Ever wanted to run older versions of OS X on modern, faster processors? It should be possible—at some point around 2015, "Bronya" compiled custom 10.9.5 and 10.6.8 XNU kernels with support for AMD Ryzen CPUs. In theory, you should be able to use these kernels to build a Mavericks or Snow Leopard Hackintosh around a modern Ryzen processor. (You will still need a natively-compatible graphics card.)
I have personally used the Mavericks kernel on a 16-core, 32-thread Ryzen 3950X. It worked when graphics acceleration was disabled—I spent several hours running benchmarks, using iWork '09, and casually browsing the web in Firefox. Unfortunately, the kernel appears to contain some sort of bug which prevented my nVidia GTX 780 from working properly; booting up with graphics acceleration (which did technically work) inexplicably caused the computer to slow to a crawl, to the point where opening a new Finder window could take upwards of 60 seconds.
I wish I'd been able to test an AMD graphics card before I had to return the CPU, because I suspect it would have worked! Someone should try it. You could become the owner of the most powerful Snow Leopard or Mavericks machine on the planet!
I'm uploading these kernels to the Garden because they appear to have disappeared from the internet, and no one in the Hackintosh community cares about older OS's. If you need help using them, please feel free to message me; I'd be thrilled to see someone get Mavericks or Snow Leopard on a modern processor.
Compatibility
Comments
Heheh.
Maybe there's one floating around for newer Intel chips, I guess?
@SolarstrikeVG Only if you can find a Mac with a Ryzen CPU.
But you could potentially use the Snow Leopard kernel to run PowerPC apps on a very, very fast processor...
Good thought to preserve the old (and not so old) hacks.
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Some stuff seems to be here still: https://www.hackintosh-forum.de/forum/board/132-amd-installation/
I did not use Snow Leo on AMD since my Athlon 64 X2 5000+
Nawcoms Mod CD, some here may recall.
Very interesting stuff!
I wonder if this means you could run these on Mac models after 2011, so you can keep Rosetta going.