mrbrightside23 Posted April 16, 2009 Share Posted April 16, 2009 Contents Post 1: Installation Guide Post 2: How to play 2.1 audio through all 5.1 speakers Updates 16/4/2009 - Original Guide posted 17/4/2009 - 2.1 audio through 5.1 speaker guide added Background I have been lurking on these forums for a while and tried OSX86 a few times on my PC a few times for the past year and a half. I've tried several install disks but at the time didnt have the patience to keep retrying and messing around finding correct kext and fixing small problems. Not to mention that I was far too used to Windows and therefore kept missing certain applications. My last install was Kalyway 10.5.2, which I updated to 10.5.6 and it was working pretty well. There were three main negative factors: 1. Bootup was very slow 2. I tried very hard but couldn't get 5.1 audio output. My audio chipset was recognised only as stereo in the Audio MIDI Setup application 3. As this was the install that I had the longest (about 2 months) it became very cluttered and unorganised. Yesterday, I decided to do a new install and this time EVERYTHING seems to work perfectly! Specification Gigabyte P31-S3L Motherboard (full spec) Audio: Realtek ALC888 codec (2/4/5.1/7.1-channel) LAN: RTL 8111B chip (10/100/1000 Mbit) Intel Q6600 Quad Core 2.4GHz OCZ 4GB Kit (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 Memory NVIDIA SLI READY EDITION CL5 NVidia GeForce 8600GT 256MB graphics Additional Peripherals (not needed) Epson D92 Printer USB Bluetooth Dongle - £2.79 delivered from eBay USB WLAN Adapter - D-Link DWL-G122 vC1 OSX "Distro" iPC OSX86 install disk (iPC_OSx86_10_5_6_Universal_PPF5_Final) I used this as I'd read good things about it, the list of included drivers and apps seemed to contained what I needed and I thought it was worth a shot as it would save me the hassle of the long-winded Kalyway update procedure. Stage 1: Install Disk Download the iPC disk mentioned in the "OSX Distro section" Use ImgBURN (Windows) to burn this at 2.4x, and verify once complete (I was using Windows at the time, but I'm sure everyone has their own favourite burning app for all OS's) Stage 2: Running the Installer My setup has 3 HDDs - one for Windows, one for OSX and one for storage of Music, Movies etc At this point I turned off the computer and disconnected all drives besides the Mac Turn the PC on Press F12 at boot to enter boot select Select CD/DVD ROM Boot from the CD and allow the OSX installer to load up Select the correct language at the language select screen Welcome Screen: From the menu, select Utilities > Disk Utility Disk Utility: Click the Erase tab at the top Disk Utility: Select your Mac HDD on the left Disk Utility: Format the Mac HDD to "Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled) - I named it "Leopard" (to be honest I'm not sure what Case-Sensitive does, but it's worked for me in the past) Disk Utility: Once formatted quit the Disk Utility Welcome Screen: Click Continue on the install screen Popup Message: Accept the message from iPC that pops up Select a Destination: Select the newly formatted drive as install destination - "Leopard" in my case Select a Destination: Click continue Install Summary: Click the customise button at the bottom of the screen Select the following options! 1) iPC OSx86 10.5.6 Base System (should already be selected) 2) Kernels > 9.5.0 Voodoo Kernel 3) Drivers > Legacy Time Machine Fix 4) Applications > EFI Studio 5) Applications > OSx86 Tools Utility 6) Applications > Kext Helper b7 7) Applications > Pacifist (optional - allows browsing of pkg files, and the install disk) 8) Applications > Perian (optional - installs some common codecs for QuickTime) Reasons for Selections 1) Base System - obvious - this is the operating system 2) Voodoo Kernel - I tried without a kernel selected (assuming it would install Vanilla kernel) but the system didn't boot, therefore I use this. 3) Time Machine Fix - I use an old USB HDD as a Time Machine drive 4) EFI Studio - you'll notice I didn't select any graphic drivers. This utility will later allow us to install the EFI strings and get our graphics working. 5) OSx86 Tools Utility - allows us to enable QuartzGL for graphics easily. Also allows quick backup of the extensions folder, and extension permissions + more! 6) Kext Helper - will be used to install the audio kexts 7) I used this to browse the install disk to see which kexts were installed from the driver selections - handy utility but you may not need it 8) Perian - installs codecs for QuickTime to play some common audio/video formats e.g. DivX. I normally use VLC, but this could be useful too. Install Summary: Once the selections are made, click OK/Done Install Summary: Click the Install button Installation Screen: When it decides to verify the disk, you can skip this step (already done in ImgBURN remember?) Installation Screen: Allow OSX to install (takes about 10 minutes) - take a break but be back before installation completes Stage 3: Post Install As installation completes, you'll get a screen saying that it needs to restart Go ahead and click Restart When it restarts, at the black Darwin screen, press any key for boot options Enter '-f' (no apostrophes) - this will load the kexts properly The next few screens you can follow yourself At the Create Your Account screen please enter a password for your account! Stage 4: Video and Audio Video In Finder, go to Applications Run EFI Studio Select your video card from the drop down list Click Add Device button A new popup appears with a bunch of hex code At the bottom of the popup click 'write to com.apple.Boot.plist' Enter your password when prompted On success restart and you'll notice a nicer screen resolution (If not click the Apple Logo in top-left > System Preferences > Displays and select a screen res. from there) In Applications, run OSx86 Tools Click Enable/Disable QuartzGL Click Enable Quartz GL Enter password when prompted Restart Audio Download the ALC888Kexts.zip attached to this post Double click the archive to extract it Run Applications > Kext Helper b7 Drag and drop the two extract files into Kext Helper (AppleHDA.kext and HDAEnabler.kext) Enter your password in the password box Click the Easy Install button Click OK, but don't restart Run Applications > OSx86 Tools Check 'Set Extensions permissions' Check 'Clear Extension cache' Click 'Run Selected Tasks' Restart Your video and audio should now be working properly! To configure 5.1 audio follow this excellent guide by consolation Summary By now you should have a fully working OSX86 system. Most of my components, mentioned in 'Specification' section, were installed by this point, here's a quick overview of them: ALC888 Audio - done in Stage 4 using ALC888kexts.zip RTL 8111B LAN - worked by default - nothing installed or selected during install Processor - shows as '4GHz unknown' in 'About this Mac' - not sure if this should be different RAM - shows as 4GB 800MHz RAM in 'About this Mac' Graphics- done in Stage 4 using EFI Studio and OSx86 Tools Printer - drivers available from Epson Bluetooth - worked straight away - no kexts installed WLAN Adapter - drivers available from RaLink website Additional Software Here's a list of some of the Applications I have installed, I'm only listing the ones I think are worth recommending to others: 1) Coda - this application is awesome. It's worth having OSX just for this application in my opinion. As a web developer, this is the best tool I've come across. It allows me to do nearly everything in one window, really easily. Text editing, syntax highlighting, FTP sync, SVN sync, website management and more. 2) Firefox - dont this needs describing 3) Thunderbird - I prefer this to Mail simply because it lets me view my email on the Windows installation 4) Paragon NTFS 7 - allows read/write from/to NTFS (Windows) HDDs 5) Songbird - nice alternative to iTunes - doesn't seem to hog as much memory Notes As I get used to the operating system, I'll be discovering new tips and tricks which I can hopefully share with the community. I'm no expert and even getting this far took hours of reading and trial and error. I hope to save others the trouble and hence writing this guide. The guide only details the steps and options I took, and doesn't necessarily mean that my way is the right way - it just worked for me and I hope it does for you too. There's a few things that I immediately miss about Windows: 1) Lack of Home/End keys - I can't seem to find a way to fix this for the moment. The Command+Left command (the Mac equivalent of Home) has caused me endless trouble in writing this article. In FireFox it is a shortcut for Back, and therefore I've ended up rewriting many sections several times. 2) 5.1 Playback - on Windows, foobar has a plugin called Channel Mixer that allows stereo MP3 files to be played back in 5.1 - I haven't yet found anything of the sort for OSX Credits consolation - guide to setting up 5.1 audio iPCTeam - excellent installer for 10.5.6 Ianxxx - posted the working ALC888 kexts (took me over 24 working hours to find these!) all the OSx86 developers and community - made it possible to run such an awesome OS on such cheap hardware! ALC888Kexts.zip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrbrightside23 Posted April 17, 2009 Author Share Posted April 17, 2009 How to play 2.1 audio through all 5.1 speakers Here's a solution I found to the problem I was having with playing MP3 files which only contain stereo audio through all of my speakers. The original post is by barrylev and can be found here Note that this method involves using a different media player, and therefore it doesn't work with iTunes or Songbird etc. 1. Download MPlayer Extended from here (click the Google Code link) 2. Install MPlayer Extended as a normal application 3. Run MPlayer 4. Go to MPlayer OSX > Preferences > Advanced 5. In the Additional Parameters box enter the following: -af channels=6:6:0:0:0:2:0:4:1:1:1:3:1:5 I'm sure there's a way to make it work with 7.1 too, when I figure it out I'll update this post Credits to the original post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iampivot Posted June 8, 2009 Share Posted June 8, 2009 I'd like to confirm that this method of installation works also for the GA-EP31-DS3L motherboard! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HooliganBG Posted December 13, 2010 Share Posted December 13, 2010 I also want to confirm that this method works on Jetway I35P-SG mobo with ALC888 sound. tanks buddy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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