Lazy Man's Guide: macOS Catalina on AMD

• Introduction
• Terminology
• Resources and Tools
  • References and Guides
  • Required Software
  • Kexts
  • Useful Software
  • Hardware
• System Specs
• Assorted Notes
• Instructions
  • Step 1 - Prepare Installation Files
  • Step 2 - Update config.plist
  • Step 3 - Install
  • Step 4 - Boot from SSD
    • Step 4.1 - Dual boot
  • Step 5 - Make Ethernet "Built-in"
  • Step 6 (Optional) - Secure Your Installation
• Known Issues
• Update History

Introduction

This guide is based on my personal experience of installing Hackintosh macOS Catalina on an AMD Ryzen system (sometimes called "Ryzentosh") running Windows 10. I created this guide specifically for newcomers (like myself) because I found it difficult to start building my own system without spending a lot of time on documentation and forums. Some people just want an easy one-off exercise and this guide tries to help. No prior Hackintosh knowledge is required to follow this guide.

This repo also contains my OpenCore ("OC") files (for selected OC versions from 0.5.5 and up) and config.plist just in case you have the same (or very similar) hardware. Do not use these files without changes unless you have the same motherboard model.

Terminology

• Kext - macOS Kernel EXTension. Kext is much like a device driver in Windows. Hackintosh requires some Kexts to boot macOS properly.
• EFI - Extensible Firmware Inrterface. Basically, EFI is a new way to boot operating system. Prior to EFI booting process involved dealing with MBR records.
• ESP - EFI System Partition. ESP is a disk partition formatted as FAT32 and designated specifically for booting. Some also insist that ESP must have volume label "EFI".
• Plist - Property list. Plist is a file in an XML format used by macOS and many macOS-related tools and programs to store. settings and object properties.
• Boot loader - A software responsible for booting macOS. Currently there are two boot loaders in active use - Clover and OpenCore.

Resources and Tools

References and Guides

1. Snazzy Labs video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_QPLl81GrY (the mother of all AMD Catalina Hackintosh videos) - you should watch this before doing anything
2. OpenCore Install Guide: https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Install-Guide/ and especially AMD part: https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Install-Guide/AMD/zen.html (an official guide, read it if you ran into problems)
3. OpenCore Vanilla Guide, Step by Step: https://www.olarila.com/topic/8918-opencore-vanilla-guide by MaLd0n (very long and detailed sequence of instructions, covers AMD and Intel)
4. AMD OS X forums: https://forum.amd-osx.com/index.php - Ryzentosh community

Required Software

The software below is required for installation from Windows.

1. gibMacOS: https://github.com/corpnewt/gibMacOS
2. SSDT Time: https://github.com/corpnewt/SSDTTime
3. GenSMBIOS: https://github.com/corpnewt/GenSMBIOS
4. ProperTree: https://github.com/corpnewt/ProperTree

Kexts

You need some kexts to install and run your system. These links can give you more context:

1. OpenCore -> Kexts: https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Install-... (general information and links to specific kexts)
2. Github: https://github.com/acidanthera (most if not all kexts required to run Ryzentosh are there)
3. Kexts archive: https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21APj... (use as last resort)
4. AMD-OSX Kext Knowledge Base: https://kb.amd-osx.com/guides/MJ/kexts.html

You add kexts by copying them to EFI/OC/Kexts and referencing them from config.plist (more on this below). Use only kexts you are positively sure you need. Wrong kexts can crash your system. The following kexts are absolutely required in a Ryzentosh system:

• Lilu
• VirtualSMC
• WhateverGreen

Again, more information https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Install-Guide/ktext.html#kexts.

Useful Software

1. ESP Mounter Pro: https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/files/file/566-esp-mounter-pro/ (macOS)
2. DPCIManager: https://sourceforge.net/projects/dpcimanager/ (macOS)
3. Hackintool: https://github.com/headkaze/Hackintool (macOS)
4. rEFInd: https://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/ (EFI)

Hardware

1. Separate SSD disk to install macOS. Even though there are ways to install Windows and macOS on the same drive you don't want to do this.
2. Any USB 3.0 Flash Drive to store macOS installation and boot files.

System Specs

These are the specs for my AMD system. Files in this repo (OpenCore configuration, drivers and .kexts) work on this hardware.

• CPU Ryzen 2700X, not overclocked
• Motherboard ASRock B450M Pro4
• RAM G-Skill Ripjaws V 2x16Gb 3200 CL16
• Video Sapphire RX 570 4Gb
• SSD Crucial MX500 500Gb SATA3

These files will also probably work with RX 560, RX 580 and RX 590 GPUs. RX 550 won't work.

Assorted Notes

1. Boot loaders - Clover vs OpenCore. If you google some generic terms like "Hackintosh build" you may occasionally find info related to Clover. Ignore it! Clover is a legacy boot loader and does not support the most recent versions of macOS. More info
2. All Catalina versions (10.15.*) are still buggy. If you stumble upon any bugs these may be genuine macOS problems, not issues with your setup.
3. If you plan to dualboot (and you probably do), be careful during the installation! macOS will kill your Windows partition in a hearbeat if you specify a wrong disk or a wrong partition. There is no undo.

Instructions

If your hardware is close enough to mine (same MB, some Ryzen CPU, Polaris graphics card) you can use my OC files from this repo (just put these files on to USB drive formatted as FAT32) and proceed to Step 2. Just remember you must change serial numbers to the ones you generated yourself.

Step 1 - Prepare Installation Files

Watch that Snazzy Labs video. Pay attention to video description. There are useful links and some corrections. Quick summary of Snazzy Lab's instructions:

1. Run gibMacOS.bat (https://youtu.be/l_QPLl81GrY?t=449). This will download all macOS files to your folder.
2. Run MakeInstall.bat (https://youtu.be/l_QPLl81GrY?t=480). This gets the previously downloaded files along with OC to USB drive.
3. Remove unnecessary drivers (https://youtu.be/l_QPLl81GrY?t=545) from your USB drive.
4. Add ApfsDriverLoader.efi and VBoxHfs.efi to drivers folder on your USB drive. You can get theses *.efis here.
5. Copy necessary kexts (https://youtu.be/l_QPLl81GrY?t=610). Some insist AppleMCEReporterDisabler.kext should be also used.
6. Deal with DSDTs and SSDTs (whatever this means) by running SSDTTime (https://youtu.be/l_QPLl81GrY?t=696). For AMD systems OC provides default SSDT-EC-USBX-DESKTOP.aml which is also included in my OC build.
7. Deal with config.plist (https://youtu.be/l_QPLl81GrY?t=807), pay attention to OC Snapshot step and applying patches.plist. Please note that Snazzy Labs uses FakeSMC.kext which has been replaced by VirtualSMC.kext. NullCPUPowerManagement.kext is now built into OC, so it's not needed either.

Step 2 - Update config.plist

Even though Snazzy Labs suggest you to boot from the USB drive right away, you need to do few more things with your config.plist before you can proceed.

1. Relax security settings, otherwise you will not be able to boot:

   • For OC 0.5.5: set Misc -> Security -> RequireVault and RequireSignature to False in config.plist (use Ctrl+F to lookup by key).
   • For OC 0.5.6+: set Misc -> Security -> Vault to Optional
   • Also, set ScanPolicy to 0.

2. Run GenSMBIOS, select option 3, enter iMacPro1,1 you'll get result like this:

      #######################################################
     #              iMacPro1,1 SMBIOS Info                 #
    #######################################################
   
    Type:         iMacPro1,1
    Serial:       C02V8QZFHX87
    Board Serial: C02734200J9JG36A8
    SmUUID:       0EAA2FD4-34CD-4588-97B3-4FFAD397F669
   
    Press [enter] to return...
   

   Now, you can use any value from GenSMBIOS but if you want working iMessage and FaceTime you need serials recognized by Apple because iMessage's cryptography relies on these values. The only way to get a valid serials is to generate a bunch of them at once (enter iMacPro1,1 10 in the option 3 to generate 10 numbers) and then go to https://checkcoverage.apple.com/ and test them manually (look for Purchase date not validated, detailed guide here).

3. Set the following keys in PlatformInfo -> Generic:

   1. SystemProductName to iMacPro1,1
   2. SystemSerialNumber to the value generated by GenSMBIOS
   3. SystemUUID to the value generated by GenSMBIOS
   4. MLB to the value generated by GenSMBIOS (Board Serial)
   5. ROM to the value of your Ethernet MAC address (more here)

4. Set Quirks -> ProvideConsoleGop to True (or set UEFI -> Output -> ProvideConsoleGop to True on OC 0.5.6+)

5. Set Quirks -> DummyPowerManagement to True (or set Kernel -> Emulate -> DummyPowerManagement to True on OC 0.6.2+)

6. Set NVRAM -> UUID -> boot-args to -v keepsyms=1 debug=0x100 npci=0x2000 alcid=1. The latter option is needed for onboard audio of B450M Pro4. If alcid=1 doesn't work try some other values: 2-5, 7, 12, 15-18, 28, 31, 90, 92, 97, 99 as described here.

7. For OC 0.5.8+ set Misc -> Security -> BootProtect to None unless you want to always boot OC first regardless of your current boot order in BIOS. More info

Step 3 - Install

After you configured config.plist (don't forget to save it, btw) you can boot from your USB drive and install macOS Catalina. If your PC won't boot from this USB drive for some reason you can try resetting to UEFI defaults ("Load UEFI defaults" in Boot menu).

It goes without saying you need to be very careful when selecting your install parition for macOS. macOS doesn't care if partition contains your current Windows install and can kill it in a heartbeat.

NB! Also, make sure your Windows boot partition is not affected by macOS. Your Windows EFI boot partition may be located on another drive (this is how I accidentaly disabled my Windows 10 install, it took a while to restore).

Step 4 - Boot from SSD

If you came from Windows or Linux this step is not immediately obvious. After successful installation Windows just boots without problems from the target disk. Under the hood, Windows creates a boot partition (ESP) which "knows" what and how to boot. Unfortunately, it's not the case with Hackintosh.

Once you made sure your macOS works properly you need to copy your OC boot files from the USB drive to some boot partition (ESP) on your SSD. All you need is some small partition (50+ Mb) formatted as FAT32. Just copy all files from USB drive to this partition and you are done! You can use ESP Mounter Pro to mount the ESP partition from macOS.

Step 4.1 - Dual boot

There are several ways to do dual boot on an OC-based Hackintosh system. The first option is not to do anything. OpenCore supports booting other OSes out of the box. You can stick with the default OC boot menu if OC successfully finds your other operating systems and these boot without problems. Second, you can use Bootstrap.efi method, available in OpenCore since 0.5.8. Third, you can use OpenCanopy, a GUI shell for OpenCore available since 0.5.7.

However, I prefer rEFInd. rEFInd is a very flexible boot manager capable of booting virtually everything. The main advantage of rEFInd over OC-based methods is that when you boot your Linux or Windows OS you can be sure they see unmodified ACPI tables. Another reason to use OS-agnostic boot manager (like rEFInd) is that it will boot your Linux or Windows even if you screw up your OC partition. The only disadvantage of rEFInd is that it can be pretty difficult to configure. Please follow this guide for detailed Windows installation instructions.

Step 5 - Make Ethernet "Built-in"

Once you have a working macOS system there may be one more thing to fix. For iMessage and other Apple services (such as FaceTime and Siri) you need to make macOS to recognize your network interface en0 as built-in. To check if the interface is built-in you can use DPCIManager or Hackintool:

If it's not built-in you need to find a PCI path for your Ethernet adapter and add this path to config.plist to DeviceProperties -> Add section like this:

You can find your PCI path by following these instructions.

Step 6 (Optional) - Secure Your Installation

You may want to secure your system by signing your EFI boot files. Open config.plist once again and change Misc -> Security -> Vault to Secure. Then go to unpacked OC installation folder, cd to Utilities/CreateVault and run sign.command. Detailed instructions are here.

Known Issues

• USB 2.0 ports don't work in this config. This issue is fixable, but I've got plenty of USB 3.0+ ports so this doesn't bother me. works now
• Sleep mode doesn't work. There is no known universal fix for Catalina. If you really need a sleep function, try Mojave.
• Docker Desktop doesn't work. Docker uses Intel-specific virtualization which apparently won't work with Ryzen. Some people reported Docker works ok inside VirtualBox.
• The system boots very slowly (15-20 seconds to OC boot menu) with OC 0.5.9. It wasn't the case with older OC versions.
• macOS recognizes my random Gembird USB Bluetooth 4.0 dongle but the keyboard doesn't pair. Unfortunately, macOS is very picky when it comes to WiFi and Bluetooth support.

Update History

• 2020/12/25 - Updated to OpenCore 0.6.4, recreated config.plist from scratch, updated Lilu, VirtualSMC, WhateverGreen, AppleALC, RealtekRTL8111 to the latest versions, added "official" OC SSDT-EC-USBX-DESKTOP.aml, removed unnecessary EFI drivers and OC debug tools.
• 2020/11/08 - Updated to OpenCore 0.6.2, updated config.plist for new OC layout, applied new AMD plist patches, updated to the latest Kexts (AppleALC, Lilu, WhateverGreen, VirtualSMC), updated README.md.
• 2020/08/22 - Added more details to the guide.
• 2020/08/01 - Added OpenCore 0.5.9, updated to the latest Kexts (Lilu, VirtualSMC, Whatevergreen etc), added AMD-USB-Map.kext for USB 2.0 support (thanks to GhostBoy805 and this Reddit thread), removed NullCPUPowerManagement.kext.