How to: Make OSX86 run faster! (and some other tricks)

posted on May 14th, 2006


The great forum.osx86project.org community has found a lot speed ups for osx86, but they are hard to find cause there are many different versions of every guide. In this post I will describe execalt what you need to do if you want to speed OSX up. When you’ve done all steps OSX will run as fast as on a normall Intel Mac.

1. Change the resolution

1. Open the terminal (in OSX: Applications > Utilities)
2. Type in:

sudo pico /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist

3. Add:

< --key>Graphics Mode< --/key>
< --string>1280×1024×32< --/string>

IMPORTANT: Don’t forget to remove the “–” from the code and change the resolution to a resolution you want.

4. Save the file

2. Enable Quartz 2D Extreme and disable BeamSync

In order to use this trick you must have a supported video card, with CI and QE supported!!

1. Download QuartzSimple (Mirrored on CrazyPigeon’s website, Click Here)
2. Copy Quartz Debuug to your Applications Folder and open it
3. Go to Tools and Click “Enable Quartz 2D Extreme”
4. Go to Tools and Click “Show BeamSync Tools” and Click “Disable Beam Synchronization”
5. Now Hit Command (Apple or alt if your on a pc keyboard) + alt (windows on a pc keyboard) + esc
6. Click Quartz Debug and hit “Force Quit” then click Finder and hit “Relaunch”
7. Any apps that you have open will have to be closed and open again for you to notice the speed in them.
8. Any time you restart, you will have to disable Beamsync again, I have yet to find a workaround.

This trick was originally posted on http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?showtopic=11550 by CrazyPigeon

3. Make the CTRL key the Command key

The Command key on your keyboard works much like the CTRL key in windows. Pressing Command-C and Command-V is doing copy and past commands, and Command-F does a search in Firefox. Swapping the Mac’s Command key with the Control key will make your life much easier.

1. Open the System Preferences and select Keyboard & Mouse under the hardware section.
2. Click on Keyboard tab.
3. Press the Modifier Keys button located at the bottom left.
4. Swap the Control and Commands keys.

By default, the Command key is Alt, and is useful for such things as Alt+Tab (or in Macland, Command+Tab)

  • It would also be interesting to do this with the Windows menu key on keyboards that have them

I found this trick on the osx86project wiki

4. Turn mouse tearing off

1. Download Mouse Locator and install it.
2. Grab this .zip of images: MouseLocator_OnlyShadow.png.zip
3. Rename the png to MouseLocator.png and place it in your Pictures folder in your Home folder.
4. Go to system prefs, turn on “Activate Mouse Locator” in the mouse locator pref pane, also turn on “Always On”

Originally posted on http://forum.osx86project.org/index.php?showtopic=5499&st=40 by RadioIsDead

5. Use any USB printer

OSx86 has universal binaries for all its pre-installed printer drivers. However, if your model doesn’t have a pre-installed driver, you might be in a bit of a sticky situation. The problem is, even if you download your printers driver, it won’t be listed in the driver list! That’s because chances are the newly added driver is in PowerPC architecture. To fix this,

1. right click “Printer Setup Utility” in Utilities,
2. select “Get Info” and click “Open using Rosetta.”
3. Now, when you restart the setup utility, it will load PowerPC drivers in the driver list, and your newly added printer driver should now be visibly listed!

Written by Takuro on the osx86project wiki

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18 comments:

  1. mike said on June 30th, 2006 at 7:43 am :

  2. Matt said on August 30th, 2006 at 12:14 am :

    quick question, can you add multiple resolutions here so you can swap between them once in OS X?

    if yes, do you add them in the …. or is it a case of another … and another ….?

    thanks!

  3. Colin said on September 4th, 2006 at 2:51 am :

    Ok I’m not sure why one would want to switch between resolutions. But why wasn’t that little trick covered when anyone would complain about not having drivers for their video card. I could care less about not having drivers, I just want the proper resolution. All I need now is usb support and sound and I would use OSX as my main OS.

  4. RokyRock said on September 8th, 2006 at 2:29 pm :

    I tried to change a resolution using sudo picu but it is still the same. I added this 2 lines without “–” 2 lines back after last lines. What am I missing?

  5. Colin said on September 8th, 2006 at 7:35 pm :

    Response to RokyRock.

    Did you write out the file? (Same as saving it) Ctrl-O I believe.

    Unless you switched the control and command key that’s shown later in this article. IF you did that then it should be Alt-O.

  6. Colin said on September 8th, 2006 at 9:45 pm :

    Also you don’t want to put it at the end. You want to put it just before

    Here’s what my file looks like (which may differ from yours):

    Kernel
    mach_kernel
    Kernel Flags
    -v
    Boot Graphics
    Yes
    Timeout
    5
    Graphics Mode
    1680×1050x32

    See at the end, but before

  7. Colin said on September 8th, 2006 at 9:49 pm :

    OK so the that looks messed up. Uh… Since I can’t post how it should look here. I’ve saved it as a text file here.

    This is what mine looks like -

    http://www.narcoticbrocolli.com/bootplist.txt

  8. Vikas said on September 17th, 2006 at 7:38 am :

    I tried the resolution trick. it didnt worked for me. i had some problems
    1. when i copy the “Graphics Mode
    1280×1024×32″ in terminal , it doesnt takes those “×” multiplication signs.

    2. anyhow the code worked which i got from osx86. and after bootin it showed the same nothin just multiple lines blinkin and system doesnt boots

  9. Matt said on November 9th, 2006 at 7:29 pm :

    Is there anything specific in terms of hardware I need to make this work? What’s a recommended set-up?

  10. macinfo said on November 10th, 2006 at 9:03 am :

    Graphics Mode change does work here, although I didn’t even recognize the special “×” sign, I was just using the regular “x” and it worked. Don’t forget to save the file with the ending “.plist”, not “.text” or anything!

  11. slimwasim said on December 13th, 2006 at 1:35 am :

    i downloaded quartz simple how can i get this work ist drawback im suffering when i load Dmg images the installer wont start i cudnt install even firefox plz help

  12. Mix_pixer said on January 16th, 2007 at 9:02 pm :

    Hello
    I have install it but when iam trying to log in
    my Display Famly dosent mach
    I Have ATI RADEON Xpress 200 (Visa 2.0)
    and 102 Intel Motherboard
    and 2.6 LGA Celeron CPU
    and 512Ram
    Help Me plz

  13. GreyFox said on January 21st, 2007 at 9:03 pm :

    If you have a laptop like me, the display would be

    1280×800x32

  14. Illya Lapko said on February 3rd, 2007 at 6:56 am :

    If you guys have problems with changing the resolution using NVIDIA graphics cards then I recommend MacVidia (macvidia.com) It fixed my problems and now I can use 1280×1024 resolution instead of being stuck on 1024×768. Good luck. As for ATI cards, I dunno, but search around on Google.

  15. andnever said on February 11th, 2007 at 9:22 pm :

    mix_pixer, google callisto_003

  16. Hamdsf said on February 12th, 2007 at 12:45 pm :

    I have a 24″ Dell WideScreen.. What Resolution I should use? 1920×1200 didn’t work. I have an Nvidea Geforce 6500 FX with 256MB?

  17. ouxly40 said on February 13th, 2007 at 3:52 am :

    perhaps some of you have found some other pages that may be helpful to us just starting to gather information?

  18. khang said on August 7th, 2007 at 9:38 pm :

    does anyone has sony sz430 laptop? i hear weird sound from the hard-drive when i’m running OSX, but switch back to Vista, it’s sound normal. no weird clicking sound. i couldn’t get my Wireless and Ethernet card to work. please help.

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