I completed a successful build of
@CaseySJ 's Hackintosh with the Z390 Designare MOBO, Radeon Pulse RX580 GPU, core i7-9700K CPU, 32GB (2x16GB) of crucial ballistix sport LT 2400 RAM, a Samsung 970 PRO 512 system drive, and a 1TB Samsung 860 EVO storage drive. I've had a few things to work out but almost everything runs perfectly (as far as I've been able to run it through some tests), but I have a few questions:
***1. When I restart my machine I never even get to the BIOS screen if I have 2 monitors connected to my GPU. I use a Vizio 40" 4K tv for my secondary monitor and an ASUS 23.6" monitor. As soon as I unplug one of the HDMI cables from the GPU and restart, voila. BIOS, normal startup etc. I can then plug in the second monitor or TV and the secondary screen is recognized. I thought with the Radeon Pulse RX580 being natively recognized I wouldn't have any issues there.
***2. I have noticed that in Logic Pro X 10.4.1 when recording live instruments like guitar through my Apogee Quartet interface (USB), I am getting some very noticeable latency at 64 samples buffer size. I have tried it with a second USB interface and I get the same result. I've observed it on a large project where I have many tracks (>40) with plugins, synth software instruments, software drums, etc. I have also observed it when starting a new empty project and having only the single live instrument track. Sometimes, I even hear some very harsh distortion when monitoring the guitar; sounds like a bitcrusher with octaves. If I move up to 128 sample buffer, the harsh distortion goes away, but I still have the noticeable latency.
Now, getting some noticeable latency when running lots and lots of tracks with plugins and software instruments while trying to monitor a live guitar input at 64 sample buffer size might sound like the exact thing one would expect, and I would agree except that my previous hackintosh that I retired for this build (GIGABYTE GA-Z97X-UD7 LGA 1150, Intel Core i7-4790K CPU, EVGA GTX 970, 32GB Crucial Ballistix Tactical 1600Mhz DDR3, and SSD drive) could run that with no latency, and nary a pop/click during playback. I know that because I saved the projects I'm experiencing it on with that hackintosh, and opened them again on this new one. The older hack ran everything flawlessly.
It’s also strange that even with the single audio track I’m still getting latency at the 64 sample buffer size, sometimes with the awful distorted sound which necessitates changing the buffer size or restarting Core Audio. Even at 128 sample buffer, if I add even 4 (low latency compressor/EQ) plugins to the track I start to hear the latency creep back in, like a slapback echo.
Any other audio producers had this issue with their hack build? Is using a USB audio interface an issue? I’ve tried multiple USB ports on the Designare to see if that was a problem but it’s the same everywhere. Was I spoiled and didn't realize it? This machine seems like it should be much much more capable of handling these tasks.
***3. When I followed the guide and configured my system definition to iMac 19,1 , I now see that my processor shows as a core i9 9700K processor in the About this Mac section. I think I remember somewhere in the guide that this doesn’t matter, but is that correct? I couldn’t locate it again to save my life even with the search function.
Sorry to write a novel! I can post a video of the latency issue if that would help. Thanks to all the great contributors and this community for the help and advice they give.
