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Stork's Thunderball II Build: ASUS ProArt Z490 Creator (Thunderbolt 3) - i5-10400 - RX 580

I use VMachines quite often and have had 0 issues so far, which OS version are you running on macOS? Is it the 2.5G Ethernet or the 10G
- Big Sur 11.1 (release)
- Opencore 0.6.5
- BIOS 1003
- Windows 10 latest
- Intel 2.5G Ethernet (setup same as yours)
- VT-X enabled
- VT-d disabled

I’m not sure if my VTX/D settings are the best to use, I chose these based on forum posts of people with similar asus z490 boards. I haven’t tried it with vtd on and dart=0 in my config, but I’m interested to know what virtualisation settings you’ve used in bios.
Thanks a bunch

EDIT: when it boots into windows with no Ethernet connection and I unplug and replug the cable it will work again without restart. I’ve tested 4 brand new Ethernet cables and it’s definitely nothing to do with the cables, router or internet. Again this only happens when I enable VTX My apologies, it is not working if I unplug and replug the cable, the time it worked was an isolated incident.

EDIT 2: Sorry to have wasted anyone's time with this, it turned out to be a faulty switch box and I haven't had the issue since, my apologies I should have spent more time debugging.
 
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Hi Stork
I'm considering building a similar hackintosh myself, based on the same motherboard and an i9 10th gen 10 core CPU with 128GB of RAM, plus a SSD 8TB raid 0 internal storage for libraries.
The only purpose of that machine would be to run my studio as a digital audio workstation.

I've been successfully used my previous hackintosh for years based on Intel i7 and Gigabyte motherboard, Mavericks first:
and then updated to Sierra 10.12.6 (more complicated but absolutely stable):

Now I need to run larger templates for TV productions that require more instruments, hence more ram and cpu cores.
Unfortunately Catalina is not an option due to software incompatibility and nor is Big Sur.
Question: do you think it's possible to clean install Mojave on such a configuration and run it stable?
I'm sure there are lots of music producers on the forum that would like to see what is like to build a hack that runs the latest components, with lots of performance, but on a OS that is still retro-compatible with 32 bit plugins.
Thanks in advance.
:)
 
...
Question: do you think it's possible to clean install Mojave on such a configuration and run it stable?
I'm sure there are lots of music producers on the forum that would like to see what is like to build a hack that runs the latest components, with lots of performance, but on a OS that is still retro-compatible with 32 bit plugins.
Thanks in advance.
:)

Yes, IIRC, I started out with Mojave. No problems.

BTW, @BoomR has build a Gigabyte Z490 Vision D motherboard based system using @CaseySJ's Golden Build description. Lots of good information in CaseySJ's build thread (summarized in Post #1).



See @trs96's post below.
 
I'm sure there are lots of music producers on the forum that would like to see what is like to build a hack that runs the latest components, with lots of performance, but on a OS that is still retro-compatible with 32 bit plugins.
AFAIK all of the Music Pros that must have Mojave instead of Catalina are using Casey's Z390 Designare system. The 10th gen Intel systems can't run Mojave successfully. Check with CaseySJ for verification. Mojave came out in Fall of 2018 long before 10th gen Intel CPUs and Z490 motherboards were released. So no 10th gen support in Mojave. The first Z490 boards appeared in April 2020.
macOS Mojave is the fifteenth major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop operating system for Macintosh computers. Mojave was announced at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference on June 4, 2018, and was released to the public on September 24, 2018.

They should have already stopped production of these but it looks like Amazon still has good stock. Buying new is always preferred to the used market for motherboards.

Amazon still has these at the normal retail price.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07K8RJZRG/?tag=tonymacx86com-20

Screen Shot 3.jpg
 
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Hi Stork
I'm considering building a similar hackintosh myself, based on the same motherboard and an i9 10th gen 10 core CPU with 128GB of RAM, plus a SSD 8TB raid 0 internal storage for libraries.
The only purpose of that machine would be to run my studio as a digital audio workstation.

I've been successfully used my previous hackintosh for years based on Intel i7 and Gigabyte motherboard, Mavericks first:
and then updated to Sierra 10.12.6 (more complicated but absolutely stable):

Now I need to run larger templates for TV productions that require more instruments, hence more ram and cpu cores.
Unfortunately Catalina is not an option due to software incompatibility and nor is Big Sur.
Question: do you think it's possible to clean install Mojave on such a configuration and run it stable?
I'm sure there are lots of music producers on the forum that would like to see what is like to build a hack that runs the latest components, with lots of performance, but on a OS that is still retro-compatible with 32 bit plugins.
Thanks in advance.
:)
trs96 is absolutely correct. I just wanted to chime in because I tried for days with the same setup (128gb ram, i9-10900k, this board) with or without my GFX I could not boot Mojave on a Z490. I'm also a music pro with a studio that this machine is used in and I've had to make another build on Z390 to bridge the gap until I can migrate old 32 bit plugins for existing clients, also one of my interfaces still uses a 32bit configuration program :(.

Side note - you absolutely can't use AMD NAVI graphics cards on anything before Catalina.
 
AFAIK all of the Music Pros that must have Mojave instead of Catalina are using Casey's Z390 Designare system. The 10th gen Intel systems can't run Mojave successfully. Check with CaseySJ for verification. Mojave came out in Fall of 2018 long before 10th gen Intel CPUs and Z490 motherboards were released. So no 10th gen support in Mojave. The first Z490 boards appeared in April 2020.


They should have already stopped production of these but it looks like Amazon still has good stock. Buying new is always preferred to the used market for motherboards.

Amazon still has these at the normal retail price.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07K8RJZRG/?tag=tonymacx86com-20

View attachment 505771
I am running this exact Z390 setup with Mojave as a DAW. Works well enough to get work done. I recommend an AMD RX580 as GPU. These are rather expensive unfortunately due to cryptomining.
 
I am running this exact Z390 setup with Mojave as a DAW. Works well enough to get work done. I recommend an AMD RX580 as GPU. These are rather expensive unfortunately due to cryptomining.
Thanks guys for the feedback.
Really appreciate it.

I'm wondering if it's possible to install 128 gb of RAM on that mob.
I've read that the Asus Prime Z390 A can handle that much RAM with a firmware update that is available on their website and a thunderbolt pci card can be installed as well.
So maybe that can be an alernative to the Designare you suggested, in case I can't find any new stock in Europe.

I was also wondering if there's any chance music producers can join together in a specific topic to create a killer DAW build guide under Mojave with the best components on the market available today.

That would be cool and much welcome not only for me I guess.

Thanks
 
Thanks guys for the feedback.
Really appreciate it.

I'm wondering if it's possible to install 128 gb of RAM on that mob.
I've read that the Asus Prime Z390 A can handle that much RAM with a firmware update that is available on their website and a thunderbolt pci card can be installed as well.
So maybe that can be an alernative to the Designare you suggested, in case I can't find any new stock in Europe.

I was also wondering if there's any chance music producers can join together in a specific topic to create a killer DAW build guide under Mojave with the best components on the market available today.

That would be cool and much welcome not only for me I guess.

Thanks
128 GB RAM is overkill for a DAW. You are probably better of with fast PCIe NVME storage for sample libraries. Something like this: https://www.sonnettech.com/product/m2-4x4-pcie-card/overview.html

The only drawback of a Z390 system is not enough PCIe lanes for full speed communication with lots of peripherals(like UAD cards, firewire, WIFI, more USB, GPU, video cards etc)

A guide for DAWs, just follow the excellent Z390 guide. Thing is, mobo's and (some) peripherals have a short lifespan. There will be new versions of software and hardware, and people will be forced to upgrade. So a guide is not valuable for very long.
 
128 GB RAM is overkill for a DAW. You are probably better of with fast PCIe NVME storage for sample libraries. Something like this: https://www.sonnettech.com/product/m2-4x4-pcie-card/overview.html
True. The Sonnet card is definitely an option for libraries.
Actually I think I'm goin to give that a try.

But to my experience unfortunately, even keeping the preload buffer size to minimum in NI Kontakt, once the large template starts playing back the voices those samples will be progressively stored in the RAM no matter what.

As a matter of fact, few days ago, I was playing not even a huge amount of VI, I think it was a 40 instrument template for a TV show, and I hit the RAM limit even if the preload buffer was set to 32kb and all the samples were set in DFD (on a raid 0 double disk configuration). I was able to stream samples realtime from my raid no problem but once the samples started to get stored in the RAM the only option is I could, potentially, purge the samples with an update sample command, but that I belive can not be done system wise, meaning, I should do that for each single instance of Kontakt, and that's not realistic on a large template in a complex composing/producing session.

Hence my question about 128 GB of RAM, because that would make the system much more flexible and stable on those templates that require 100+ VI loaded.
 

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True. The Sonnet card is definitely an option for libraries.
Actually I think I'm goin to give that a try.

But to my experience unfortunately, even keeping the preload buffer size to minimum in NI Kontakt, once the large template starts playing back the voices those samples will be progressively stored in the RAM no matter what.

As a matter of fact, few days ago, I was playing not even a huge amount of VI, I think it was a 40 instrument template for a TV show, and I hit the RAM limit even if the preload buffer was set to 32kb and all the samples were set in DFD (on a raid 0 double disk configuration). I was able to stream samples realtime from my raid no problem but once the samples started to get stored in the RAM the only option is I could, potentially, purge the samples with an update sample command, but that I belive can not be done system wise, meaning, I should do that for each single instance of Kontakt, and that's not realistic on a large template in a complex composing/producing session.

Hence my question about 128 GB of RAM, because that would make the system much more flexible and stable on those templates that require 100+ VI loaded.
I don't remember the Kontakt memory/streaming options exactly. But 64 GB is huge, I have 32 GB and never come close to using it all.
I have another 32 GB from my previous build that I could add, but I can't be bothered.
I don't do large orchestral stuff though, maybe 10 Kontakt libs max, plus SD3, Falcon, Halion, etc.
I remember 128 GB gave problems on Z390 Designare, don't know if these were ever solved.
 
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