Dual Booting with Clover?

[SubjectiveEffect]

Hi everyone. I've just installed my first Hackintosh. MacOS is on one SSD and Windows 10 on another.

Clover shows all my drives at startup but if I try to Boot with Legacy Windows it doesn't work - I get a black screen with a flashing cursor. If I use F12 at startup and choose my Windows HD it loads fine (I'm writing this on my Win10 install).

On MacOS I've got audio working and the network card, though it seems Clover doesn't save the Airport Fix every time (I've posted in the Network section on this).

The other thing I think I'd like to do is run graphics off my motherboard and not my gfx card, because I've a GeForce 1070 and it's not supported - it works but there is a lot of flicker in some programs (Chrome, Spotify, a little in Safari) . I could install a GeForce 960 as well (my PSU can handle it). My specs are on the left.

Question is - how do I get MacOS to run one graphics output and not the other? The monitor has two inputs so I can use separate cables. Has anyone done this?

 

[nikitoss]

I have pretty much same hardware, I was using integrated Intel graphics for a while, but then got used AMD 6870 to run in OSX, worked out of the box like a charm. Pascal drivers seem to be a never-gonna-happen dream right now.

To use other card in OSX you need to put it in first PCIE slot and select it as default in BIOS settings. Then if you use 960 follow guides how to set that up (inject-nvidia, web drivers

OSX will use card selected as a default video device in BIOS, Windows will boot using it too but it switches to my 1070 seamlessly by one button click on a monitor. Second screen always stays on 6870, no problems with that. I tried to disable my 6970 in widows so it wouldn't use it at all, but it results in desktop setting being reset every other time, so I went back to switching to it manually, one button is not a big deal at all.

Hope that helps.

 

[SubjectiveEffect]

Thanks for the feedback. I've a few questions:

1. How bad did you find the compatibility of the 1070? I'm interested to hear someone else's experience.

2. How do you do the one button switch to 1070 in Windows?

3. How is the 6970 performance?

4. Why did you choose AMD instead of another nVidia card?

Thanks again.

 

[nikitoss]

1:
1070 worked, but without hardware acceleration it was barely usable. I switched to i7s integrated Intel HD530, it worked fine, even played simple games and used some 3D software, no issues. But I had troubles with two monitor setup, had to boot with one monitor and then plug in second.

2:
I had Input Source selection button on one of my monitors, but since it was not my main one and I'm quite lazy I got this 3 Port HDMI Switcher. Plugged in 6870 into first port and 1070 into second and connected it to my main monitor. OSX and Windows both boot using 6870 on default 1st port and in Windows I just press that button and it switches to 1070 seamlessly. Second monitor remains on 6870 but that's not a problem.

3:
6870 performance is basically the same as i7s integrated Intel HD530, benchmarks showed a tiny increase. It is sufficient for all my daily tasks, runs all my software and so far showed no issues. I use 1070 mainly for gaming in Windows.

4:
I wanted to get something that will require minimum effort. After browsing threads on this forum I figured that is would be the cheapest and simplest solution for my setup. It seems like OSX has best compatibility with ADM and 6870 was on the list that had least known issues. Worked perfectly. It ran out of the box, I just inserted it and booted OSX, didn't even had to do any changes or modifications.

The only thing is that sleep doesn't work, but it wasn't working with HD530 either and I don't need it that much.

 

[SubjectiveEffect]

Thank's for your full replies! This is all helpful and gives me a lot of hope!

I don't have dual monitors (my second one broke ) so I just need to plug in the on-board gfx then.

I too want the 1070 for gaming on Windows! I don't need to game on MacOS.

I'll give it a go and get back to you! The only question is - if I'm gaming on Windows how does Windows know to only output the image through the 1070?

 

[SubjectiveEffect]

Okay, I've connected the motherboard gfx up with a HDMI cable but when I try to change source on the monitor there is no signal from this connection.

How do I force it in MacOS?

 

[nikitoss]

You need to enable it in BIOS. I found some successful guide with Z170 and hd530 and followed it. Here's one for example:
https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...z170-deluxe-i7-6700k-16gb-intel-hd530.183302/

You need to set iGFX for graphics and increase pre-allocated memory to 64M. That was enough to do the trick for me. May be also something else for you, depends on your mobo BIOS, if it won't work look for guides with your motherboard or similar guides.

If you can connect your monitor to both HD530 and 1070 then when in windows just select other input source on monitor and windows will switch to 1070, if you have only one cable then just plug it in 1070. Dont forget to plug it back to HD530 because you may bot see clover boot menu when you PC starts.

 

[SubjectiveEffect]

I've swapped the DVI out to the iGFX, enabled it in BIOS and it almost works.

In Windows this registers as two displays - I can switch between them by selecting source. So I turned off one display and I have the GeForce running fine in Windows.

Now the iGFX is a little... different.

It's been selected as the start-up display card and you can tell with the logo on start-up. If I boot into Mac OS it works (worked!) but the gfx are still as glitchy and the display is... washed out? It just doesn't have the crispness of the GeForce although they are both running at 1080p.

I used Multibeast to try and fix things (I set it to Intel HD 3000 as the Gigabyte site and support doesn't say what the display is ) and now I get some crash on start-up into Mac OS, with an infinite loop

 

[nikitoss]

What OSX version are you running ?

I stayed on 10.11 to avoid issues.

Don't think I can help you much from here since I had no issues with HD530. All I had to do was enable it in BOIS, set mem to 64mb, add inject-intel to clover boot options and it ran fine.

Try searching Post Installation > Graphics forum section or posting your situation there. Pretty sure people had same issues already. Depends on what OSX you have and what setup you are running. Double check all bios settings and clover boot options too, I had cases when I was playing with settings and just forgot that I changed something wasting several hours on realizing it.

Also nice practice to create a bootable usb stick for cases when you mess up your boot so you had a backup to get into OSX and reinstall clover or change settings.

 

[SubjectiveEffect]

I'm on the latest OSX version 10.12.

I think I need is as I want to build with XCode.

I've found that the HDMI to HDMI output from the GeForce card is really poor, even in Windows. It's full res, full colours, but really washed out. Very odd.

I might have to wipe and restart