hackintosh-feature-test

A feature test for macOS on PC hardware. It runs 119 checks over graphics, display, video, audio, input, network, Bluetooth, Apple services, power, storage and system services, and writes a table of what works, what half works and what does not, with the raw output of every check saved next to it.

I wrote it to check a Hackintosh laptop after a driver or config change without clicking through System Settings for an hour. Most checks run on their own. The ones that need a human (does the keyboard backlight change, does AirDrop see the phone) open a dialog and ask.

The checks are plain commands (system_profiler, ioreg, pmset, networkQuality and so on) plus eight small Swift and Objective-C programs that use the real frameworks: Metal, Metal Performance Shaders, Core Image, VideoToolbox, AVFoundation, ScreenCaptureKit, CoreGraphics and CoreAudio. A GPU probe passes only if it drew or computed something and the result read back matches what the CPU expects, not because a property says it is supported.

Fourteen areas. Each line in the result table gets one status: Pass, Degraded, Fail, N/A, Skipped, Not tested (no equipment), Not tested (risky), Not tested (needs a person), Error, or Review (a screenshot waits for someone to judge it).

Some checks are listed but never run, with the reason in the table: sleep and wake, a GPU job long enough to trigger the watchdog, and anything that needs equipment the test cannot assume (external monitor, headphones, USB-C devices).

python3 ft.py run --pass A --dry prints the whole list with what each probe needs.

• macOS 15 or 26 on x86_64. Developed on macOS 26.7.1.
• Xcode Command Line Tools (xcode-select --install) for clang and swiftc. The system python3 is enough.
• For the four sudo probes (disk speed, CPU power, Location Services, sharing services): the account password in FT_PW. Without it they are Skipped.
• Optional: a checkout of nullmoth/nvidia-macos-driver for its GPU test tools. Point FT_NVGFX_SRC at it (default ~/src/nvidia-macos-driver). Without it those four probes are N/A.
• Optional: the EFI partition mounted (or FT_OCLOG_DIR set to the folder with opencore-*.txt) for the boot framebuffer probe.

zsh probes/build.sh              # all probes into probes/bin/
zsh probes/build.sh mtlfeat      # just one

Only compiler errors are printed. It ends with the list of what is in probes/bin/.

python3 ft.py run --pass A                       # every automatic probe
python3 ft.py run --pass A --area gpu,video      # some areas
python3 ft.py run --pass A --only gpu.mtlfeat    # one probe
python3 ft.py guided --pass A                    # the human checks, one dialog each
python3 ft.py report A                           # writes summary.md
python3 ft.py report A B                         # and diff.md: every line that changed between the passes

A pass is just a name. I run pass A, change one thing (a kext, a driver build, a boot-arg), reboot and run pass B, then report A B shows what moved.

Options and environment:

Probes that open apps, change the display mode or brightness, or play sound ask first (a dialog with Skip that times out to Continue after 20 s). The camera, microphone and screen recording probes trigger the usual macOS permission prompts for Terminal the first time.

results/2026-10-19/A/
  results.jsonl        one line per probe run; a later run of the same probe replaces it in the report
  <probe id>.txt       the command, its exit code and time, and everything it printed
  <probe id>.png       screenshot of a guided item
  summary.md           the table, one section per area
results/2026-10-19/diff.md

A results.jsonl line:

{"id": "plat.os", "area": "platform", "feature": "macOS version", "pass": "A", "kind": "info", "time": "2026-10-19T13:39:50", "status": "Pass", "value": "26.7.1", "note": "", "evidence": "2026-10-19/A/plat.os.txt", "seconds": 0.0}

and the matching part of summary.md:

## 2. GPU and Metal

| Feature | Status | Measured | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Third-party GPU kexts | Pass | as.vit9696.WhateverGreen (1.7.1); com.nullmoth.NVRMFB (2.3.7); ... |  |
| Metal device capabilities | Pass | YES | see evidence for every family and limit |
| nvidia-macos-driver metal_selftest | N/A |  | needs ${FT_NVGFX_SRC:-$HOME/src/nvidia-macos-driver}/tools/metal_selftest.sh |

The evidence files hold whatever the commands print, and some of that is personal: system_profiler lists display and device serial numbers, the Wi-Fi probes show network names and addresses, boot-args are there too. Read them before you post them anywhere. summary.md only has short values (model, boot-args, kext names), so it is usually fine to share.

Tested on a Lenovo Legion 5 15IAX10 (Core Ultra 9 275HX, RTX 5070 Laptop driving the panel through the nullmoth NVIDIA driver, our NvGfx fork of it) with macOS 26.7.1 (25G241), SDK 26.5 Command Line Tools. Two full passes ran there on 2026-10-18 with the version this repo was taken from (pass A: 72 Pass, 12 Degraded, 7 Fail). That version also had probes for tools that only exist on that laptop; they were removed here. This repo's copy was checked with a build of all eight probes and a run of a handful of automatic probes.

Not tested yet: any AMD or Intel only machine, a desktop, macOS 15. The interface names come from networksetup, so they should work anywhere, but a Wi-Fi card that macOS lists as Ethernet (itlwm) will show up under Ethernet.

probes.py is a list of dictionaries: a shell command and a function that reads its output and returns a status, a measured value and a note. ft.py runs them, saves the output, and builds the tables. The Swift and Objective-C probes print one ok, FAIL or refused line per check, and the runner counts them. Details, including how each status is decided: docs/HOW-IT-WORKS.md.

ISC. See LICENSE.