The most cost effective way to export for MacOS

[Dan Korneff]

My computer processing needs have evolved greatly over the past few years. I started with a modest Dell laptop, added an old mac mini, upgraded to an i9 rig, dual booted to pc/hackintosh, added a 3090 for graphics rendering, got a new M1 mac mini for new development... the list goes on and on.
Unfortunately, MacOS does not support the 3090 GPU, so I've had to manually remove the card every time I want to switch OS. That got old quick, and realized I need to have a completely separate Intel MacOS rig.
After some research, I found that you can create a mac mini hackintosh with a Beelink U55 for $269.
If anyone is interested in doing the same, I'll gladly post my progress and info here.
As this process may be a breach of contract to the Apple EULA, I'll leave this up to @Christoph-Hart whether or not this content is permissible.

[Christoph Hart]

Actually for a development machine I would go for the original hardware. The entire macOS process is painful enough with notarisation and mismatching xcode versions causing nightmares so I would try to avoid adding another possible source of glitches just to save a few hundred bucks.

Also this machine seems to be wa underpowered so the compilation will take ages. I would advice to get a used mac mini ~2018, they should be really cheap by now since everyone wants the m1 chip.

[Tania Ghosh]

@Christoph-Hart Absolutely true... (y)

The entire macOS process is painful enough

I faced exactly the same :anxious_face_with_sweat:

I would advice to get a used mac mini ~2018

I did exactly the same

[Dan Korneff]

@Christoph-Hart said in The most cost effective way to export for MacOS:

Also this machine seems to be wa underpowered so the compilation will take ages.

Hackintosh install was pretty painless. Downgrading from an 19-9900k to an i3-5005u is VERY painful.
I originally thought speed wouldn't be an issues cause I'm only using it to export. wrong.

[d.healey]

I use a Mac Mini circa 2013

[Dan Korneff]

@d-healey That's what I originally had. This hack mini is on par with my old 2013 mini
I'm just gonna build another i9 hack and call it a day. It's been stable and reliable for the past 2 year so no need to fix what ain't broken.

[Dan Korneff]

I decided to take it for a test drive anyway...
Compiling a test project -
hack mini - 25:30
i9 PC - 3:22

I guess it COULD be worse.
If anyone else wants to go down this road, I can confirm it's working.

• Catalina
• Latest HISE scriptnode
• JUCE 6
• xCode 10.3
• IPP 2021

[Christoph Hart]

Yes the i9 is really something. I‘m also using one as my main development rig - I went from a 2012 mac mini to this machine a few years ago and the performance difference changed my life...

[d.healey]

@dustbro said in

• JUCE 6

JUCE 6 or Projucer 6?

[Dan Korneff]

@d-healey said in The most cost effective way to export for MacOS:

Projucer 6

yes to both... maybe?
I never could get Projucer 5 to open on Catalina, and pointing Projucer to the HISE JUCE folder gave me errors.
so I guess, technically, I compiled HISE and a project with Projucer 6 and JUCE6 libraries.

[d.healey]

@dustbro Oooo :) Can you tell me what was necessary to use JUCE 6?

[Dan Korneff]

@d-healey I take that back. Only Projucer 6 to compile HISE. The HISE project settings were directed to the scriptnode folder, so I'm thinking now it used the included JUCE libraries to export the plugin.

[d.healey]

[Christoph Hart]

Just Fyi I‘m planning to migrate to JUCE 6 for HISE 3.0...

[d.healey]

@Christoph-Hart Excellent!

[orange]

@Christoph-Hart said in The most cost effective way to export for MacOS:

Just Fyi I‘m planning to migrate to JUCE 6 for HISE 3.0...

So HISE 3.0 exported plugins will be M1 chipset compatible natively, right? (I assume if M1 system used for compiling of course)

[Christoph Hart]

Yes, that's the plan.

[orange]

@Christoph-Hart said in The most cost effective way to export for MacOS:

Yes, that's the plan.

Awesome!

[d.healey]

@Christoph-Hart said in The most cost effective way to export for MacOS:

Yes the i9 is really something.

Any specific recommendations?

[Christoph Hart]

Yes, build a passively cooled system. I only have one case fan that goes on for a few seconds when compiling with all cores at 100%, but apart from that, it's dead silence here...