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Building a (sub-$1000) Hackintosh that meets the Oculus Rift hardware requirements – Part II

Create OS X Boot DIsk

In part I of our Hackintosh tutorial, we discussed our choice of hardware and the reasons behind those decisions. The main goal was to create a machine that had enough power to meet the Oculus Rift hardware requirements.

In this follow-up tutorial, we’ll show you the entire software install process needed for completing the build. Watch our 18+ minute step-by-step tutorial and witness this Hackintosh come to life.

Install the hardware

In this tutorial, we’re assuming that you’ve put together all of the parts discussed in our initial post. The full part list is below, but if you want our reasons behind the selections, be sure to read the prior post in the series.

Some of these hardware choices, in retrospect, have pluses and minuses associated with them. For instance, if you work with Adobe apps, the NVIDIA GTX 970 is a good choice thanks to its support of CUDA. On the other hand, if you’re a big Final Cut Pro X user, you’ll definitely want to look in the direction of one of AMD’s offerings.

Another example is with the TP-LINK Wi-Fi card that I selected. It works within OS X for basic Internet connectivity, but due to its chipset, it doesn’t support OS X’s Continuity features. If Continuity is a must-have for you, then I recommend checking out the Broadcom BCM94360CD card from OSXWiFi. It incorporates both Bluetooth and 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and works with Continuity out of the box.

Hackintosh Video Tutorial

Read Part I

I recommend watching our full video from beginning to end. From a software perspective, it is a full end-to-end tutorial that includes everything you’ll need to get started with this build.

In this how-to, I show you how to make the OS X USB boot disk, how to configure BIOS settings, how to install OS X, and how to approach those important post-installation procedures.

Start on your Mac

Start on Your Mac

Step 1: Connect the USB flash drive to your Mac.

Step 2: Download OS X El Capitan from the Mac App Store and close the installer window when finished.

Preparing the USB drive

Prepare USB Drive

Step 3: Open Disk utility via Applications → Utilities. Select your USB drive, and click Partition. If the drive is over 32GB in size, you’ll want to create a partition between 7 and 32GB. If your USB drive meets that criteria to begin with, a simple format using default settings will do. Name the drive Boot for easy identification.

Essential downloads

Essential Downloads

Step 4: Download the following:

Step 5: Extract UniBeast.

Create the OS X Boot Disk

Create OS X Boot DIsk

Step 6: Launch UniBeast.

Step 7: Click Continue 4 times followed by Agree.

Step 8: Select the USB Disk prepared in Step 3 and click Continue.

Step 9: Click El Capitan and click Continue.

Step 10: Click UEFI Boot Mode and click Continue.

Step 11: Click Continue twice and input your Administrator password and click OK. Wait until UniBeast creates the USB Boot Disk. This is lengthy, so just be patient.

Step 12: Click Quit once the install is successful.

Step 13: Extract the MultiBeast ZIP file from the Downloads folder and drag the extracted folder into the Finder window for the USB Boot Disk.

Step 14: Move the WebDriver package from the Downloads folder to the USB Boot Disk.

Step 15: Close the USB Boot Disk Finder window and eject the drive.

Continue on the Hackintosh

Continue on Hackintosh

Step 16: Plug in the USB Boot Disk and power on the Hackintosh.

Step 17: Prior to boot, hold the Delete key on the keyboard to launch the BIOS.

Configure UEFI (BIOS) settings

Configure UEFI BIOS Settings

Step 18: Under the Save & Exit section, select Load Optimized Defaults.

Step 19: Under BIOS Features, disable VT-d.

Step 20: Under BIOS Features, set the UEFI USB Boot Disk to Boot Option #1.

Step 21: Under Save & Exit, select Save & Exit Setup

First Boot from USB

First Boot from USB

Step 22: From the boot menu, select Options and press Enter.

Step 23: Select Boot Args and delete all existing arguments.

Step 24: Add nv_disable=1 to boot args and use the Return option at the bottom to confirm the change.

Step 25: Select the External Drive and press Enter on the keyboard to boot using the USB Boot Disk. You’ll need to wait until the OS X installer interface loads.

Format Disk and Install OS X

Format Disk and Install OS X

Step 26: Select English.

Step 27: Click Utilities in the menu bar and select Disk Utility.

Step 28: Highlight your SSD/HDD, and click Erase. Be sure to select the right drive, because this will erase everything on that drive.

Step 29: Name your drive Macintosh HD (or Hackintosh HD), and click Erase to confirm.

Step 30: Close Disk Utility.

Step 31: Click Continue → Continue → Agree.

Step 32: Select Macintosh HD, or whatever you named the disk in Step 29, and click Continue. Wait until the OS X install completes.

Boot OS X from Disk

Boot OS X from Disk

Step 33: From the boot menu, select Options and press Enter.

Step 34: Select Boot Args and delete all existing arguments.

Step 35: Add nv_disable=1 to boot args and use the Return option at the bottom to confirm the change.

Step 36: Select the HFS drive and press Enter on the keyboard to boot using the SSD/HDD inside of your Hackintosh.

Configure OS X

Configure OS X

Step 37: You can use the next few prompts to configure OS X to your liking. Here, you can establish keyboard settings, Wi-Fi settings, location services and more. Select the options that work for you, and ensure that you properly connect to your Home’s Wi-Fi network.

Configure MultiBeast

Configure MultiBeast

Step 38: Open the MultiBeast Folder on the USB Boot Disk and launch MultiBeast.

Step 39: Click Quick Start and select UEFI Boot Mode.

Step 40: Click Drivers → Audio → Realtek ALCxxx and select ALC892.

Step 41: Click Build and ensure that the Macintosh HD Install Drive is selected in the drop down box. Click Install → Agree, and insert your administrator password. Click Install Helper and close MultiBeast once the install succeeds.

Install NVIDIA drivers

Install NVIDIA Drivers

Step 42: Open the USB Boot Disk and open the WebDriver package. Click Continue → Continue → Agree → Install. Enter your administrator password and click Install Software → Continue Installation.

Step 43: Click the Restart button once the install is completed.

Hackintosh build completed!

Build Completed

Step 44: When your Hackintosh reboots, simply select the HFS drive, and your Hackintosh will boot like normal. You don’t need to configure any more boot arguments or change any settings. From this point forward, you should be able to quickly boot into OS X with little issue.

Conclusion

This is my very first Hackintosh build, and the first PC that I’ve built in over a decade. For sure, I was a bit rusty, but I’m pretty happy with how this build turned out. I didn’t run into any major software issues, and the install was fairly straightforward.

I wanted to create a video tutorial that was extremely easy to follow and that looked good as well. For that reason, I opted to film all settings and configuration using a direct feed instead of recording my display using a camera. This allowed me to capture even low level stuff like BIOS settings in decent quality.

Although the purpose of this exercise was to create a Hackintosh that sported Oculus Rift-compatible specs, the reality of the matter is that the Rift probably won’t support OS X for the foreseeable future. With this in mind, I recommend dual booting Windows so that you can take full advantage of the power inside this rig.

In a later post, I’ll be sure to follow-up with some final thoughts, observations, and ideas about future Hackintosh builds. In the meantime, please share your thoughts and opinions down below in the comments.

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Comments

  1. What happens in terms of updating the OS X when Apple rolls out new updates? Is there any chance these hardware might become incompatible with the software? Thanks! :D

  2. Rich Davis (@RichDavis9) - 8 years ago

    Why did you not just get a Thunderbolt 2 PCI chassis, buy the appropriate GPU PCI card and plug it into a high end iMac with the top end i7? Wouldn’t that work? Plus, it’s legal.

    It seem to be a very arduous task just to run a couple of games.

    • Jeff Benjamin - 8 years ago

      I’d rather wait for TB3. The existing TB2 solutions can be just as arduous to get working properly IMO.

      • Rich Davis (@RichDavis9) - 8 years ago

        Yeah, TB3 is just emerging on the market, so I’m sure by the end of 2016, it will be more available. and most of the PCI chassis mfg will probably have a TB3 upgrade just like they did between TB1 and TB2.

        BTW, I did a rough calculation. Facebook paid $2 Billion for Oculus. Oculus is currently selling the goggles for $600 MSRP, which means they probably only make about $60 net profit from each pair, once the company hits break even. $2 Billion divided by $60 = $33+ million units. I honestly don’t think they are going to sell that many very soon. I could be wrong, but I think it’s going to take them many years, that’s if they actually turn a profit each year, which most likely won’t happen because they have to sell X number of units just to break even. First they have to sell enough to turn a profit. I’m still on the fence on how viable this type of product is when you consider Microsoft is going to compete with their Halolens product, and whatever else comes on the market.

  3. Rich Davis (@RichDavis9) - 8 years ago

    If Oculus Rift doesn’t even support OS X, then it probably won’t even work, so maybe you’ll just be stuck with a Windows DIY computer.

  4. Fab1Man (@Fab1Man) - 8 years ago

    Good article, but you shouldn’t support Unibeast. Unibeast basically scrapes all the different tools and throws this into a easy-to-use tool. Great, but not nice towards the original developers of Chameleon and Clover.

    • Jeff Benjamin - 8 years ago

      Interesting… I’ll consider that for next time. Keep in mind, that I was approaching this from a novice level. Now that I have my feet under me, I could probably tackle something deemed less easy.

      • Fab1Man (@Fab1Man) - 8 years ago

        Like I said, the article is awesome! It’s thorough and well written. Insanelymac explains why rather not to use Tonymacx86: http://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/279450-why-insanelymac-does-not-support-tonymacx86/

      • kyle3lias - 8 years ago

        Another argument in favor of ditching Unibeast is Clover: Since they only support Clover for 10.11+, there is no real reason any more to not use the “native” and always up to date Clover installer. Before, it actually made sense to use Unibeast because it made installing and setting up Chimera easy. But since Clover you’ll have to configure it to your needs anyway.

  5. AeronPeryton - 8 years ago

    Running OS X on custom hardware that it is not optimized for defeats the purpose of running OS X. But if you like building things, cool.

    Alternatively, someone can make custom GPUs for the Mac Pro because it’s built for that kind of thing. But I think the new Mac Pro was Apple’s way of proving that too few people care about the Mac Pro anymore.

    • Jeff Benjamin - 8 years ago

      An AMD GPU would have really paid dividends. I’ll probably sidegrade this to the equivalent AMD GPU, even though those things run hot. But AMD + FCP X = <3.

  6. Rich Davis (@RichDavis9) - 8 years ago

    Question: From the moment you decided to build this, how many hours did it take to do the initial research to figure out what to buy, purchase all of the components, build the thing until it was a 100% complete build/install? Just curious.

    • Jeff Benjamin - 8 years ago

      Many hours. I couldn’t even tell you. Probably ~20-25 hours total. Now, If I was tasked with the same build again, it would probably take me 2-3 hours max. From beginning to end. Keep in mind that it’s been 10 years since I’ve even built a PC, so I was rusty in a variety of areas hardware-wise, software-wise, etc. When I was building PCs, there was no UEFI, for instance. It’s been fun. I had a blast doing this, and now I feel much more competent when it comes to PCs in general, let alone Hackintosh.

      • Rich Davis (@RichDavis9) - 8 years ago

        Obviously, the first time you do something it takes more time than if you do the exact same thing a second time because you’ve already done the research for what to purchase, etc.. I have found process of just figuring out all of the things you need to buy is very time consuming since there are so many different components to sift through on the market. Most of us don’t do this on a daily basis and many of us simply have no interest. I certainly don’t since I don’t buy computers on a daily basis, I usually buy them once every few years, and one of the things I like about Apple, is that when I am ready to buy a new computer, the purchasing process doesn’t take forever, it’s quick, straightforward and yes, it does become a little frustrating if the config I want isn’t available, but overall it’s a much more simple and less time consuming process. One of the things that turns me off about the PC market, in general, is there are so many different choices, it gets confusing, frustrating, etc. because even within one mfg (Dell, HP, Lenovo), there are countless of different models/configurations.

        Having worked for corporate resellers of name brand computers, I was paid to know all of the different configurations, etc. to help customers choose what was the best config, etc., but having gotten out of the end of the business, knowing all of that information isn’t of any use to me because i simply don’t do that anymore. As a consumer, I completely understand why people get confused and frustrated.

        As I have gotten older, my time is more valuable to me and doing a DIY computer is of no interest to me. If Apple offered their OS to be installed on a PC, they would probably have to charge a lot of money for the license, but I’m still not sure I would build my own computer because I don’t have much faith in buying 3rd party components, I’ve been burned several times with RAM.

        I would rather just pay the money, get a name brand product that has support, and I just want to be up and running as quickly and as painlessly as possible. I also have respect for the mfg of the OS, and in this case, it’s just not legal to install OS X on a non-Apple computer, Apple doesn’t have that option, so while it can be done technically, the legal/moral aspect is that it isn’t proper to instal it on a PC.

        As far as making a computer to test the Oculus Rift? If Oculus doesn’t currently support OS X, then it’s futile. Oculus doesn’t support OS X. Right now, it’s really only of interest to mostly developers. From a consumer standpoint, there’s no apps on the market other than a couple. I just think VR is just not going to be that big of a deal either for the time being or maybe at all. I simply don’t see a NEED for it. If I was an engineer, I MIGHT use it if I was involved with product design. As far as playing games? It’s very disorienting and I, like many, don’t like being disoriented for long periods of time. It’s OK once or twice, but daily basis? I don’t know about that. I just think it’s more hype than substance, at least for the market in general. Only a handful of gamers are going to really get into it. I have yet to find people that own 3D TVs that actually watch content in 3D. I think that’s kind of an indication of how well these VR goggles are actually going to do for the long term. I think Facebook paid too much for Oculus, $2 Billion is a lot of money.

  7. Matthew Judy - 8 years ago

    “…Aaaand, forty-four steps later, you’re done! Aren’t you glad you didn’t buy an actual Mac? Now, to do a Software update you just— what? No, Software Update doesn’t always work on a Hackintosh. But don’t worry, it’s only twenty-six steps, every so often!” :D

    • Jeff Benjamin - 8 years ago

      Hahaha. Touche’. Updates aren’t nearly as bad as they used to be BTW. And the amount of steps in this tutorial likely could be reduced, I just desired to break it down to a very granular level.

      • kyle3lias - 8 years ago

        Haven’t had a problem with my experimental Hackintosh and Mac App Store software update since Lion.

  8. viciosodiego - 8 years ago

    EFI is so damn crappy at features.
    Seriously, the only thing you can do is boot from a disk.

  9. Connor Nelson - 8 years ago

    don’t let them hate Jeff, this tutorial is incredible I intend on doing it myself. Great job making an otherwise complex process easy to duplicate.

  10. Jimmi Pesto (@OcAutoapp) - 8 years ago

    All the hacky experience of a toy with almost no games plus the unreliability of a PC! Seems like a thousand dollar bargain. Also, those SSD’s are about have the speed of the ones in most macs.

  11. xoFoxtail - 8 years ago

    I have some experience with hackintoshs. Before the iPad Pro, my Surface Pro 3 was a half-baked OS X tablet. And a desktop I built for a college class had OS X.

    The iPad Pro is currently my main computer for most things, but there are rare times I wish I had a desktop for video watching, or maybe a game or two. Not too sure if I can justify the price for the 4K iMac I want. Then again, I just spent $1000+ on an iPad.

  12. Marque L Hudspeth - 8 years ago

    Nice article! I was thinking of doing a hackinTosh. But I was concerned about upgrading the video card in the future. So I was going to look into dual booting mac/win. running a integrated video card for the Mac and a discrete gpu on the w9ndows side. Any chance you can cover a similar setup?

  13. chopingman - 8 years ago

    Nice article. Just to put myself into perspective, I’ve had scores of computers sines DOS and CPM. I even had a apple II in the early 80’s. You know? The one Jobs knew wouldn’t do anything of any use? By the time I was done replacing that enemic little processor with a CPM card, a Printer Card and a 300 bps modem, I had over $6500 1980 dollars into that thing so it would run Wordstar and other useful software. So modding and building high end hardware is nothing new to me. I swore off apple hardware for almost 30 years after.
    My first Mac was the first Intel core2 MacBook. The fact that they had developed Boot Camp and you could run Windows was the game changer for Apple. I have to say after watching Jobs unveil it in front of the Apple faithful, you could feel the palpable hate in the room. After all he’d been lying for years, telling these people for years that that little charcoal briquette of a chip ran half as fast but somehow it was twice as fast. When the cameras cut to the crowd, they all looked like little house wives whose husband just tole them he’d been stuping the maid for years. I’ve had two other MacBooks and a Mac mini since, but have always had a high end Windows machine to do the heavy lifting.
    Personally I’ve built 5 or 6 Hackentoshe’s over the last 4 or 5 years. Most of them built on various hardware just to prove it could be done. I even got a VM of Mountain Lion running in Virtual box on Server 2012r2
    You’re getting a lot of static and knee-jerk reactions from people that don’t really understand what you’ve done here.
    The creator of the Occulous Rift has been quoted that his VR or really anyone else’s isn’t going on Apple hardware now or anytime soon as it’s woefully underpowered. Even that Apple shill Leo Laporte admits all he does with his 7000 dollar Mac Pro is run a Minecraft Server. It’s a farce of a machine. I’ll tell you what though, it sure looke nice.
    When the iPhone hit the market I really got sucked into the Mac ecosystem. I love iCal, iMessage, and even the abomination that is iTunes. I use hem everyday. The MacBook with 16 gigs of ram does great at the day to day stuff.
    My most receint build, seemingly concurrent with yours, is also built on a gigabyte z97 board. I desirded to build it after laboring through a complicated Photoshop project with a file size nearly 2 gigs. I got tired of standing there waiting for the MacBook and the Mac mini to respond. I also use it to rip BluRays and convert to H.264. (An iTunes server running in a VM feeds 3 Apple TV3’s from a win Server 2012.) The new box boots Win10 off a Samsung PCI Express m.2 and El Capitan off a Samsung 950 evo. The machine has Creative Cloud installed in both systems and with the press of F12 can boot either.
    Funny thing is though, I find myself running Win10 most of the time off this machine. I think you probably will too as it’s just so much more compatible with LightRoom and Photoshop. Christ, it wasn’t till just last week that the Mac version supported 39 bit color!
    I commend you for putting this guide together and completely get where you’re going with it. My only real question is this. Why on earth didn’t you spend an extra $100 and get the bargain priced i7 4990k processor?? Warp speed. I would have passed on the wireless card if nothing else as a desktop will easily use a wired connection.
    You may find as you delve further a few anomalies with your system and would love to hear if they are working. Do you still have audio after the machine goes to sleep? Do you have iMessage working?
    Keep up the good work and would love to hear about your further observations on your system!

  14. I’ve just built a Mackintosh my self. It took me MONTHS of hard work to get it all working. One thing many people skip over is getting HDMI audio working was a massive pain in the arse (until an auto detect script was released).
    My original build cost £350, using a few vouchers and second hand parts off pals, it ran games better than my £1800 iMac. I’m not a massive gamers, barely even worth calling a casual one, but the fact that my £1800 Apple computer struggles on some games is crazy, where my cheap Hack does’t.
    With Apple apparently trying to eradicate dedicated GPUs from all their machines I can only imagine things getting worse.
    I’ll always use Macs as my primary, it just irks me I have to by a separate machine and spend months getting it to work just to play games at a decent level… although saying that, the only viable option for my next purchase would be a fully maxed out iMac costing north of £2500. Or I could spend half that on a Hack and take a nice holiday…

  15. Brandon Stiefel - 8 years ago

    While I completely disagree with the idea of building a Hackintosh, I do have one question out of curiosity…

    Is it safe to login to an Apple icloud account on the machine? For example, let’s say I convert my PC to a Hackintosh to let my girlfriend use it and see if she wants to switch to a Mac. Could she create and use an icloud account for OS X?

    I don’t like going against the EULA of OS X to do this, but I’ve been trying to get the girlfriend to switch to Mac for a while, but she’s not sure. Letting her test it out on a box would be handy.

  16. Spencer Morse - 8 years ago

    2 Questions for you, good sir:

    1) Since the AMD 290 GPU performs better with the Rift than NVIDIA’s GTX 970, is your current build also compatible with their GPU?
    2) If I wanted a slightly better motherboard (possibly with TB2), which one would you recommend– that also fits inside of that case?

  17. Tomás Silva (@silvetti) - 8 years ago

    Is iMessages and Facetime working ? Last time I tried a hackintosh build I had issues with those services.

  18. Damian Walusz - 8 years ago

    Jeff, need some help.
    I followed your guide and many others step by step. As a result, I always get stuck In the same spot where you set up your boot flags and try to go to the I installation process. Once I choose external hard drive Usb and want to proceed to installation menu, I get stack at Apple logo and loading bar, that point I was never able to pass. I am running Asus new board and i5 6600.

    • Jeff Benjamin - 8 years ago

      You will probably need to use the -V bootflag to see where it’s hanging. Newer Skylake boards and CPUS aren’t as figured-out as the older stuff, that’s why I went with an older generation CPU.

      • redevil1987 - 8 years ago

        I figured out one error and run into another

        Basically, the loading Apple logo would not budge until I check the option for “ownership ”

        Then I run into some other error related to USB ports and that results in a symbol with a crossed circle.

        I tried many different ways to fix it and it would not work. I gave up. It seems those issues are related to the external and internal USB port I have built into my PC.

        Skylake probably does not cause the issue

      • Jeff Benjamin - 8 years ago

        Don’t give up man. Use Google to search for those specific errors. 9 times out of 10 you will find the answer.

    • chopingman - 8 years ago

      It goes without saying that you’re plugging your monitor into the DVI or HDMI port, right? Not a VGA port? MAC’s haven’t had a VGA port for years and if you’re using it, your machine will never get past the Apple Logo. ;)

      • Damian Walusz - 8 years ago

        Lol of course. but thanks for trying to help.

        As I said in a previous comment, i think I cant get passed the apple logo and the crossed circle due to all the internal peripherals i have installed in my PC. Disabling all the extra USBs and DVD drives would not justify using OSX for me. I dream of using OSX on PC, but every time I built a new computer there is always tons of error. Many years ago I could not get the sound and wifi to work. Now I cant even install it. Too much time for fixing those issue. Going through google forum threads alone is time consuming.

      • Jeff Benjamin - 8 years ago

        is the crossed circle by itself, or does the crossed circle have text in the background that fades out? I find that unplugging and replugging my USB boot disk has fixed it if it’s the latter.

      • Damian Walusz - 8 years ago

        the crossed circle is by itself. When I have more time I will try unplugging every extra component from my PC and see If the crossed circle persists.

      • Jeff Benjamin - 8 years ago

        Yeah, guess and check. It can be painful and frustrating, but don’t give up.

  19. Damian Walusz - 8 years ago

    I get stuck at step 25. Any help for this?

  20. Melvyn Depeyrot - 7 years ago

    Can I use a amd fx-8350 and gigabyte am3+ mobo instead?

  21. Snorre Emil Baadstø - 7 years ago

    Apple is not taking care of their mac-users. Many are left wondering what is happening, why the mac-hardware is neglected. If Apple do such a bad job with macs and may want to discontinue them, why don’ they license them out to another manufacturer? That should work for everyone! However, I would not have build a Hackintosh. Microsoft 10 seems to end up as a great OS that a lot of hardware-manufacturers use in their machines. That means that you do not have to be afraid of a lack of hardware-updates. Microsoft also has a lot of exciting products in the future, including Hololens and computers. So why not change fra mac-os to Windows? That seems to be the best solution for a lot of mac users when Apple so clearly is abandoning them?

Author

Avatar for Jeff Benjamin Jeff Benjamin

Jeff is the head of video content production for 9to5. He initially joined 9to5Mac in 2016, producing videos, walkthroughs, how-tos, written tutorials, and reviews. He takes pride in explaining things simply, clearly, and concisely. Jeff’s videos have been watched hundreds of millions of times by people seeking to learn more about today’s tech. Subscribe to 9to5Mac on YouTube to catch Jeff’s latest videos.