Introduction
I wanted to set up a gaming rig, since it’s been about 11 years since the last time i actually gamed on something other than a mobile phone or tablet 😮
Hardware
Well, turns out I basically had all the hardware I needed: I converted my trusted hackintosh into a veritable gaming rig !!! 🎉
That hackintosh was a marvel of stability and performance, it went throught 2 OS, without the usual hassle of hackintosh upgrades
The specs are also quite decent for a gaming rig:
- Motherboard: Gigabyte Z490 Vision D
- CPU: Intel Core i7-10700
- GPU: Sapphire Radeon RX 580
- RAM: G.Skill TridentZ 32GB DDR4 3200MHz
I started with a 256Gb Sabrent nvme, but eventually added a 512 and finally a 1Tb as my primary.
Migration
I purchased a mac by mid last year, and I was using it as my primary machine, so I relegated the hackintosh to zombie mode.
There were some things I needed to do before completely sunsetting it, like building and publishing my ControlR app on the new machine, to make sure no credentials/keychain access secrets were lost, which I was able to do on the last days of 2022.
So, finally, I just installed Windows 11 on the hackintosh, and it worked like a charm.
I’ve already played a few games, and it’s been a blast.
Sharing
As part of this migration, one of the most important things was how to share input devices between the two machines.
My monitor is a Gigabyte 34 WQC, which has 2 DisplayPort inputs, so I was able to connect the mac to one of them, and the hackintosh to the other 🙌
Switching between inputs is not as straightforward as I’d like, mostly due to the quirky button on the monitor. But it sort of switches automatically when there’s no signal on one of the inputs (need to validate this).
I do have a wired mechanical keyboard, so I can’t share it between machines, for the time being I’m using a previous keyboard for the pc, and I’ll probably get a wireless one for the long run.
I have dedicated mice for each machine, so I don’t need to share them.
As for the sound, I have a Fosi Audio DAC, to drive some Pioneer speakers and a 10” subwoofer (left overs from my previous home theater setup).
I have it wired to the mac via usb and connect it via bluetooth on the hackintosh.
Conclusion
I’m really happy with the results, and I’m looking forward to playing more games on this rig.
Update 2023-01
Turned out that my trusted AMD RX 580 couldn’t handle gaming at 1440p (fans went into turbo mode, then the screen just blacked out, the pc was still going though)
So I ended up getting a new GPU, a XFX RX 6700, which handles gaming at 1440p like a champ.
I also got a new keyboard, a Logitech G413 TKL and a Logitech G453 Lightspeed headset, which connect wirelessly, thus avoiding bluetooth issues.
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