guides just don’t cover:
- First, obtaining a version of High Sierra from Catalina isn’t straightforward. The mac app store obfuscates any macOS download that isn’t current, and it’s tedious and sketchy to find a bootlegged version. Still, with a bit of googling anything is possible. THIS is the current download link for this OS.
- Next, one would hope that following the detailed tonymac guide would be enough. Nope. Owing to new file permission handling, Catalina borks the bootable usb setup, but doesn’t provide you a courtesy application crash or failure message. You just have to wait 2-12 hours, try it again, and when that doesn’t work conclude SOMETHING (who knows what) isn’t working.
- At this point, you might have lost your mind with unibeast and be contemplating a “vanilla install” instead. So you download clover (which annoyingly isn’t the first google search result for it, but then clover doesn’t work either so you know that’s probably the issue and some googling tells you the solution:
…Here’s that solution: just disable csrutil in safe mode on your mac that is creating the bootable high sierra installer (with the “csrutil disable” command in terminal). - NOW you have install the OS, which is straightforward enough, but once it is booted you have the difficult task of configuring multibeast.
- Multibeast configuration is simple enough if you have any experience with TonyMac hackintoshes (or can read forums), but you have to install Nvidia Drivers now.
- Unfortunately, the installed version of High Sierra might not have Nvidia drivers, so you have to update your Hackintosh, which might cause it to boot loop, and you to tear your hair out.
- Avoid Updating bootloop by: a) only installing essentials in multibeast (clover bootloader and ethernet) b) removing the install media c) installing all updates before doing anything else
- Once that takes, you can install the appropriate Nvidia drivers with it’s related multibeast kext, and configure your new mac!
There you go! You’re all set with the latest MacOS that supports Nvidia… at least up to the 10 series. And sadly for awhile, this might be as good as it gets.
Sources:
Obtain mac image: https://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac-software/download-old-os-x-3629363/
TonyMac Install: https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/unibeast-install-os-x-yosemite-on-any-supported-intel-based-pc.143976/
Clover Download (optional): https://github.com/Dids/clover-builder/releases
Csrutil disable Instructions: https://www.macworld.com/article/2986118/how-to-modify-system-integrity-protection-in-el-capitan.html
Nvidia Drivers: https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/nvidia-releases-alternate-graphics-drivers-for-macos-high-sierra-10-13-6-387-10-10-10-40.255913/
github documentation example link (I’m way too lazy to explain this much and repeat what others have done): https://github.com/macfanatic77/hackintosh
My github project: https://github.com/thatSchloesser/The-Last-Nvidia-Hackintosh
Post Note:
- Hardware encoding for Final Cut Pro X doesn’t work without configuration of the iGPU, which is tricky. THIS should hypothetically fix the issue, but I couldn’t get it working on my Haswell CPU. I’m going to assume the hardware is the issue for now since the article states such and I may not have the time to getting around to tweaking a fix for my particularly setup (lga 1150 i5 4600… an admittedly old CPU). My theory appears to be confirmed here.
- If this installer has trouble loading after it success, it might be a usb3 issue; use a usb2 port. Alternatively, if you don’t have a usb2 port OR the mouse won’t be detected at the install screen, use these kexts to fix it.
- If, during install, macOS doesn’t allow you to install to a specific hard drive OR tries to install and says “Not enough space on hard drive” when there clearly is, that hard drive might have a protected partition used by another OS that is preventing you from formatting and installing correctly. My solution was to clean the drive with Windows “diskpart” command line utility then convert it to gpt drive with the same utility (command: “convert gpt”) BEFORE formatting the drive correctly with Mac’s Disk Utility in the installer.
- Dual booting with Windows? This quick fix will make that work properly so that you don’t have to mess with bios settings every time you reboot the computer