Should we all just Hackintosh while we can?
 

Forgive the clickbait title.
Lately I’ve been wondering why we bother with PT on Windows in 2020.
A bit of context...
Since building my my i9 10900k machine, I’ve been suspicious that Pro Tools is not able to use my computer efficiently. I seem to run into as many overloads at low buffer sizes as I did on my old Sandy Bridge machine. I’ve tried Processor Affinity, Priority, and all the other optimizations - while there are some gains to be had... PT is just not performing that much better than on the old machine. To add to this, I can’t program the macros I want, as Pro Tools will not accept the alt or win modifier keys from AutoHotKey. This seems to be a theme with PT on Windows: Melodyne doesn’t operate with normal key commands on Windows as it does with OSX. Equilibrium Key commands don’t behave correctly, etc. I’ve spoken with Celemony and DMG to learn that these are special issues that only affect windows pro tools systems. To add to these frustrations, a 32 buffer size has always been unsupported with an HD Native card at 44.1, while the latest PT for Mac just received low latency performance optimizations.
Is there a compelling reason NOT to just switch my machine over to OSX (I know I can with my hardware)? Other than the cost of a Mac, it seems that Windows might be a clearly inferior platform for PT. Please let me know if I’m missing something here. I’d LOVE to stay on W10 and save myself some trouble.

Re: Should we all just Hackintosh while we can?
 

D

Here are a couple things...

> I have seen lots of comparisons over the years, the Win10 PC typically outperforms/is the same as the Mac because ASIO (is/was) a more efficient protocol - I don't think there are significant performance differences. The low latency performance is primarily due to the quality of the interface driver (I use a MOTU 1248, great drivers !);

> Hang around the Mac forum here for a while, every new version of the Mac OS creates new problems for Pro Tools - from my observation, it seems most new Pro Tools releases are primarily aimed at maintaining Mac OS compatibility with MINOR feature updates. I believe you could run almost any version of Pro Tools from 9 onwards on a new Win 10 machine;

> The Intel platform is a dead end on the Mac, which suggests to me that Hackintoshes will not be compatible for very long, so you will be stuck on older Pro Tools versions because Pro Tools won't be compatible with a Hackintosh;

> Did I mention the new M1 chip. Mac land is going to be a mess for the for the next year or so. But I am very glad Apple did M1 and AMD did Zen 3 because as you state "PT is just not performing that much better than on the old machine". I agree. The Intel lineup from the 2600K onward was pretty good and single core performance has improved very little all the way to today. Riddle me this, how did AMD improve single core performance so much in Zen 3, how did Apple decrease power consumption (critical for chip density) so much with M1. Answer, Intel had no competition;

> I believe the low latency performance improvements noted for the Mac in the last release (2020.11) just bring performance up to where we have been on the PC for a while;

> Have you overclocked your machine ? With a Noctua air cooler you should be able to do at least 4.8 GHz on all cores 24/7 with an AVX offset of -1. This is by far the easiest way to improve single core performance - it is not rocket science - increase the voltage a bit, up the multiplier, set AVX offset, get the memory timing optimized, turn off Turbo boost and C-states, turn off unused motherboard components (e.g. sound card) in the BIOS. Done.

> Very low latency performance can be a function of how you set up your session. When I am tracking at low latency (24/96 @ 64 buffer; 3.1 ms RTL) I avoid long serial processing chains of plugins and subgroups because this can overload one of the cores;

> Actually, I just did my renewal (even though we had minimal useful or new features this past year) to maybe get a M1 compatible (optimized) version of Pro Tools. The Air looks to be a really nice portable system eventually. BUT, I am very worried that ALL of Avids resources will be focused on getting a stable M1 version launched;

> ... and here is my click bait, the Win10 PC is simply better than the Intel Mac :-)

YMMV

ejinbc

Re: Should we all just Hackintosh while we can?
 

Just opinion, but I agree with most of the above.

I'm running an old M-Audio 2626 that hasn't had driver updates since Windows 8 without issue. I can run any Pro Tools version that worked on Win7 + without issue. Both of which on the latest preview build of Win 10. None of those statements would be true if I where to be using whatever the latest Mac OS is these days.

Every time Apple releases an OS upgrade, it's a storm of posts here wondering when Pro Tools will be supported and folks who upgraded too early complaining that nothing works.

Windows has its isssues, to be sure. But I don't see paying extra for the above headache of running a Mac to be worth it.

Joel

Re: Should we all just Hackintosh while we can?
 

+1. The Mac OS versions are a moving target. Crazy...

Re: Should we all just Hackintosh while we can?
 

To each his own, but I used Pro Tools on Windows for years before switching to Mac and my experience is that it's much more solid on Mac - and my interfaces are old by tech standards. Something may eventually force me to switch back, but I hope not.

Re: Should we all just Hackintosh while we can?
 

Going the Hackintosh route can be rewarding when and if you get it working. The problem is that most of the hardware is supported, but the stuff that isn't relies on hacks that need to be installed on top of the base MacOS image. Then there is the cross your fingers and hope it works update process that comes with owning a Hackintosh whenever Apple releases a new version of the OS. Thunderbolt is tricky to get working and AVB is not available on a hack either.

If you have a spare drive and just want to play around to see how it is on the other side; then yes, a Hackintosh is a fun project and for the most part will work well enough to have fun with it. If you plan on using it as anything other than a hobby PC, then do yourself a favor and just buy a real Mac.

Re: Should we all just Hackintosh while we can?
 

There was a huge learning curve when I first built mine, but installing Catalina was really smooth and I use it for most of my recording work. No complaints here. I'd love to own a real Mac (other than my MBP), but they're just too damn expensive.

Re: Should we all just Hackintosh while we can?
 

Thanks for the replies. It seems to me that most objections is the OSX route can be addressed by simply not upgrading?

Re: Should we all just Hackintosh while we can?
 

I agree with cwsand; the initial learning curve is the worst part. Once you are up and running, it’s pretty smooth. Updates typically work and there may be small things that need to be fixed afterwards, depending on your hardware and what non standard drivers you may have.

The biggest pain for me was that video card support is very limited, Thunderbolt is tricky to get working and AVB is not available using most PC onboard NICs.

Give it a go. I had fun when I had mine and it was nice to compare it against Windows.

Re: Should we all just Hackintosh while we can?
 

I recently built a brand new PC with an i7-8700K processor (supposedly the best for Pro Tools) and max memory because I was so fed up with the CPU error messages I was getting with its predecessor, which was no slouch. My CPU and memory usage are now negligible according to both Pro Tools and Windows Task Manager but I'm getting heavy power consumption warnings. I have already upgraded the PC's power supply, which had very little effect. I have done everything I can to track down the source of the error messages - plugins are the main suspect - but still the problems remain. Some of my sessions play back perfectly; some don't. I've also noticed that repeatedly replaying part of a song seems to make the figures increase. It's as if the memory doesn't clear down correctly after each iteration. Any thoughts?

Re: Should we all just Hackintosh while we can?
 

As someone who works on new Mac Pros at studios all the time:

If you think the answer to all your PT problems lies in the OS, you are very sadly mistaken.

On top of that, if you think the answer to your problems is installing OSX on hardware that doesn't directly support it, you are VERY VERY sadly mistaken.

Windows and PT have issues, but these only exist because Avid is apathetic to Windows users and puts way more time into Mac because that's where the industry leans.

Re: Should we all just Hackintosh while we can?
 

In early 2019 I built a new PC for Pro Tools:

Gigabyte Z390 Designare
i9 9900K w/Noctua D15 cooler
64 Gb DDR 4
Crucial NVMe 1Tb boot drive
16Tb of assorted spinners
Gigabyte RX580 8Gb Video
Fractal Design case w/850W power supply

Originally I put Win 10 Pro on it and all was good for a minute until Windows did an update then all of a sudden my D-Command was no longer recognized. Did everything I could but nothing helped. I had tried to put macOS Mojave on this machine before with a separate 1Tb NVME drive but the motherboard was so new the install was flakey as hell. By the time Windows trashed my D-Command I decided to give OSX another go. The install guide and necessary kext/drivers needed were all good and I never looked back.

In testing with a 1KHz tone recorded I started enabling tracks in record with 10 CPU intensive plugins like Waves Abbey Road Plates & Chambers among others and made it all the way to 113 tracks in record before the playback of the 1KHz tone glitched. This was done with a 32 buffer on Pro Tools Ultimate 2019.12 using a HD Native Thunderbolt via an Apple TB3 to TB2 adapter & Avid Omni. I also ran a Geekbench 4 test and Geekbench kicked it back as being faked, slightly over 30,000 on the score. Used it all day yesterday programming drums along with a rough mix on an existing session and never had an issue or warning all day. Solid as a rock!

It must be noted that I'm a long term Windows PC guy, like all the way back to Windows 3.1 and DOS 4 in the beginning. Never again! In addition to this rig I now have a 2008 Mac Pro 3.2GHz 8-core/32Gb with HD6 Accel and a 2015 Retina MacBook Pro. I still build custom Windows gaming PCs for others but not for me.

A Hackintosh is a viable option for Pro Tools without a doubt, just look for successful install/build guides before buying components.


YMMV!

Below is the System Monitor capture from yesterday's session at a 64 buffer. Session is on an external 1Tb NVMe drive in a TB3 case which also has all my sample libraries on it.

Re: Should we all just Hackintosh while we can?
 

And... why would that be? The question is rhetorical and doesn't warrant nor is looking for an answer, so I'll just post my opinion. I am in the middle of demos of several packages on Apple silicon. To me the Pro Tools updates are too slow, making it unviable an option as I do not want to be stuck in time, OS wise. I find it a shame that in returning to audio productions, returning to being a Pro Tools user seems to not be worth the effort when I need multiple tools to work on one computer.

Re: Should we all just Hackintosh while we can?
 

Regardless of wanting a reply, I will anyway.

My (non-Avid) M-Audio interface continues to work on the latest version of Windows. It does not work on any new version of OSX or Mac OS. That is the point I was trying to make.

Yes, Pro Tools updates usually also delay support for a new Apple OS - hasn't been an issue for me on Windows. Which is the main topic of this thread - Windows vs Hack.

Joel