For the first time since the High Sierra days, there is an NVIDIA macOS driver that lets modern GeForce cards run the Mac desktop with Metal acceleration. It comes from an independent developer called NullMoth, not from NVIDIA or Apple, and it targets Hackintosh PCs and Intel Macs running macOS 15 Sequoia.
The project went public on October 7, 2026, and an RTX 5060 is already driving macOS with Metal 3 switched on. Users report the RTX 5070 and RTX 5080 booting too. This guide explains what the driver is, which cards and macOS versions it covers, what still breaks and whether you should put it on your own build.
Quick answer: NullMoth’s driver is a free, unofficial Metal driver for NVIDIA Turing and newer GPUs (GTX 16 and RTX 20 to 50 series) on macOS 15 Sequoia. Only the RTX 5060 is fully validated by the developer so far. It needs OpenCore, Secure Boot off and code-signing checks disabled. It does not support Apple silicon. Tahoe support landed in 2.0.0 (15 Oct 2026); Sequoia is still the stable choice., and no performance benchmarks exist yet. It is exciting, but treat it as an experiment, not a replacement for a natively supported AMD card.
Update — 25 October 2026: NullMoth 2.5.4 is out (24 Oct). Tahoe works now (since 2.0.0, 15 Oct). Sequoia stays the stable choice. Fixed: the black-screen loop on NVIDIA-only desktops, H.264/HEVC decode in Safari, QuickTime and Preview, Discord Metal, and hardware encode on GTX 16 and RTX 20/30 cards. Get the current build from the GitHub releases page.
In this guide
- What is the NullMoth NVIDIA macOS driver?
- Why this matters for Hackintosh users
- Which NVIDIA GPUs are supported?
- Which macOS versions work?
- How the driver works
- What works and what does not yet
- Requirements
- How to install the NVIDIA macOS driver
- Risks: security and licensing
- Should you use it? Our take
- FAQ
What is the NullMoth NVIDIA macOS driver?
NullMoth Systems describes its project as a Metal driver for NVIDIA cards on macOS 15. It is free, the source code is on GitHub, and the developer funds it through optional donations rather than sales. A companion app called 1401, available for Windows and macOS, checks your hardware, builds the OpenCore startup files and installs the driver for you.
Instead of writing a GPU driver from scratch, NullMoth connected existing open-source pieces: NVIDIA’s own open GPU kernel modules, its stock GSP firmware and Mesa’s NVK Vulkan driver. New code links those parts to Apple’s Metal framework, so macOS treats the GeForce card like any other supported graphics device.
Development is moving very fast. An independent code review by Satyajit Ghana counted 19 tagged releases in roughly the first 38 hours. Version numbers change almost daily, so always get the current build from the official NullMoth site or the GitHub releases page.
Why this matters for Hackintosh users
NVIDIA’s official Mac support ended with its web drivers for macOS 10.13 High Sierra. Mojave and every later release shipped without them, and no Turing, Ampere, Ada or Blackwell card has ever had a macOS driver. That is why our Hackintosh GPU compatibility list has told builders for years to buy AMD.
Other projects have connected modern NVIDIA hardware to Macs before. Tiny Corp, for example, showed an RTX 5090 doing AI compute on Apple silicon over Thunderbolt. As Hardware Busters points out, NullMoth’s work is different: it is the first serious attempt to make a current GeForce card the GPU that actually draws the macOS desktop.
The timing matters too. Apple has confirmed that macOS 27 runs only on Apple silicon, so Sequoia and Tahoe are the last stops for any PC build (see is Hackintosh dead?). A working NVIDIA driver gives anyone with an RTX card a real reason to keep a Sequoia install around.
Which NVIDIA GPUs are supported?
The installer’s device table lists 235 NVIDIA PCI IDs covering Turing and later: the GTX 16 series, RTX 20, 30, 40 and 50 series, TITAN RTX and many Quadro and RTX workstation cards. Being in that table only means the driver will try to load on a card. The project itself says device-table coverage is not the same as tested support.
| GPU | Architecture | Status (October 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| RTX 5060 | Blackwell | Validated by the developer |
| RTX 5070, RTX 5080 | Blackwell | Reported working by users |
| RTX 2060 SUPER | Turing | User report shows Metal 3 in System Information on macOS 15.8.1 |
| Other RTX 50 cards, including RTX 5090 | Blackwell | Listed, not yet qualified |
| RTX 20, 30 and 40 series | Turing, Ampere, Ada | Listed, physical validation pending |
| GTX 16 series | Turing | Listed, open bug reports |
| GTX 10 series and older | Pascal and earlier | Not supported |
Early bug reports show why caution makes sense. Users have hit a crash loop on a GTX 1650. An RTX 2080 Super laptop went black after about 90 seconds. There are also sleep failures on an RTX 5070 and a copy-engine failure on a GTX 1660 Ti. The NullMoth site also tracks community boot reports, including RTX 5090D and RTX 5080 laptop systems, but those are user reports, not qualified setups.
Which macOS versions work?
macOS 15 Sequoia is the tested, stable choice (15.7.x and 15.8.1). macOS 26 Tahoe works since driver 2.0.0 (15 Oct 2026), with hardware and application qualification still pending. Stay on Sequoia for a work machine; try Tahoe only if you like experimenting.
This matters if you followed our macOS Tahoe Hackintosh guide or plan to upgrade from Sequoia to Tahoe.
The driver is also x86_64 only. It runs on OpenCore PCs and Intel Macs, not on Apple silicon Macs.
How the NVIDIA macOS driver works
When an app sends work to Metal, NullMoth’s Metal plugin (NVMTLDriver) picks it up. Apple compiles Metal shaders into a format called AIR. The driver’s translator converts AIR into SPIR-V, the format Vulkan drivers understand, and caches the result so each shader is only converted once.
Mesa’s NVK Vulkan driver and its NAK shader compiler then turn that into GPU commands. On the kernel side, NVRM.kext is NVIDIA’s open-source Resource Manager from the r610 open kernel modules, ported to macOS, with extra kexts for the framebuffer and display output. The GPU’s onboard GSP processor runs unmodified NVIDIA firmware version 610.57.04 and handles most chip setup. The overall design follows X512’s earlier port of the same NVIDIA stack to Haiku OS.
The trade-off is speed. Every Metal call goes through a translation layer that a native driver would not need, and the desktop compositor waits for each command buffer to finish to avoid flicker. Do not expect native-driver performance.
What works and what does not yet
According to the project’s README, the driver supports:
- Metal 3, including tier 2 argument buffers
- Ray tracing, mesh shaders, Metal Performance Shaders and a MetalFX path
- OpenGL through Apple’s GL-on-Metal layer, plus OpenCL, Core Image and Core ML
- Up to four display heads
- Dual boot with Windows and Linux from the OpenCore picker
Independent reviewers urge caution about that list. Satyajit Ghana’s code review found that mesh shaders are emulated, ray tracing runs in software and the MetalFX path has no dedicated code. Metal Performance Shaders and Core Image are the only features covered by the project’s own tests. One Geekbench screenshot from an RTX 2080 Super system showed only the Intel iGPU as an OpenCL device.
Known gaps right now:
- No published performance benchmarks
- Hardware H.264/HEVC decode works in Safari, QuickTime and Preview, and hardware encode works on GTX 16 and RTX 20/30/50 cards.
- Only one 8-bit-per-channel pixel format, with no HDR or adaptive sync
- DRM-protected content is not qualified, so streaming services may not play
- Laptop panel controls are stubs, so laptops are rough
- The first boot can pause for up to a minute at PCI configuration end while the GPU starts
- No verified list of working games
Requirements
- A PC with OpenCore, or an Intel Mac, running macOS 15 Sequoia
- A Turing or newer NVIDIA card (GTX 16, RTX 20 or later)
- BIOS: Above 4G Decoding on, CSM off and Resizable BAR configured (the README says an 8 GB BAR gives full memory bandwidth)
- An SMBIOS of a Mac that runs Sequoia with a discrete GPU. The developer tested iMacPro1,1.
- Apple Secure Boot turned off
- SIP set to
0x0A43so unsigned kexts can load - The boot argument
amfi_get_out_of_my_way=0x1 - No conflicting patches: remove
nv_disable=1and any WhateverGreen NVIDIA patches
If these OpenCore terms are new to you, read our guide to the Hackintosh EFI folder first.
How to install the NVIDIA macOS driver
There are two routes. The easy one is NullMoth’s 1401 app, which makes the OpenCore changes and installs the driver for you. The manual route from the GitHub README looks like this:
- Set up OpenCore with the settings above and confirm macOS 15 boots.
- Download the latest release tarball from the official GitHub releases page and extract it.
- Verify the files with
shasum -a 256 -c SHA256SUMS. - Run
sudo ./install.sh, then restart. - Open System Settings, go to Privacy & Security, allow the new extensions and restart again.
Tip: Keep your OpenCore USB stick plugged in for restarts until you have checked your internal boot setup. The macOS installer also needs different BAR settings than the installed driver, so write down your BIOS values before changing them. If the first boot pauses at PCI configuration end, give it a full minute before you power off. Still stuck? Try our boot troubleshooting fixes.
Risks: security and licensing
The setup weakens macOS security. The AMFI boot argument turns off code-signing enforcement across the whole system, Secure Boot is off, and the driver’s kexts are ad-hoc signed rather than signed by Apple. Think twice before running it on a machine that holds sensitive work or client data.
Licensing is not open source in the usual sense either. NullMoth’s own code uses the PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 license, which allows personal, research, educational and non-profit use only. You cannot sell prebuilt Hackintoshes with the driver installed. The shader translator is LGPL-3.0, the Mesa changes are MIT and the GSP firmware ships under NVIDIA’s redistribution license. Satyajit Ghana’s review also flagged missing third-party license texts and stripped copyright headers in some files derived from the Haiku work.
Finally, this is a brand-new project from a developer whose GitHub account was created in late September 2026. Download only from the official site or GitHub repository, and always check the checksums.
Should you use it? Our take
If you already own an RTX card and run a Sequoia Hackintosh for fun, testing or learning, try it. It is the most interesting thing to happen to NVIDIA on macOS in years, and community reports are what will move cards from listed to validated.
If your Hackintosh is a work machine for Final Cut Pro, Logic or Xcode, wait. With no benchmarks, no hardware video decode and real security trade-offs, a natively supported AMD card such as the RX 6600 XT or RX 6800 XT is still the safer choice. Our best Hackintosh build guide lists proven parts.
Frequently asked questions
Is there an official NVIDIA driver for macOS?
No. NVIDIA’s last official Mac drivers were the web drivers for macOS 10.13 High Sierra. The NullMoth driver is an independent, unofficial project.
Does the NVIDIA macOS driver work on macOS Tahoe?
Yes, since 2.0.0 (15 Oct 2026), with the caveat above: hardware and application qualification is pending. Work machine = stay on Sequoia.
Does it work with an RTX 4090 or RTX 3080?
Both are in the driver’s device table, so it will try to load on them, but neither has been validated yet. Expect bugs and check the GitHub issues before you install.
Does it support the GTX 1080 or other GTX 10 series cards?
No. The driver only covers Turing and newer GPUs, which starts with the GTX 16 and RTX 20 series.
Can I use it on an Apple silicon Mac?
No. The driver is x86_64 only, so it runs on OpenCore PCs and Intel Macs.
Is the NVIDIA macOS driver free?
Yes. It is free to download and funded by optional donations. Its noncommercial license allows personal, research and educational use, but not selling prebuilt systems with it installed.
Can I play games with it?
Some Metal games may run, but there is no verified compatibility list and no published benchmarks yet, so performance is unknown.
Sources
- NullMoth Systems official site
- NullMoth NVIDIA macOS driver on GitHub
- NullMoth release announcement on Reddit
- Hardware Busters: unofficial NVIDIA macOS driver runs an RTX 5060 with Metal 3
- VideoCardz: RTX 5060 runs macOS 15 with Metal 3 acceleration
- Satyajit Ghana: NVIDIA macOS driver code review
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