Hackintosh... so close!

[mcKayj]

Hey everybody

It's been my dream for a while to build a hackintosh for use with Resolve. I finally got some time off last week to put everything together and it all went fabulous right up until the very end. I know there are a couple of osx86'rs around here so I thought I'd see if anybody had experienced a similar problem.

First, my specs:

Tyan S7025 motherboard (dual intel 5520 chipsets)
Just one Xeon 5650
12GB ECC RAM
Intel SSD system drive

Nvidia GT120 (x16)
Nvidia Quadro 4000 (x16)
Red Rocket (x16)
ATTO R680 (x16)
BM Deckllink 3D Extreme (x4)
Sonnet Tempo E4P (x4)

Unless somebody recommends otherwise, I intend to use OSX 10.6.7 for the foreseeable future.

I tried manually installing a few different bootloaders at first but ended up just using iBoot + Multibeast. I couldn't find a dsdt for this board so I ended up extracting one using DSDTE and then patching it in using easyDSDT in multibeast. Then I had to create a GFX string in the boot.plist to get both of the graphics cards to show up. By now all of the drivers are working great and everything is enabled EXCEPT... Resolve (8.01 Lite for testing purposes) doesn't see any of it. When I start the program it tells me there is no GPU installed and I see no indication that the Red Rocket is working either.

So I do a little troubleshooting... I download CUDA-Z and it does indeed see both of my cards. I didn't see any field indicating how many CUDA cores were available though so I'm not positive that its working properly. Running CUDA version 4.0.21 and GPU Driver version 1.3.4.0

As for the Rocket... I checked in system profiler and alas, there is nothing listed under PCI cards. Only a few hours earlier, I had just updated the RR firmware so I knew something must be working right. I went ahead and downloaded RedcineX and voila... full RR functionality with realtime Epic 5K, monitor out, etc.

So why in the heck won't Resolve recognize these cards? Do I need to implement another another EFI string for the Rocket? Does my dsdt need patching?

I certainly hope there's a sympathetic osx86/Resolve genius out there willing to help.

Thanks,
McKay

[Rohit Gupta]

Do you see the GPU cards listed in the System Profiler? If you could do a capture logs (from Resolve), and attached it here it be useful. CaptureLogs.app is the /Lib../App.../Black.../DaVinci Resolve/ folder.

[mcKayj]

Yes, both graphics cards showed up in profiler but only after I patched in a custom GFX string. Prior to that it wouldn't even boot with both cards in, not even safe mode.

Unfortunatley, my rig is locked up on the camera truck for the weekend. I'll post that log file first thing Monday.

[mcKayj]

OK, logs attached... It looks like Resolve is indeed seeing and using the quadro. So why then would I be getting the error message? Maybe the arbitrary name I gave the card in the GFX string needs to exactly match the actual mac drivers?

I don't see anything mentioning the Rocket.

[Rohit Gupta]

Make sure you plug the monitor into the GT120. You might have plugged it in the Q4000 so the GT120 is being used for the CUDA compute which you don't want. Also the Q4000 is being seen as a different NVIDIA card - NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT.

[mcKayj]

Maybe somebody else can confirm this but I'm pretty sure the gt120 is erroneously recognized as a 9500GT in all Mac OS systems including retail ones.

I double and triple checked that the monitor was on the right port so I'm sure that's not the problem.

I should have my dongle back in a few days so I'll try it then with the retail version... although I was under the impression that all of this would work with lite.

[Michael Olsen]

Just out of curiosity...

How much time do you think has been spent on this project?

[Jose Lomeña]

What nvidia and cuda driver do you have?. Test with nvidia driver 256.01



Maybe somebody else can confirm this but I'm pretty sure the gt120 is erroneously recognized as a 9500GT in all Mac OS systems including retail ones.

I double and triple checked that the monitor was on the right port so I'm sure that's not the problem.

I should have my dongle back in a few days so I'll try it then with the retail version... although I was under the impression that all of this would work with lite.

[mcKayj]

Just out of curiosity...

How much time do you think has been spent on this project?


Hard to say... I'd been working on it in my free time (which is quite sparse these days). I would guess that I've spent less than 50 hours actually building and debugging but maybe double that if you include all of the research I did prior.

I'm quite happy with the whole thing. I'm actually sending this post via 4G LTE, on-set, from my hack, with shotput happily cloning and redcine happily transcoding in the background all without a single hitch. If I could just get Resolve to run this well, I would be the happiest technician on earth.

[mcKayj]

What nvidia and cuda driver do you have?. Test with nvidia driver 256.01

I'm running CUDA v4.0.21 and nVidia GPU v1.3.4.0 (build 256.01.00f03)

[luigivaltulini]

ciao mcKayj,

Not using a GT 120 in a Hackintosh especially the original, first id is not inserted in the chameleon, and not present in NV50 kext , but the second is recognized as a 9500 GT and this causes many problems, especially with using Resolve. I give my advice always use the same card, such as 2 or 2 gtx 470 nv4000 or 2 gtx 480, never different, it takes you a lot of power.
To view the problem in the menu PCI standard, only if you made a correct DSDT with patches you can see it, but the device works without problems.
Another tip is to leave immediately with Lion least you have applications that require Snow.
Good luck and congratulations for the beautiful TYAN mainboard;)

ciao and good luck
Luigi

[mcKayj]

ciao mcKayj,

Not using a GT 120 in a Hackintosh especially the original, first id is not inserted in the chameleon, and not present in NV50 kext , but the second is recognized as a 9500 GT and this causes many problems, especially with using Resolve. I give my advice always use the same card, such as 2 or 2 gtx 470 nv4000 or 2 gtx 480, never different, it takes you a lot of power.
To view the problem in the menu PCI standard, only if you made a correct DSDT with patches you can see it, but the device works without problems.
Another tip is to leave immediately with Lion least you have applications that require Snow.
Good luck and congratulations for the beautiful TYAN mainboard;)

ciao and good luck
Luigi

If you're saying what I think you're saying then I'm afraid I suspected as much. Unfortunately for me, I need single width cards in all slots for this rig to work the way I want it to. I guess that means a second Quadro.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that using a quadro for your GUI in Resolve renders it completely useless for processing. Is this still the case in 8.01? In my last system I had only a GTX285 and no dedicated GPU and I was still getting ~22fps rendering of 4x4 1080p ProRes with 4-5 nodes.

I've been meaning to test out Scratch Lab also. Does anybody know if this will benefit from two quadros?

Just trying to justify dropping another $700

[luigivaltulini]

Rohit can answer for the question, I do not work for Blackmagic;)
We still understand your problem with the slots, however, well if you put a second nv 4000 go much better.
I can not tell I will not use Scratch.
Tell just finish the whole installation is treat yourself to know how it goes;) and pictures ;)

ciao luigi

[Rohit Gupta]

If you're saying what I think you're saying then I'm afraid I suspected as much. Unfortunately for me, I need single width cards in all slots for this rig to work the way I want it to. I guess that means a second Quadro.



I would recommend just removing the GT120, and using the single Q4000 to get it to work first. Make sure the System Profiler sees it as a normal Mac Pro would in terms of card names, etc.

[Michael Olsen]

Hard to say...

Very cool...I can certainly see how Resolve could be a real pain for you at this stage, after everything else goes so smoothly.

[mcKayj]

I would recommend just removing the GT120, and using the single Q4000 to get it to work first. Make sure the System Profiler sees it as a normal Mac Pro would in terms of card names, etc.

OK I'll try this when I have the time...

Thank you everyone for your support. I'll be sure and let you know how it goes and maybe even post some pictures.

[mcKayj]

So I finally had a little time to tinker with this thing and I'm afraid progress is... not progressing.

As of right now I have a really frustrating video problem. Mac OS (all versions form 10.6.7-10.7.1) can see my Quadro 4000 just fine by simply using GraphicsEnabler=Yes in Chimera 1.5 (Chameleon 2.0 RC5). I get full driver finctionality, all resolutions, QE/CI, accurate System Profiler, etc. UNTIL... I try and use anything with any sort of video engine. Quicktime X won't play at all, Quicktime 7 Pro takes about 5 seconds to start playback after I push play, RedCine crashes if I try to play anything in the viewer and performance in Resolve is awful even trying to playback ProRes. This is with only the Quadro installed (tried all the slots) and nothing else.

Also, my ATTO card doesn't work with 10.6.8 and above and my Qio doesn't work at all.

Anybody ever experienced anything like this? I'm very close to swapping out my motherboard for an Asus seeing as there's so much more support around here. I guess now I just need something to get me by until Resolve comes out for Windows ;)

[Philipp Straehl]

yes, I tried to run Resolve Lite with one GT430 and one GTX570. It never really worked. I have now the GTX570 alone on Lion 10.7, but with rather bad performance. Resolve Lite is very slow, Cinebench benchmarks below 20 fps, only software Mercury engine in Premiere. With Windows 7 all is fine and much easier to install. I will run Resolve on PC (next year) where I can use and configure graphic cards as I wish. Hackintosh with different graphic cards and with 5xx cards is just too complicated if not entirely impossible. But as Luigi said, two Quadro 4000 may work fine.

[Dave P]

We still understand your problem with the slots, however, well if you put a second nv 4000 go much better.



So in order to make the more affordable Hackintosh run like an overpriced Mac Pro, the answer is to drop $800 on a video card to replicate the performance that a $100 video card would provide in an actual Mac? Am I the only one who sees the irony here?

Quite a way to "beat the system". Sort of like walking ALL THE WAY AROUND a castle because you refuse to use the front door...and then going in the front door anyway.

Well, I guess Jobs can use a laugh these days.

As Netkas is the brains behind 80% of all these "DSDT patches", "EFI strings" and all of the other myriad patches & fixes being used to band-aid these Hack systems together, why not go to him and ask if he can help you get a system to run with Q4000 & GT120 at same time? I recently had a conversation with him regarding how OSX differentiates between a PC 9500GT and an Apple GT120. They have same device id (0640) and vendor id (10de) ....Apple used other fields to make them appear & behave differently. If a real GT120 from Apple has same issue in Hack, then this is not the answer though.

In any case, if the guy has 2 slots available, it could be hoped they were adjacent. In that case, it would seem a GTX 470/480/570/580 could just be used by itself. The GUI hit from this is likely to be less of a loss than going down to a Quadro 4000 with it's limited memory bandwidth. So, a $300 GPU could be used instead of 2 @ $800 GPUs for same performance. With the $1300 saved, he could buy one of those shiny cases with the Day-Glo blue lights inside.

I just think that this is an instance where someone needs to step back from the table, look, and think about what they are doing.

[luigivaltulini]

So in order to make the more affordable Hackintosh run like an overpriced Mac Pro, the answer is to drop $800 on a video card to replicate the performance that a $100 video card would provide in an actual Mac? Am I the only one who sees the irony here?

Quite a way to "beat the system". Sort of like walking ALL THE WAY AROUND a castle because you refuse to use the front door...and then going in the front door anyway.

Well, I guess Jobs can use a laugh these days.

As Netkas is the brains behind 80% of all these "DSDT patches", "EFI strings" and all of the other myriad patches & fixes being used to band-aid these Hack systems together, why not go to him and ask if he can help you get a system to run with Q4000 & GT120 at same time? I recently had a conversation with him regarding how OSX differentiates between a PC 9500GT and an Apple GT120. They have same device id (0640) and vendor id (10de) ....Apple used other fields to make them appear & behave differently. If a real GT120 from Apple has same issue in Hack, then this is not the answer though.

In any case, if the guy has 2 slots available, it could be hoped they were adjacent. In that case, it would seem a GTX 470/480/570/580 could just be used by itself. The GUI hit from this is likely to be less of a loss than going down to a Quadro 4000 with it's limited memory bandwidth. So, a $300 GPU could be used instead of 2 @ $800 GPUs for same performance. With the $1300 saved, he could buy one of those shiny cases with the Day-Glo blue lights inside.

I just think that this is an instance where someone needs to step back from the table, look, and think about what they are doing.


ciao Dave,
In this case it was appropriate to have two Quadro 4000 to earn the slot was only a suggestion, of course you could recommend a GTX, but I think very own that you have not ever tested Resolve with the Q4000 or the gtx because otherwise you would not have written this. I unfortunately was. With a video card after a while the system goes into freeze or malfunction so better to have two cards. The GTX 470 has about 480 cuda this in Windows and not OSX, where we get up to 256 for gpu, although until recently I was convinced, in fact, the performace is Davinci are 15/30% and the double so better to have one more slot to put a redrocket in more, or a RAID card. It's true what they say, at this point would have bought a MacPro. In fact until now I have always recommended a 7-pcie motherboard, and the GTX, this is still an advantage compared to the Mac Pro is otherwise useless.
However, if you did the test with DaVinci Resolve'd be happy to know what you think.
I hope he was not aggressive towards you due to my bad writing in English.;)

thanks
Luigi

[mcKayj]

I just think that this is an instance where someone needs to step back from the table, look, and think about what they are doing.

My intentions with this build were never to save money. The hours I've put into this project alone far exceed the cost of a new Mac...

The goal here is to build a rig that does everything I need it to do in a single 4RU package. At the moment, this is not possible with genuine Apple hardware. Unfortunately, I am tied to their software for the time being... Hence the osx86 approach.

I could definitely use some more indirect lighting in my tent though... do they make these Day-Glo lights in D65?

[Alexis Vanier]

Hey McKay,

Hang in there. I'm running Resolve very successfully with a GTS250 and a GTX480 as my GUI and GPU card respectively. Your problem is definitely with the GT120 and/or your GFX strings. The Quadro4000 should react just fine as it's using the same driver as my GTX480 and I know that works. Try using injection strings without a DSDT, that's the way I got it to work.

Anyway, you're not the only one out there. I went hackintosh for the very same reasons : needed a rackmountable package in which I could shove everything, and there's way to get it to work. I'm running two graphics cards, two raid controllers, my Red Rocket and a Decklink all at once. Here's to you Mac Pro! But... erm... I try not to think about how many hours I sank into getting all that to work.

Cheers!

[Aristides]

I'd also suggest getting a 9800GT 1GB, amazon has some cheap used (single slot width) ones

9800's work on hackintoshes almost out of the box so maybe you could give them a shot...

[mcKayj]

So, while I have managed to squeeze a few more fps out of cinebench with some dsdt edits (and make an incredibly smooth running machine in the process) my gpu performance is still less than half of what it is under win7 (26fps in mac vs. 59fps in win7)

I'm also still experiencing this glitch in 2D video applications. It's as if the drivers are preventing hardware support for 2D rendering. I checked opengl extension viewer and it seems that I have full support up to 2.1

Also noticed something strange in IORegistryExplorer...

.../display@0/NVDA,Display-A@0/NVDA

IOPowerManagement
DriverPowerState 0x1
MaxPowerState 0x2

The really frustrating thing is that it does this no matter what video card I use... I've tried Quadro 4000, GTX 285 and GT120, all of them Mac Edition. Is there some sort of ACPI power state for PCIE slots that could be acting up?

Also, my Atto card is giving me an error about "running in degraded mode" with or without disks attached.

I've decided to go ahead and swap out my tyan s7025 for an asus p6t7 which is known to work well for my purposes. If I can get it to run my quadro alone at full power I'll go ahead and pick up a second one (or maybe a pair of gtx).