Hackintosh - Salvage your HD PCI cards - You Can Do It Too!

[zavid]

Nobody still use Hackintosh-MacMod etc.. ?

[zavid]

Originally Posted by Nonikoff

I post this just to confirm that after some fails and tries I've built a great working pto Tools HD PCI machine. It's HD4 - YES - full load of that mobo's pci slots ))) works fine.
TIPS :
1. When U stuck at the point, when setup doesn't start and says in -v mode that there is no USB drive or kinda this - just plug your USB stick out and back in - it will continue normally )
2. DO remember to use PCIRootUID=1 command every time till U finish installation - it will help U avoid headache ))
3. I've read that only working bootloader that works with HD HARDWARE is chimera 1.4.1 r877 - i've even didn't try to install my cards without it so my advice is to USE this version to avoid kernel PANIC on DIGIDal.kext on bootup.
4. Everything else is BEAUTIFULLY explained in this post by freddarr, to whom I send many cheerz and thanks for detailed guide.

http://legacy.tonymacx86.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=61958

P.S. I post this, because I'm absolutely sure, that this terrible policy of further "improvements" by AVID which are siply measures to get us buying EVERYTHING from the scratch, will make even more people think of using their old PCI HD stuff in other enviroment, than poor old PPC mac G5 ) wish U all good luck.

Good to know that somebody had success with 4 PT-HD cards system on a "Macmod",

but it do not give help if Hackintosh machine hardware setup (parts description)
is not indicated .

and that "tony........" link no more work,
(legal trouble with Apple ? )

[feliponk]

I use my HP Z820 with Open Core, running Big Sur. This is the best boot-loader for macOS I have worked with in years. Previously I used Clover until High Sierra, from there, Open Core. I'm also using Open Core in an old mac mini i5 running Big Sur as well.

[soul]

Just checking in here to pay homage to this wonderful post from 2012 that inspired me to build a Hackintosh for my PTHD4 PCI rig 11 years ago. I can report that it has remained solid and stable workhorse every day since!

Sure, I'm missing out on some modern/plugins and features, but I usually get the results I'm looking for. But as a tracking and mixing machine, PTHD10 has all of the basic editing features one could need if you record decent quality tracks, and with no latency (well, I recently added an Apogee Symphony II interface and now there's a little bit of latency).... Of course, I also have a newer laptop with up-to-date OS and a modern DAW that I can use when needed, but its rare almost never that I use it.

Hats off to Jeremy for the inspiration! I see some people looking for hard-to-find PTHD10 licenses here in 2024 and others poo-pooing the old TDM gear.

I don't know if I'd pursue building a TDM rig had I not been using it for the past 20+ years, but I don't think its a terrible idea either.

I've told myself that if/when this Hackintosh crashes and burns, I'll move on with a modern system. But I don't know, I might be tempted to build another one (if I could find a motherboard with PCI slots).

By the way, I'm here today looking for a UAD Core 2 PCIe card to put in the last open PCIe slot in case anyone has one to sell.


Cheers!

[Kristo Kotkas]

I still run two 4 PCI-X card Accel PTHD10 systems.

One of them is a full band tracking system with Waves Soundgrid I/O front end thru DigiGrid DLI, this means no Digidesign / Avid boxes in use at all - Dspro 4000 interfaces are for mic pres and monitor mix outputs, DigiGrid IOC is in the control room for analog and digital inserts and separate computer managing connections for the soundgrid network.

The other system is a mixing system with occasional vocal tracking. This system is starting to have some start up issues, so I am afraid the motherboard is probably taking it's last breaths so I am probably going to need to retire this old friend, lots of good memories!

[aaquilato]

Originally Posted by Kristo Kotkas

I still run two 4 PCI-X card Accel PTHD10 systems.

One of them is a full band tracking system with Waves Soundgrid I/O front end thru DigiGrid DLI, this means no Digidesign / Avid boxes in use at all - Dspro 4000 interfaces are for mic pres and monitor mix outputs, DigiGrid IOC is in the control room for analog and digital inserts and separate computer managing connections for the soundgrid network.

The other system is a mixing system with occasional vocal tracking. This system is starting to have some start up issues, so I am afraid the motherboard is probably taking it's last breaths so I am probably going to need to retire this old friend, lots of good memories!

Hi Kristo.
I'd like to know more about this as I have a 4 PCI-X card Accel PTHD10 system as well.
My Digi/Avid i/o is now dedicated to my HDN system.
And honestly, the PTHD10 system tracks better than the HDN does.

I'm ready to build a new Hack with the 10th Gen Intel CPU.
Getting all my ducks in a row as they say.

[soul]

Originally Posted by aaquilato

Hi Kristo.
I'd like to know more about this as I have a 4 PCI-X card Accel PTHD10 system as well.
My Digi/Avid i/o is now dedicated to my HDN system.
And honestly, the PTHD10 system tracks better than the HDN does.

I'm ready to build a new Hack with the 10th Gen Intel CPU.
Getting all my ducks in a row as they say.

Pls share which parts you use once you get going, especially motherboard with 4PCIx slots.

[Kristo Kotkas]

Originally Posted by aaquilato

Hi Kristo.
I'd like to know more about this as I have a 4 PCI-X card Accel PTHD10 system as well.
My Digi/Avid i/o is now dedicated to my HDN system.
And honestly, the PTHD10 system tracks better than the HDN does.

I'm ready to build a new Hack with the 10th Gen Intel CPU.
Getting all my ducks in a row as they say.

Hi, I am not sure if you are planning to create a machine with modern parts? I don't think this will be possible as when we once made these machines there were a handful of motherboards from that era that would work and they needed to be "PCI-X Native" whatever that means. And then this means only CPU-s from that era and for these mobos were possible to use. I believe the motherboard I used was Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3L. Also you would need to run an old OSX supported by PTHD10

So I am not sure if it would be possible or reasonable to start building a PCI-X system today as these old parts are most likely not easy to find and their condition can be questionable.

[aaquilato]

Originally Posted by Kristo Kotkas

Hi, I am not sure if you are planning to create a machine with modern parts? I don't think this will be possible as when we once made these machines there were a handful of motherboards from that era that would work and they needed to be "PCI-X Native" whatever that means. And then this means only CPU-s from that era and for these mobos were possible to use. I believe the motherboard I used was Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3L. Also you would need to run an old OSX supported by PTHD10

So I am not sure if it would be possible or reasonable to start building a PCI-X system today as these old parts are most likely not easy to find and their condition can be questionable.

Hi Kristo.
My last note should have been a bit more detailed. I pushed send too soon.
You are correct. There are no new motherboards for PCIx cards.
My HD4 PCIx build also has an older Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3 running OSX ML 10.8.4
It's very stable and fast. Recording with that system is great.
I've never encountered any problems recording with it.

My current HDNative build is fast and stable but doesn't track as well as the PCIx build.
This is of course due to not having a PCIe DSP card.
I can record overdubs @ a buffer size of 64 with a plugin or two on the record channel. That's works fine but there are limitations.

I'm researching now about a newer build with a faster 10th gen Intel CPU, faster RAM, etc... with the hopes of not having to constantly change the buffer size.

I haven't read that anyone has built a system like this but I'm betting that it's possible.

That's what I'm doing.
There's a fair amount of testing to do and this will take some time.
I'll reply again when I've got some new info.

[Kristo Kotkas]

Originally Posted by aaquilato

Hi Kristo.
My last note should have been a bit more detailed. I pushed send too soon.
You are correct. There are no new motherboards for PCIx cards.
My HD4 PCIx build also has an older Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3 running OSX ML 10.8.4
It's very stable and fast. Recording with that system is great.
I've never encountered any problems recording with it.

My current HDNative build is fast and stable but doesn't track as well as the PCIx build.
This is of course due to not having a PCIe DSP card.
I can record overdubs @ a buffer size of 64 with a plugin or two on the record channel. That's works fine but there are limitations.

I'm researching now about a newer build with a faster 10th gen Intel CPU, faster RAM, etc... with the hopes of not having to constantly change the buffer size.

I haven't read that anyone has built a system like this but I'm betting that it's possible.

That's what I'm doing.
There's a fair amount of testing to do and this will take some time.
I'll reply again when I've got some new info.

If you mean you are looking to build a faster native system, then you should probably check out what Apple M processor machines can do for you. We did a test to see how SoundGrid systems with DSP server compare against M processor native systems and I was surprised to see how well the SoundGrid Superrack Performer performed with Midas M32 and SoundGrid card inside of it. We could go down to 32 sample buffer on the Mac and load a lot of plugins, meaning low latency and lots of native DSP in use for live sound with just a M processor laptop.
This means a good quality sound card with fast drivers like something from RME with a M processor mac could perform well with 32 sample buffer in a DAW environment and could possibly be a valid replacement for old PT tracking systems, but since I have mine still working I am not in need to dig any deeper into this atm