A brief guide to using the OpenCore boot-loader for hackintoshes
This guide has now been deprecated, for those who wish to follow a more up to date guide can follow the OpenCore Vanilla Desktop Guide. Seriously thank you all for checking out this guide, over 1500 users have vistited this guide and to think that even a fraction of that could find this guide useful
OpenCore is an alternative to Clover. By design, OpenCore is versatile by being more modular and open as it aims to resolve the constraints and issues that Clover brings. It is not only for Hackintoshes as it can be used for other purposes that require an emulated EFI. Please remember we’re still in very early infancy so there will be issues. This specific guide will be omitting Vault.plist and Vault.sig as there's still quite a bit of development happening there. OpenCore should be considered in Alpha stage at this time. If you have a working, stable system you should not migrate unless you prefer "bleeding edge" development, want to contribute, and don't mind recovering your system should it fail to boot.
- Z97 based systems require pure UEFI mode for booting (also known as Windows 8/10 mode).
Currently minimal support for emulated NVRAM (sorry z390 users, EmuVariableRuntimeDxe may work but won't save on reboot).Support for nvram.plist has been added to OpenCore's most recent commitFakeSMC sensors can't be injected, alternative is HWSensors3 or VirtualSMC sensors.- VoodooPS2Controller needs to be injected first, Keyboard second and Mouse/Trackpad third.
- NVMe issues if setup as a SATA device in BIOS.
- Sometimes can't access other partitions on the drive, solution is to "bless" the drive with Startup Disk
Requirements:
- OpenCorePkg (Recommend to build from scratch instead of using the prebuilt package as OpenCore is constantly being updated. As of writing we're on Version 0.0.3 even though the current official release is 0.0.1)
- AppleSupportPkg
- AptioFixPkg
- mountEFI or some form of EFI mounting. Clover Configurator works just as well
- Xcode to edit .plist files (OpenCore Configurator is another tool, but vit9696 has stated multiple times he does not support these tools and they even break OpenCore's specifications. Use at own risk!)
- USB formatted as MacOS Journaled with GUID partition map.
- Knowledge of how a hackintosh works and what files yours requires.
- A working Hackintosh to test on.
- You must remove Clover from your system entirely if you wish to use it as your main boot-loader. Keep a backup of your Clover based EFI.
Creating the USB is simple. All you need to do is format it as MacOS Journaled with GUID partition map. There is no real size requirement for the USB as OpenCore's entire EFI is less than 5MB.
Next we'll want to mount the EFI partition on the USB with either mountEFI or Clover Configurator.
You'll notice that once we open the EFI partition, it's empty. This is where the fun begins.
To setup OpenCore’s folder structure, you’ll want to grab those files from OpenCorePkg and construct your EFI to look like the one below:
Now you can place your necessary .efi drivers from AppleSupportPkg and AptioFixPkg into the drivers folder and kexts/ACPI into their respective folders. Please note that UEFI drivers are not supported with OpenCore!
Here's what mine looks like (ignore my odd choice of kexts):
Keep in mind with Config.plist in OpenCore, they are different from Clover’s config.plists. They cannot be mixed and matched. And you'll also need to read the documentation in regards to what everything does if you don't know.
First let’s duplicate the sample.plist, rename the duplicate to config.plist and open in Xcode.
At this point you've noticed there are a bunch of groups:
- ACPI: This is for loading, blocking and patching the ACPI.
- DeviceProperties: This is where you'd set PCI device patches like the Intel Framebuffer patch.
- Kernel: Where we tell OpenCore what kexts to load, what order to load and which to block.
- Misc: Settings for OpenCore's boot loader itself.
- NVRAM: This is where we set NVRAM properties like boot flags and SIP.
- Platforminfo: This is where we setup your SMBIOS.
- UEFI: Where we tell OpenCore which drivers to load and in which order.
We can delete #WARNING -1 and #WARNING -2 just to clean it up a bit.
Add: You'll want to go through and disable all of them or rename them to the files you have under EFI/OC/ACPI (set enabled to no or delete).
Block: We won't be doing anything here.
Patch: Here you'll be adding some USB and SATA patches, follow the Vanilla guide for what patches your system may need.
Quirk: Settings for ACPI.
- FadtEnableReset: NO (Enable reboot and shutdown on legacy hardware, not recommended unless needed)
IgnoreForWindows: NO (Disable ACPI modifications when booting Windows, only for those who made broken ACPI tables)Removed from OpenCore- NormalizeHeaders: Cleanup ACPI header fields, irrelevant in 10.14
- RebaseRegions: Attempt to heuristically relocate ACPI memory regions
- ResetHwSig: Needed for hardware that fail fail to maintain hardware signature across the reboots and cause issues with waking from hibernation
- ResetLogoStatus: Workaround for systems running BGRT tables
Add: Sets device properties from a map.
PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x2,0x0) -> AAPL,ig-platform-id
- Applies Framebuffer patch, insert required value from Framebuffer guide here. Don't forget to add Stolemen and patch-enable.
PciRoot(0x0)/Pci(0x1b,0x0) -> Layout-id
- Applies AppleALC audio injection, insert required value from AppleALC documentation here.
Block: Removes device properties from map (can delete, irrelevant for most users).
Add: Here's where you specify which kexts to load, order matters here so make sure Lilu.kext is always first! Other higher priority kexts come after Lilu such as, VirtualSMC, AppleALC, WhateverGreen, etc.
Emulate: Needed for spoofing unsupported CPUs like Pentiums and Celerons
- CpuidMask: When set to Zero, original CPU bit will be used
- CpuidData: The value for the CPU spoofing, don't forget to swap hex
Block: Blocks kexts from loading. Sometimes needed for disabling Apple's trackpad driver for some laptops.
Patch: Patches kexts (this is where you would add USB port limit patches and AMD CPU patches).
Quirks:
- AppleCpuPmCfgLock: Only needed when CFG-Lock can't be disabled in BIOS
- AppleXcpmCfgLock: Only needed when CFG-Lock can't be disabled in BIOS
- AppleXcpmExtraMsrs: Disables multiple MSR access needed for unsupported CPUs
- CustomSMBIOSGuid: Performs GUID patching for UpdateSMBIOSMode Custom mode. Usually relevant for Dell laptops
- DisbaleIOMapper: Needed to get around VT-D if unable to disable in BIOS, can interfere with Firmware
- ExternalDiskIcons: External Icons Patch, for when internal drives are treated as external drives
- LapicKernelPanic: Disables kernel panic on AP core lapic interrupt
- PanicNoKextDump: Allows for reading kernel panics logs when kernel panics occurs
- ThirdPartyTrim: Enables TRIM, not needed for AHCI or NVMe SSDs
- XhciPortLimit: This is actually the 15 port limit patch, don't rely on it as it's not a guaranteed solution to USB. Please create a USB map when possible. Its intended use is for those that do not have a USB map.
Boot: Settings for boot screen (leave as-is unless you know what you're doing).
- Timeout: This sets how long OpenCore will wait until it automatically boots from the default selection
- ShowPicker:
- UsePicker: Uses OpenCore's default GUI, set to NO if you wish to use a different GUI
Debug: Debug has special use cases, leave as-is unless you know what you're doing.
- DisableWatchDog: (May need to be set for yes if macOS is stalling on something while booting
Security: Security is pretty self-explanatory.
- RequireSignature: We won't be dealing vault.plist so we can ignore
- RequireVault: We won't be dealing vault.plist so we can ignore as well
- ScanPolicy: This allow you to see all drives available, please refer to OpenCore's DOC for furthur info on setting up ScanPolicy
Tools Used for running OC debugging tools like clearing NVRAM, we'll be ignoring this
Add: 7C436110-AB2A-4BBB-A880-FE41995C9F82 (System Integrity Protection bitmask)
- boot-args: -v dart=0 debug=0x100 keepsyms=1 , etc (Boot flags)
- csr-active-config: <00000000> (Settings for SIP, recommeded to manully change this within Recovery partition with csrutil.
00000000- SIP completely enabled30000000- Allow unsigned kexts and writing to protected fs locationsE7030000- SIP completely disabled
- nvda_drv: <> (For enabling Nvidia WebDrivers, set to 31 if running a Maxwell or Pascal GPU. This is the same as setting nvda_drv=1 but instead we translate it from text to hex)
- prev-lang:kbd: <> (Needed for non-latin keyboards)
Block: Forcibly rewrites NVRAM variables, not needed for us as sudo nvram is prefered but useful for those edge cases
LegacyEnable Allows for NVRAM to be stored on nvram.plist
LegacySchema Used for assigning nvram variable
Automatic: YES (Generates PlatformInfo based on Generic section instead of DataHub, NVRAM, and SMBIOS sections)
Generic:
- SpoofVendor: YES
- SystemUUID: Can be generated with MacSerial or use pervious from Clover's config.plist.
- MLB: Can be generated with MacSerial or use pervious from Clover's config.plist.
- ROM: <> (6 character MAC address, can be entirely random)
- SystemProductName: Can be generated with MacSerial or use pervious from Clover's config.plist.
- SystemSerialNumber: Can be generated with MacSerial or use pervious from Clover's config.plist.
ROM must either be Apple ROM (dumped from a real Mac), or your NIC MAC address, or any random MAC address (could be just 6 random bytes)- Vit9696
DataHub
PlatformNVRAM
SMBIOS
UpdateDataHub: YES (Update Data Hub fields)
UpdateNVRAM: YES (Update NVRAM fields)
UpdateSMBIOS: YES (Update SMBIOS fields)
UpdateSMBIOSMode: Create (Replace the tables with newly allocated EfiReservedMemoryType)
ConnectDrivers: YES (Forces .efi drivers, change to NO for faster boot times but cerain file system drivers may not load)
Drivers: Add your .efi drivers here.
Protocols:
- AppleBootPolicy: (Ensures APFS compatibility on VMs or legacy Macs)
- ConsoleControl: (Replaces Console Control protocol with a builtin version, needed for when firmware doesn’t support text output mode)
- DataHub: (Reinstalls Data Hub)
- DeviceProperties: (Ensures full compatibility on VMs or legacy Macs)
Quirks:
- ExitBootServicesDelay: 0 (Switch to 5 if running ASUS Z87-Pro with FileVault2)
- IgnoreInvalidFlexRatio: (Fix for when MSR_FLEX_RATIO (0x194) can't be disabled in the BIOS, required for all pre-skylake based systems)
- IgnoreTextInGraphics: (Fix for UI corruption when both text and graphics outputs happen)
- ProvideConsoleGop: (Enables GOP, AptioMemoryFix currently offers this but will soon be removed)
- ReleaseUsbOwnership: (Releases USB controller from firmware driver)
- RequestBootVarRouting: (Redirects AptioMemeoryFix from EFI_GLOBAL_VARIABLE_G to OC_VENDOR_VARIABLE_GUID. Needed for when firmware tries to delete boot entries)
- SanitiseClearScreen: (Fixes High resolutions displays that display OpenCore in 1024x768)
So now you're ready to completely switch What you'll want to do is completely scrub your system of Clover. The main things to keep in mind is:
- Clover is on your Boot Drive (duh)
- Clover may be hiding in other spots (Clover Preference Pane and other tools that rely on Clover)
Cleaning up is actually quite simple, for your EFI you'll want to run mountEFI, move Clover to somewhere safe(preferably a rescue USB) and copy OpenCore's EFI to the main drive's EFI partition. Certain system BIOS may require you to manually remove Clover as an EFI boot option (and extra special system might need a factory reset to permanently remove it)
Regarding apps that rely on Clover, you'll need to look through yourself but main culprit is Clover's Preference Pane which is used for updating Clover (I think you can see why that's an issue). You can find that at: /Library/PreferencePanes/Clover.prefPane.
- Apple for MacOS
- vit9696 for OpenCore and corrections for this guide
- InsanelyMac's OpenCore forums for finding issues with hardware and their work arounds
- icedterminal for heavy grammar correction and Clover Removal