Hackintosh Community Response to Apple Silicon

[Yebubbleman]

I remember checking TonyMacx86's forums the day of the WWDC 2020 keynote video presentation and seeing tons of people lamenting the end of the Hackintosh. I haven't really checked in since. I'd imagine that work is still on-going to keep current Hackintosh builds running current x86-64 versions of macOS (as I'm sure those with working Hackintoshes want to keep using them). Does anyone on here (following that segment of the greater Mac user community at large) have any insight as to what all is going on there?

One thing that I'm particularly curious about is whether or not building 11th Generation Intel based Hackintoshes is proving to be difficult given that Apple doesn't (and very likely never will) have any systems with 11th Generation Intel inside. I'd imagine it'd be akin to getting AMD processors to function. Though maybe I'm wrong on that? Certainly between having had a MacBook Air, a 4-port 13" MacBook Pro, and a 27" iMac all use various classes of 10th Gen that, at least, specc'ing a 10th Gen Hackintosh ought to be no trouble.

Anyway, I'm curious to hear from anyone with insight from the Hackintosh community as to what's currently going on over there in light of Intel's days of powering the Macintosh being effectively numbered.

 

[Significant1]

They will still support their current Intel Mac lineup with new macOS versions for years to come.

 

[CMMChris]

Not much going on there. At least in the German speaking part of the community those who like the M1 and consider the performance sufficient have already transitioned or are planning to do so. Others are holding on to their rig or even giving it a last upgrade. Some of those will either switch to Apple Silicon later on or change their workflow to Windows.

I myself was a Hackintosh user from 2018 to 2020. Bought the M1 MBP right after the launch event out of curiosity and two weeks later ditched my Hackintosh (i7-8700K, 32GB RAM, Radeon VII) because the M1 is faster in about 90% of my workloads including video editing while eating SIGNIFICANTLY less energy. Pretty much the only thing I am missing is the gaming performance of the VII but I can live with that until Apple offers more powerful GPUs.

Regarding chances of the Hackintosh community surviving once Apple pulls the plug on X86 support, I don't see much hope there. Due to Apple's heavily customized hardware it is unlikely that macOS will run sufficiently well for productive use on PCs with ARM SoCs that will eventually appear in the future. It would require A LOT of custom driver development which simply is an impossible task for hobbyist developers. Even if they would try to do it, the results would be coming in too slow in order to be worth it for productive users.

 

[Yebubbleman]

They will still support their current Intel Mac lineup with new macOS versions for years to come.

That is neither relevant to this discussion nor in question.

Not much going on there. At least in the German speaking part of the community those who like the M1 and consider the performance sufficient have already transitioned or are planning to do so. Others are holding on to their rig or even giving it a last upgrade. Some of those will either switch to Apple Silicon later on or change their workflow to Windows.

I myself was a Hackintosh user from 2018 to 2020. Bought the M1 MBP right after the launch event out of curiosity and two weeks later ditched my Hackintosh (i7-8700K, 32GB RAM, Radeon VII) because the M1 is faster in about 90% of my workloads including video editing while eating SIGNIFICANTLY less energy. Pretty much the only thing I am missing is the gaming performance of the VII but I can live with that until Apple offers more powerful GPUs.

Thanks for the insight. I'm considering building one more Hackintosh (that's not at all why I posted this post, by the way). But I also have much more use for Intel Macs than I do for Apple Silicon Macs (seeing as the vast majority of what I do on a Mac either goes away or is rendered moot or inoperable on Apple Silicon). That said, from a support standpoint, having one of each is definitely going to be of use to me.

Regarding chances of the Hackintosh community surviving once Apple pulls the plug on X86 support, I don't see much hope there. Due to Apple's heavily customized hardware it is unlikely that macOS will run sufficiently well for productive use on PCs with ARM SoCs that will eventually appear in the future. It would require A LOT of custom driver development which simply is an impossible task for hobbyist developers. Even if they would try to do it, the results would be coming in too slow in order to be worth it for productive users.

I know that once Apple stops releasing x86-64 compatible versions of macOS, Hackintoshing is dead for sure. My main question is more one of will it be more difficult to build Hackintoshes from Intel hardware newer than 10th Generation Intel, given that Apple is (VERY likely) drawing the line there. Or do things start to get to AMD Hackintosh levels of difficulty from then onward?

 

[Significant1]

That is neither relevant to this discussion nor in question.

Sorry I read 11th generation as MacOS version, now Big Sur is version 11.

I think you are posting in the wrong forum then.

 

[CMMChris]

It's hard to tell how difficult it will be to get future generations of Intel CPU running. IGPUs for sure will be unsupported. Power management might cause some trouble but shouldn't be too hard to fix with some patches or even custom drivers like it is the case for AMD. Same applies to PCH provided USB and networking. The biggest problem will be GPU support. It is unlikely that Apple will support any future AMD cards. Even drivers for RDNA2 seem more and more unlikely. If you can't get newer GPUs running it makes little sense to build a new Hackintosh in my opinion. That is at least if the use-case is more than just tinkering.

 

[David Hassholehoff]

[...] Or do things start to get to AMD Hackintosh levels of difficulty from then onward?

My guess is worse. Granted it is not the same thing, but I think it will be more akin to trying to run iPadOS on an Android tablet than Mac OS X on an Intel x86 (or even AMD x86).

 

[BrianBaughn]

I'm running a Hackintosh built in 2014 and I'm pretty sure in the next couple of years I'll transition to an Apple Silicon Mac Mini setup.

What I'm wondering is: Will there come a time when the components will be sold that would enable users to build an Apple Silicon compatible machine?

 

[09872738]

I'm running a Hackintosh built in 2014 and I'm pretty sure in the next couple of years I'll transition to an Apple Silicon Mac Mini setup.

What I'm wondering is: Will there come a time when the components will be sold that would enable users to build an Apple Silicon compatible machine?

Problem is probably the GPU. While its thinkable someone manages to boot macOS on something like the AGX Xavier, there won‘t be GPU support.

 

[mcnallym]

Opencore has made AMD hackintosh a lot easier, with proper support built in.
am sure the devs will have a way of masking newer hardware maybe pretending to be 11th gen, which they have done to get newer cpus booting before Apple added them into genuine Mac.

with apple making its own silicon as opposed to off the shelf Arm processors then unlikely that going to get the equivalent or you may get it to boot but be be unrealistic to use.
intel in a Mac is intel in a generic dell, hp etc
can’t see Apple licensing the design out either for the cpu’s or the proprietary sections.
you can probably develop the code and put into opencore or equiv System but will be emulating those missing pieces.
is it then beyond a technical exercise Because pretty sure would end up being much slower experience

 

[DekuBleep]

I'm running a Hackintosh built in 2014 and I'm pretty sure in the next couple of years I'll transition to an Apple Silicon Mac Mini setup.

What I'm wondering is: Will there come a time when the components will be sold that would enable users to build an Apple Silicon compatible machine?

Doubt Apple will ever sell their own chips, but anything can happen.

Wonder hackers could get MacOS to boot and run on an AMD made ARM chip.

 

[jasoncarle]

I played around with an AMD hackintosh until I replaced my RX5700XT with a RX6900XT. It was a fun side project, but I wouldn't use it as a long term solution for anything involving real work. Everything worked at 100% with the addition of the proper bluetooth/WiFi module

https://www.osxwifi.com/product/pc-...-11-a-b-g-n-ac-bluetooth-4-2-limited-edition/

If Apple were to release support for the 6900XT in Mac OS for the Mac Pro I may even do it again.

 

[Argon_]

Maybe there will be future Hackintoshing on ARM devices, as popularity grows? Another, more remote possibility is installing MacOS on iPads, since they now use the same ISA as Macs.

 

[Yebubbleman]

Sorry I read 11th generation as MacOS version, now Big Sur is version 11.

I think you are posting in the wrong forum then.

This is relevant to Apple Silicon. You can make the argument that it belongs in the Hackintosh sub-forum, but no more than I could make the counter argument that it's no less fitting in the Apple Silicon sub-forum seeing as it is about BOTH topics.

I'm running a Hackintosh built in 2014 and I'm pretty sure in the next couple of years I'll transition to an Apple Silicon Mac Mini setup.

What I'm wondering is: Will there come a time when the components will be sold that would enable users to build an Apple Silicon compatible machine?

It's ARM, but Apple Silicon is heavily customized ARM. Furthermore, the firmware and boot mechanisms are way more different than what your standard ARM device might end up using. We're much more likely to get macOS running on an iPad Pro than we are on any other non-Apple ARM device.

Opencore has made AMD hackintosh a lot easier, with proper support built in.
am sure the devs will have a way of masking newer hardware maybe pretending to be 11th gen, which they have done to get newer cpus booting before Apple added them into genuine Mac.

with apple making its own silicon as opposed to off the shelf Arm processors then unlikely that going to get the equivalent or you may get it to boot but be be unrealistic to use.
intel in a Mac is intel in a generic dell, hp etc
can’t see Apple licensing the design out either for the cpu’s or the proprietary sections.
you can probably develop the code and put into opencore or equiv System but will be emulating those missing pieces.
is it then beyond a technical exercise Because pretty sure would end up being much slower experience

I think this is it in a nutshell. Apple Silicon SoCs have many non-standard components that you'd need to at least account for in a third party ARM64-based Hackintosh. Apple Silicon macOS seems to absolutely require elements that are exclusive to Apple Silicon SoCs. One would need to develop a third party SoC around making a Mac clone. It's one thing to modify the software to work on a generic Intel box. It's another thing to make a custom SoC to mimic Apple's custom SoC

Maybe there will be future Hackintoshing on ARM devices, as popularity grows? Another, more remote possibility is installing MacOS on iPads, since they now use the same ISA as Macs.

See above. The instruction set is only one piece of the puzzle. Intel Macs used very standard Intel PC components and (maybe with the exception of T1 and T2 Macs) booted in ways that were highly similar to Intel/AMD PCs. The same is not true of Apple Silicon Macs compared to other ARM systems. Apple has heavily customized not just the SoC itself, but also the firmware, boot processes, and everything. It's extremely unlikely that we'd get an ARM Hackintosh. Perhaps more likely would be an ARM64 VM that virtualizes the Apple Silicon SoCs running on non-Apple Silicon ARM hardware. That sounds more doable; albeit with the same degree of fiddling that you typically need to get an Intel Mac VM/Guest to run and boot on a Windows or Linux PC.

 

[gogogo2]

M1 universal app has both arm64 and intel binary code, app size double, works in intel pc,

 

[pshufd]

I'm using a Late 2009 iMac for some things and it's running High Sierra. I have built a Hackintosh but it ran poorly because the hardware was so old. I also run a macOS VM which some consider a Hackintosh. It's just a convenience as I could also just VNC into one of my old MacBook Pros. I expect to upgrade one of my Intel MacBook Pros to an M1X in 2021. I will also keep one of the Intel MacBook Pros in case I need to run 32-bit software or Intel macOS software.

My main work system runs Windows. I do not know if I'll transition over to an M1 system for main work as I have one program which runs far better on Windows 10 than it does on macOS. It kind of runs on Intel macOS but I've heard awful things on it running on M1 macOS. The Hackintosh may still be attractive if Apple continues to charge a fortune for RAM. I like 64 or more GB of RAM in my systems and Apple may not sell such a configuration or may make it extremely expensive.

The M1X should more than well meet my needs. My current work system is 1,280/8,200 Geekbench 5 and I'd expect the M1X to be around 1,700/14,000. I'd want 3x4k support which shouldn't be a problem if they double the GPU cores. I'd be pretty happy if they could put all that in a Mac Mini. Or an iMac. My plan is to get a desktop and a laptop. The desktop would likely sit next to the Windows desktop and take one or two of the monitors. The systems would be tied together via Synergy KV. It's possible that I would add a fourth monitor to my setup too.

So everything is on the table; even Intel if they can deliver Alder Lake before everyone else (I seriously doubt it).

 

[ADGrant]

See above. The instruction set is only one piece of the puzzle. Intel Macs used very standard Intel PC components and (maybe with the exception of T1 and T2 Macs) booted in ways that were highly similar to Intel/AMD PCs. The same is not true of Apple Silicon Macs compared to other ARM systems. Apple has heavily customized not just the SoC itself, but also the firmware, boot processes, and everything. It's extremely unlikely that we'd get an ARM Hackintosh. Perhaps more likely would be an ARM64 VM that virtualizes the Apple Silicon SoCs running on non-Apple Silicon ARM hardware. That sounds more doable; albeit with the same degree of fiddling that you typically need to get an Intel Mac VM/Guest to run and boot on a Windows or Linux PC.

Not sure about the T1 Macs but by default according to Apple the T2 Macs boot process is similar to Apple Silicon Macs and iOS devices. This is not surprising really, the T2 is an A10 ARM64 SoC co-processor. The T2 Macs are really hybrids of Intel and Apple Silicon.

I agree that MacOS on non-Apple ARM64 is unlikely to work. It's even possible that Apple could drop support for non-T2 Intel Macs before they drop Intel support completely.

To answer your original question, if I was going to build a Hackintosh, I would stick to a 10th gen CPU. It's not like the 11 gen desktop chips are much of an improvement anyway.

 

[CMMChris]

I agree that MacOS on non-Apple ARM64 is unlikely to work

Just booting macOS on Non-Apple ARM hardware won't be an issue. AFAIK someone already has booted M1's Darwin build on a Raspberry PI.
As mentioned in my previous post, the culprit is getting it to work well enough to be a viable option and I really doubt that will ever happen. The M1 consists of so many custom components that macOS is tailored towards that developing all the drivers and patches for third party ARM SoCs would be a huge task. Basically we would need custom drivers for pretty much everything: Graphics, hardware encoders / decoders, ISPs, networking, storage and so on and so forth. And that would be the case for each and every PC ARM SoC that might come in the future. A lot of that hardware will be proprietary, making the job even harder. ARM Hackintoshes won't happen. At least not if you expect something suitable for daily use.

Something that might be a viable option is virtualization thanks to the reverse engineering work of the Linux developers.

 

[Yebubbleman]

I'm using a Late 2009 iMac for some things and it's running High Sierra. I have built a Hackintosh but it ran poorly because the hardware was so old. I also run a macOS VM which some consider a Hackintosh. It's just a convenience as I could also just VNC into one of my old MacBook Pros. I expect to upgrade one of my Intel MacBook Pros to an M1X in 2021. I will also keep one of the Intel MacBook Pros in case I need to run 32-bit software or Intel macOS software.

My main work system runs Windows. I do not know if I'll transition over to an M1 system for main work as I have one program which runs far better on Windows 10 than it does on macOS. It kind of runs on Intel macOS but I've heard awful things on it running on M1 macOS. The Hackintosh may still be attractive if Apple continues to charge a fortune for RAM. I like 64 or more GB of RAM in my systems and Apple may not sell such a configuration or may make it extremely expensive.

The M1X should more than well meet my needs. My current work system is 1,280/8,200 Geekbench 5 and I'd expect the M1X to be around 1,700/14,000. I'd want 3x4k support which shouldn't be a problem if they double the GPU cores. I'd be pretty happy if they could put all that in a Mac Mini. Or an iMac. My plan is to get a desktop and a laptop. The desktop would likely sit next to the Windows desktop and take one or two of the monitors. The systems would be tied together via Synergy KV. It's possible that I would add a fourth monitor to my setup too.

So everything is on the table; even Intel if they can deliver Alder Lake before everyone else (I seriously doubt it).

I would think the limitation on newer Intel CPUs is that Apple won't have support for them in the x86-64 version of macOS. That's my main question there. Again, I think there's enough 10th generation support (between the 2020 Intel Air, 4-port 13" MacBook Pro, and 27" iMac) that it probably wouldn't be an issue to build a 10th Generation based Hackintosh. But, I'd imagine that it starts getting more difficult with 11th Gen and beyond (seeing as Apple is extremely unlikely to adopt it in any future Macs).

Not sure about the T1 Macs but by default according to Apple the T2 Macs boot process is similar to Apple Silicon Macs and iOS devices.

The stuff in this article seems to imply the opposite: https://eclecticlight.co/2021/01/14/m1-macs-radically-change-boot-and-recovery/

This is not surprising really, the T2 is an A10 ARM64 SoC co-processor. The T2 Macs are really hybrids of Intel and Apple Silicon.

That much I'll totally buy. But I think where T2 and M1 Macs still differ is the firmware and booter. M1 Macs don't have UEFI the way all Intel Macs (including T2 Macs) do. But as for them being hybrids of both worlds, that's an absolutely fair assessment.

I agree that MacOS on non-Apple ARM64 is unlikely to work. It's even possible that Apple could drop support for non-T2 Intel Macs before they drop Intel support completely.

I think this is almost guaranteed to happen. The T2 was so substantial and there are definitely likely to be features that it shares in common with Apple Silicon SoCs that Apple will deem essential for continued OS support. Hell, it might be the final dividing line between unsupported and supported Intel Macs for a future macOS release before Intel Mac support is inevitably dropped altogether.

To answer your original question, if I was going to build a Hackintosh, I would stick to a 10th gen CPU. It's not like the 11 gen desktop chips are much of an improvement anyway.

I've seen some pretty good bargains on 9th Gen Intel CPUs and would probably gravitate toward those (it's not like the few 9th Generation Intel based Macs aren't still highly performant beasts as far as Intel Macs are concerned).

My questioning regarding 11th Generation was more of a general "what happens to the ability to make an Intel-CPU-based Hackintosh when using a generation of Intel CPU that isn't used by Apple and is or isn't that going to be similar to the relative struggles of building AMD based Hackintoshes.

Just booting macOS on Non-Apple ARM hardware won't be an issue.

Really? I would think the custom bootloader and firmware would throw a bunch of obstacles in the way of that.

AFAIK someone already has booted M1's Darwin build on a Raspberry PI.

Do you have a link? I'd love to read up on that!

As mentioned in my previous post, the culprit is getting it to work well enough to be a viable option and I really doubt that will ever happen. The M1 consists of so many custom components that macOS is tailored towards that developing all the drivers and patches for third party ARM SoCs would be a huge task. Basically we would need custom drivers for pretty much everything: Graphics, hardware encoders / decoders, ISPs, networking, storage and so on and so forth. And that would be the case for each and every PC ARM SoC that might come in the future. A lot of that hardware will be proprietary, making the job even harder. ARM Hackintoshes won't happen. At least not if you expect something suitable for daily use.

Something that might be a viable option is virtualization thanks to the reverse engineering work of the Linux developers.

Certainly, ARM Hackintoshes would be A LOT more difficult than PowerPC Hackintoshes would've been.

 

[David Hassholehoff]

Just booting macOS on Non-Apple ARM hardware won't be an issue. AFAIK someone already has booted M1's Darwin build on a Raspberry PI.

Interesting! But booting Darwin is a far cry from running macOS (XNU, Aqua, etc).

 

[DekuBleep]

Interesting! But booting Darwin is a far cry from running macOS (XNU, Aqua, etc).

Indeed.

 

[CMMChris]

Really? I would think the custom bootloader and firmware would throw a bunch of obstacles in the way of that.

So does the Custom Bootloader of X86 powered Macs. Of course we need new or overhauled Hackintosh bootloaders for that. And dynamic device-tree / ACPI translation to the Apple device-tree format like the M1N1 Linux bootloader for Apple Silicon does it in the opposite direction (Apple Silicon --> UEFI).

Do you have a link? I'd love to read up on that!

Unfortunately no. It was some video of a developer on Twitter. Now as I think more about it I think it was the Big Sur Beta Darwin build running in the DTK, not the M1 build. It obviously didn't boot up completely but I remember it getting surprisingly far. You might find something if you search for it on Twitter, don't have the time now to dig through all those search results.

Interesting! But booting Darwin is a far cry from running macOS (XNU, Aqua, etc).

No. First of all, Darwin is XNU. Darwin is an operating system and the base of macOS. XNU is the kernel of Darwin along the Mach Kernel and the BSD subsystem.
Firing up Aqua aka the user interface is no witchcraft. You don't need much for that, not even GPU hardware support. Booting up to the macOS UI without any graphics acceleration (VESA mode) will be possible like it was with macOS for x86. But again, not of much use besides tinkering. I really doubt that we will ever see it going beyond that stage on bare metal PC hardware.

 

[pshufd]

I would think the limitation on newer Intel CPUs is that Apple won't have support for them in the x86-64 version of macOS. That's my main question there. Again, I think there's enough 10th generation support (between the 2020 Intel Air, 4-port 13" MacBook Pro, and 27" iMac) that it probably wouldn't be an issue to build a 10th Generation based Hackintosh. But, I'd imagine that it starts getting more difficult with 11th Gen and beyond (seeing as Apple is extremely unlikely to adopt it in any future Macs).

I'm running it in a virtual machine and you avoid the CPU issues with a virtual machine as you tell the VM what CPU you want to be.

I also understand that you get around the CPU issues with OpenCore. I haven't tried it myself but many here have.

There's also the QEMU Linux route.

If you can do AMD CPUs, I see no reason why you can't do newer Intel CPUs.

 

[ADGrant]

The stuff in this article seems to imply the opposite: https://eclecticlight.co/2021/01/14/m1-macs-radically-change-boot-and-recovery/

From https://support.apple.com/guide/security/startup-security-utility-secc7b34e5b5/web

Full Security boot policy​

Full Security is the default boot policy, and it behaves similar to iOS and iPadOS or Full Security on a Mac with Apple silicon. At the time that software is downloaded and prepared to install, it is personalized with a signature that includes the Exclusive Chip Identification (ECID)—a unique ID specific to the T2 chip in this case—as part of the signing request. The signature given back by the signing server is then unique and usable only by that particular T2 chip. When the Full Security policy is in effect, the UEFI firmware ensures that a given signature isn’t just signed by Apple but is signed for this specific Mac, essentially tying that version of macOS to that Mac. This helps prevent rollback attacks as described for Full Security on a Mac with Apple silicon.


From the line you posted:

"This ingenious new boot process does have consequences, though. Failure of internal storage means failure of the whole Mac, which can’t then boot from an external disk, which lacks the essential iSC and can’t provide 1TR either. I think this is already true for Macs with T2 chips, with their single security policy, rather than one for each bootable operating system as in the M1. I suspect it’s also, in part at least, responsible for the lack of an Internet Recovery Mode in M1 Macs."

They appear to have taken things further with the M1 Macs but they appear to have already been heading down this road with the T2.

The site you posted a link to has an article on the three types of Mac and the differences in how they boot:

Are external boot disks a thing of the past?

Before Apple added T2 chips to Intel Macs, external boot disks were valuable for many users. How has that fared since?

eclecticlight.co

"As far as external bootable disks are concerned, M1 Macs are more permissive than Intel models with a T2 chip, but what they permit is more restricted: there can be nothing equivalent to Boot Camp, for example."

 

[Jack Neill]

My response will be to keep using the Hack I got, running 10.15.7 100% perfectly. I might dive into OpenCore someday and they out Big Sur, but not anytime soon.