M/B onboard sound suitability for gaming?

[vk2003]

forgive the rather naive question...

I am looking to build a cheaper version of a Mac Pro to make it dual boot with windows and MacOSX (but not via bootcamp) using an EFi-X (not a hackintosh!)

The idea being to have a machine which I can use daily with Mac apps, but I can boot into windows easily and use it as a games machine.

Problem is that there seems to be an issue with sound using an EFi-X... But the board I am planning on using (Gigabyte EP45-DQ6) has a fully supported sound chipset - Will this be good enough to play games like Bioshock, or will I need a separate soundcard for enviromental sound effects?

So can anyone advise me pls?

[kalniel]

Onboard is more than good enough. You will miss some hardware accelerated environment effects, but the majority of these are not done in hardware anymore since Vista doesn't even support it (well).

[shaithis]

EFI-X is hackintosh....do not try and delude yourself (or others) that it is not.

The big joke is, you do not need EFI-X. You can install what's on that device to a small HD partition (or USB drive) instead. The makers of the device are fleecing people.

[Flibb]

Search for Boot 132, its a newish way to instal OSX from retail DVD. You dont need to modify an image file.

[vk2003]

Onboard is more than good enough. You will miss some hardware accelerated environment effects, but the majority of these are not done in hardware anymore since Vista doesn't even support it (well).

Thanks Kalniel!

[vk2003]

Search for Boot 132, its a newish way to instal OSX from retail DVD. You dont need to modify an image file.

Hi Flibb

Thanks for the info I had a look at the installation guide for boot 132 having googled it on your suggestion. Whilst it obviously does the biz, I also had difficulty making head/tail of how to do it!
Do you know of any noob guides?

shaithis - as per your comments, I don't know a great deal about the technical side of the contents of EFi-X. Can you point me towards some info backing up your comments?

[shaithis]

www.insanelymac.com has all the info you need.....including many guides. The EFI-X device is basically Boot-132 (plus a bootloader) on a USB stick. The bootloader is not necessary though, I currently have a quad boot via the Vista bootloader with vista, xp, leopard and ubuntu.

Apple are currently in out-of-court talks with a company selling hackintoshes.....Even with a retail OS X disk and license you are not allowed to install it on a non-Apple made PC (according to apple), many people think otherwise - especially as the wording of the license can be read to say that putting an Apple sticker on your PC is valid enough. One way or another we will soon find how valid a license is without a Mac...

[Flibb]

I used one of the guides linked from the msi wind forums on to insanelymac. Its a specific one for the wind laptops so probably not useful for you.

The problem with any legal discuccions about hackintosh is that EULA cant go against local laws. And the EU / UK has plenty of those.

[vk2003]

Thanks guys. I will look into it a bit more!

One quick question though - does a boot 132 install pass muster for Apple update, or do kexts sometimes need updating also? Also, has apple tried with any of their updates to target installs on non apple hardware and disable them?

[shaithis]

The joy of Boot-132 is that you can use Apple update....the kernel file and 1 kext needs copying to the Boot-132 drive if they are updated from apple though (you copy the newly updated file(s) to your boot drive)