Anyone using a Hackintosh for Pro Tools?

[goodfella416]

Originally Posted by antstudio

Are you getting that sound on your monitors when the hard drive is spinning or when there is high CPU use? I had that problem and it was related to the PSU. It was like I could hear the CPU working. I solved it with this in front of my monitors.



..ant

Because i did notice a slight level of noise on my pc setup, i think it's a necessary addition..
but, the drives 'working' when i run protools are solid state. i was suprirsed, but i did find that when i double clicked to open a drive, the noise would increase...or when i would open protools, the noise would increase.

once i get over this hurdle, i just need to figure out why i'm getting this damn internal clock error when i try to play back imported waves in protools.

maybe protools 9 hd isn't supposed to work with digi002? not sure.

[antstudio]

Hmm...I didn't have the problem until I switched to an SSD based system. Perhaps it's related to SSD+PSU. There are many threads with folks having this problem on Hackintosh and on Apple Macs. That little unit really saved me.

..ant

[Bruce Keen]

I run a PT HD native on PT 9.0.6 and OS 10.6.8 with UAD Quads
I tried two different hackintosh systems namely a
Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD5 with 2600K and
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD5 with Core i7 950 both with 5770 video cards

Both worked fine but I had two very problematic points:
The only buffer setting that would work properly was 64 samples anything higher would work in reverse and put more load on the processor. I tried everything but could never figure that one out. I built my DSDT's, tried all kinds of settings, searched for months but couldn't find a solution. Nevertheless on 64 sample setting both Hacks performed flawlessely

Networking with anything else than Intel NICs was erratic. Realtek NICs just collapse under heavy file transfers. They might be fine for surfing the web but you can't do proper work with them. I ended up buying a PCIe Intel Card with dual Intel NICs that worked perfectly. NC36OT for 30bucks on ebay.

Despite both machines working very well, under heavy load I would get frequent network errors (I use a PT satellite link for picture with a blackmagic card) that were problematic so I decided to dump everything and get the biggest Mac Pro. Well It doesn't have the latency thing but I usually have to mix at 256 samples whereas before I was used to working at 64 and It has the exact same network issue under heavy load.
So basically I get less performance from the MacPro.
I'm not dissing the Mac Pro. It's a very well built machine, with ECC memory and everything works great but it cost me at least 3 times the price of my hack and gives me no performance boost. I suspect the satellite network thing is the HD Native Card and the Intel NIC fighting for PCI Bandwidth and some kind of interrupt being unhappy when play is initiated under heavy load.

To tell the truth I even tried an Asus P8P67 WS Revolution since it had onboard Intel NICs and I naively thought the NF200 chip might help the PCIe bottleneck but I had the same problem no matter which PCIe configuration I tried.

So at the moment my conclusion is that my HD3 on a macpro is less powerful than my Hack with HD native on a 2600k and that the Mac Pro has no edge on the Hack.
I'll have a good look at the new Macpros if and when they appear but I'm also looking at the possibility of investing in a couple more UAD quads and going all native with a prism orpheus or an RME PCI thing with a fancy converter.
I'm not in hurry for AAX PT 10 cards. I thought the whole PT10 upgrade swindle was a bit much. Given how much I'm going to have to fork out for my upgrades to pt 10 I'm certainly not going to invest in more proprietary hardware that I really have no need for. UAD is a bit the same but I like their stuff better because it works with everything and the apollo is a great move.

[norbury brook]

Interesting post Bruce and thanks for sharing your experience.

MC

[goodfella416]

Originally Posted by antstudio

Hmm...I didn't have the problem until I switched to an SSD based system. Perhaps it's related to SSD+PSU. There are many threads with folks having this problem on Hackintosh and on Apple Macs. That little unit really saved me.

..ant

Ok so i ordered the art dti. Just gotta hang tight. Did a little cable management.
Bruce's post is pretty interesting. I'll try 64. But i cant seem to swith it inthe core manager. I'll try it out though.

[BasketCase Audio]

Originally Posted by Bruce Keen

I run a PT HD native on PT 9.0.6 and OS 10.6.8 with UAD Quads
I tried two different hackintosh systems namely a
Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD5 with 2600K and
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD5 with Core i7 950 both with 5770 video cards

Both worked fine but I had two very problematic points:
The only buffer setting that would work properly was 64 samples anything higher would work in reverse and put more load on the processor. I tried everything but could never figure that one out. I built my DSDT's, tried all kinds of settings, searched for months but couldn't find a solution. Nevertheless on 64 sample setting both Hacks performed flawlessely

Networking with anything else than Intel NICs was erratic. Realtek NICs just collapse under heavy file transfers. They might be fine for surfing the web but you can't do proper work with them. I ended up buying a PCIe Intel Card with dual Intel NICs that worked perfectly. NC36OT for 30bucks on ebay.

Despite both machines working very well, under heavy load I would get frequent network errors (I use a PT satellite link for picture with a blackmagic card) that were problematic so I decided to dump everything and get the biggest Mac Pro. Well It doesn't have the latency thing but I usually have to mix at 256 samples whereas before I was used to working at 64 and It has the exact same network issue under heavy load.
So basically I get less performance from the MacPro.
I'm not dissing the Mac Pro. It's a very well built machine, with ECC memory and everything works great but it cost me at least 3 times the price of my hack and gives me no performance boost. I suspect the satellite network thing is the HD Native Card and the Intel NIC fighting for PCI Bandwidth and some kind of interrupt being unhappy when play is initiated under heavy load.

To tell the truth I even tried an Asus P8P67 WS Revolution since it had onboard Intel NICs and I naively thought the NF200 chip might help the PCIe bottleneck but I had the same problem no matter which PCIe configuration I tried.

So at the moment my conclusion is that my HD3 on a macpro is less powerful than my Hack with HD native on a 2600k and that the Mac Pro has no edge on the Hack.
I'll have a good look at the new Macpros if and when they appear but I'm also looking at the possibility of investing in a couple more UAD quads and going all native with a prism orpheus or an RME PCI thing with a fancy converter.
I'm not in hurry for AAX PT 10 cards. I thought the whole PT10 upgrade swindle was a bit much. Given how much I'm going to have to fork out for my upgrades to pt 10 I'm certainly not going to invest in more proprietary hardware that I really have no need for. UAD is a bit the same but I like their stuff better because it works with everything and the apollo is a great move.

Hi there Bruce!

Did you patch your system with the "trim SSD" kext in multibeast?
I am running a hack with a HD system, HD 8.1.1 on lion (despite avid not supporting it) and my system is running great with both an SSD as the system drive and onboard ethernet. The SSD has actually made my system to system and system to storage transfers lightning fast!

At the chance of perhaps providing some help, could you post your system & kernel console messages from start up? (The ones generated when you start your system in verbose mode "-v").

[Bruce Keen]

Originally Posted by BasketCase Audio

Hi there Bruce!

Did you patch your system with the "trim SSD" kext in multibeast?
I am running a hack with a HD system, HD 8.1.1 on lion (despite avid not supporting it) and my system is running great with both an SSD as the system drive and onboard ethernet. The SSD has actually made my system to system and system to storage transfers lightning fast!

At the chance of perhaps providing some help, could you post your system & kernel console messages from start up? (The ones generated when you start your system in verbose mode "-v").

I didn't use an ssd with protools. Never felt the need for it. I have an ssd in other hacks with trim and they work fine apart from the Crucial firmware bug .
As I mentioned earlier I have now moved on to a mac pro, but thanks for your help

[goodfella416]

Originally Posted by Bruce Keen

I didn't use an ssd with protools. Never felt the need for it. I have an ssd in other hacks with trim and they work fine apart from the Crucial firmware bug .
As I mentioned earlier I have now moved on to a mac pro, but thanks for your help

Ok, well I'm picking up the art dti today. Finger's crossed.

I also neglected to mention that I have this hackintosh build housed in a cosair 600t). I'm turning over every stone at this point

[Bruce Keen]

Originally Posted by goodfella416

Ok, well I'm picking up the art dti today. Finger's crossed.

I also neglected to mention that I have this hackintosh build housed in a cosair 600t). I'm turning over every stone at this point

I may have missed your point but what does an ART DTI do in a hackintosh?

Overall I found the whole Hackintosh experience interesting but very time consuming if you really want to get it right. Just figuring out the flakey NICs was a nightmare by itself. Testing various kext builds, Realtek NICs, Intel Nics, boot options, extracting DSDT's under Linux, editing them, compiling, moving pci cards around, usb dropouts on certain mb's, bios this and reflash that. In the end it just got boring and the whole challenge wasn't quite so exciting.
Maybe I just built one too many or I'm just a bit old for this kind of fun. I suppose you could get a stable multibeast customac done easily but there's always more under the surface once you start scratching a bit.

cheers

[goodfella416]

Originally Posted by Bruce Keen

I may have missed your point but what does an ART DTI do in a hackintosh?

Overall I found the whole Hackintosh experience interesting but very time consuming if you really want to get it right. Just figuring out the flakey NICs was a nightmare by itself. Testing various kext builds, Realtek NICs, Intel Nics, boot options, extracting DSDT's under Linux, editing them, compiling, moving pci cards around, usb dropouts on certain mb's, bios this and reflash that. In the end it just got boring and the whole challenge wasn't quite so exciting.
Maybe I just built one too many or I'm just a bit old for this kind of fun. I suppose you could get a stable multibeast customac done easily but there's always more under the surface once you start scratching a bit.

cheers

Success!
The art dti unfortunately didnt hel much at all. I had a belkin power supply/back up ps/surge protector box which i plugged everything into.
Didnt help.
Did some cable management ensuring no audio cables were close, touching or crossing power cables.
Didnt help.

Using $6 balanced quarter inch cables fixed it.
Embarassing.

Regarding pt clock source not matching was interesting as a problem.

The recommended siig firewire card is either defective or ????
I switched back to a hackintosh friendle syba firewire card.
Hardware buffer at 512. No issues so far.

Ive been at this for about a month and a half.

Feels great to have my monitors sound cleaner than ever and to run a 'pc' that runs unbelievably fast.

Thank you all for your thoughts.

[BasketCase Audio]

Originally Posted by Bruce Keen

I may have missed your point but what does an ART DTI do in a hackintosh?

Overall I found the whole Hackintosh experience interesting but very time consuming if you really want to get it right. Just figuring out the flakey NICs was a nightmare by itself. Testing various kext builds, Realtek NICs, Intel Nics, boot options, extracting DSDT's under Linux, editing them, compiling, moving pci cards around, usb dropouts on certain mb's, bios this and reflash that. In the end it just got boring and the whole challenge wasn't quite so exciting.
Maybe I just built one too many or I'm just a bit old for this kind of fun. I suppose you could get a stable multibeast customac done easily but there's always more under the surface once you start scratching a bit.

cheers

I find one of the intriguing things about hackintosh's is, there is a lot under the surface. It is very customisable. I have two lion installations on two SSD's in my system. One runs during the day... the other automatically opens after a restart at the end of the day. Both installations have very different kext files and software installed.

During the day its straight audio. No onboard audio drivers. No wireless drivers. No background apps. It is protools HD and other audio software that I need. At night, the other lion installation is loaded and everything else comes to life. Network drivers load, time machine automatically backs up all the audio hard drives and session files to a NAS. Maintenance via Onyx, etc. I even created a nifty little script that trashes the digi preferences on the audio only lion install.

Essentially the 8 hours it took me to setup, saves me a whole bunch of head aches in the long run. Keeping backups and a well maintained system happen very easily with the majority of the stuff happening after clicking "apple" then "restart".

I can certainly see how hackintosh computers would drive some people up the wall. There is a learning curve, definitely. I would perhaps even venture to say that if you are just building one to save a buck... its probably not the best move. There are a lot of other benefits to using hackintosh computers over real macs. One of which is the degree of customisation.

[dubmunkey]

Originally Posted by BasketCase Audio

I find one of the intriguing things about hackintosh's is, there is a lot under the surface. It is very customisable. I have two lion installations on two SSD's in my system. One runs during the day... the other automatically opens after a restart at the end of the day. Both installations have very different kext files and software installed.

During the day its straight audio. No onboard audio drivers. No wireless drivers. No background apps. It is protools HD and other audio software that I need. At night, the other lion installation is loaded and everything else comes to life. Network drivers load, time machine automatically backs up all the audio hard drives and session files to a NAS. Maintenance via Onyx, etc. I even created a nifty little script that trashes the digi preferences on the audio only lion install.

Essentially the 8 hours it took me to setup, saves me a whole bunch of head aches in the long run. Keeping backups and a well maintained system happen very easily with the majority of the stuff happening after clicking "apple" then "restart".

I can certainly see how hackintosh computers would drive some people up the wall. There is a learning curve, definitely. I would perhaps even venture to say that if you are just building one to save a buck... its probably not the best move. There are a lot of other benefits to using hackintosh computers over real macs. One of which is the degree of customisation.

Sounds cool, i needed similar functionality and just bought 2 pcs for a similar price of 1 mac... One purely for audio the other for everything else and they can be on 24/7...no config needed...

[antstudio]

Originally Posted by goodfella416

Success!
The art dti unfortunately didnt hel much at all. I had a belkin power supply/back up ps/surge protector box which i plugged everything into.
Didnt help.
Did some cable management ensuring no audio cables were close, touching or crossing power cables.
Didnt help.

Using $6 balanced quarter inch cables fixed it.
Embarassing.

Regarding pt clock source not matching was interesting as a problem.

The recommended siig firewire card is either defective or ????
I switched back to a hackintosh friendle syba firewire card.
Hardware buffer at 512. No issues so far.

Ive been at this for about a month and a half.

Feels great to have my monitors sound cleaner than ever and to run a 'pc' that runs unbelievably fast.

Thank you all for your thoughts.

Congrats. Yea, my setup has balanced outputs and cables. That cleaned up 90% of problems due to hum/mains noise. But the computer CPU noise (minor but annoying when the CPU is busy) was finally fixed with the DTI. If it ain't helping you should remove it but before you return it do a test with a heavy CPU load - import a video into iMovie for example and be sure you don't need it.

..ant

[goodfella416]

Originally Posted by BasketCase Audio

I find one of the intriguing things about hackintosh's is, there is a lot under the surface. It is very customisable. I have two lion installations on two SSD's in my system. One runs during the day... the other automatically opens after a restart at the end of the day. Both installations have very different kext files and software installed.

During the day its straight audio. No onboard audio drivers. No wireless drivers. No background apps. It is protools HD and other audio software that I need. At night, the other lion installation is loaded and everything else comes to life. Network drivers load, time machine automatically backs up all the audio hard drives and session files to a NAS. Maintenance via Onyx, etc. I even created a nifty little script that trashes the digi preferences on the audio only lion install.

Essentially the 8 hours it took me to setup, saves me a whole bunch of head aches in the long run. Keeping backups and a well maintained system happen very easily with the majority of the stuff happening after clicking "apple" then "restart".

I can certainly see how hackintosh computers would drive some people up the wall. There is a learning curve, definitely. I would perhaps even venture to say that if you are just building one to save a buck... its probably not the best move. There are a lot of other benefits to using hackintosh computers over real macs. One of which is the degree of customisation.

This is too cool. I'd definitely want to pick up some pointers from you. I was planning to continue to use my pc, once my hackintosh has proven it's stability. Once the hack proved stable, I wanted to set it up for NAS.
That day and night toggle you had for the hack though...sounds down right crazy.

Regarding the Art DTI. Yeah, i got a little bit to hang on to it. we'll see. I still need to figure out how i can return this siig card. to rationalize it as faulty, but only for protools might be hard to explain at the computer store. lol