GPU Passthrough

So I have been wanting to move onto Linux for a while now, but having a GTX 980 I feel it would be kind of a waste, as Linux does not really need such capabilities. There's also the thing that I don't want to lose muh vidya, and I feel dual-booting might be too much of a hassle.

Some time back I came across some info on GPU passthrough for VMs, and as I understand it, it is possible to run a VM on Linux with passthrough with very little performance loss. Since I have a multimonitor setup, I have been thinking of getting a smaller card that can drive 3 monitors for running Linux, and leave the 980 disabled for when I need to pass it through to a VM. Though I have never done something like this before so I don't know if its even viable.

Has anyone tried doing something like this in the past? Is it really as straightforward as it seems, or is it more hassle than dualbooting?

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If you try dual-booting, but find yourself not booting to windows to game because you need the linux side to finish some long duration task, then the VM/passthrough route is worth it. Otherwise it's too much of a pain, just easier to reboot.

Sell it and get something amd

I have a question that's somewhat related.
If the GPU is disabled for Linux in order to use for GPU Passthrough, can I still use the ports on the GPU for the monitors?

No

My two monitors are Display Port. Any 1151 motherboards that actually have 2 display ports on them?

I don't think I have ever seen a mobo with two ports for the integrated gpu.

If you do go through the pass through route, just remember nvidia gimps using the card. Wendell from Tek Syndicate goes into the shenanigans but I can't remember the episode. You can get it to work, I think, but it's not as easy as using an AMD - which has shitty drivers

Is that a confirmed trap of am I safe?

afaik confirmed trap from /k/

...

So nVidia cards lose more performance when passed through? I thought GPU passthrough allowed for giving the entire card to the guest machine and it wouldn't even be able to tell.

Not performance, no. Nvidia detects that the GPU is being "passed through" so to speak and refuses to show any display. I cannot remember which episode on Tek Syndicate channel but I think it was a Wendell only episode in which he goes into the subject of doing exactly that which you want to do yourself.

This might be the episode, it might not: youtube.com/watch?v=16dbAUrtMX4

It was a while ago, I might have been high, I could be mistaken, please no hate.

Seems to be just what I want to do. I will take a look. Thanks!

Use 3D acceleration, instead. Doing passthrough with a GPU in this manner makes it pretty clunky.

But would that work good for more demanding games? Like, playing a current year game on ultra settings, just to cite an example.

At what resolution? IIRC VRAM is limited to 2GB, so if you're gaming past 1080p you will probably have to turn down texture quality.

I just suggested it because I looked into the same things you did and found that using the 3D acceleration in VMware Workstation worked better for me than passing through a GPU.

You don't get out much do ya? Even dog shit hp crap boxes usually have two video outs.

Is this really true? I see it mentioned a lot, but my GPU passthrough setup with a gtx 960 works just as fine as it does on bare-metal. Does it not apply to the 960?

>Has anyone tried doing something like this in the past? Is it really as straightforward as it seems, or is it more hassle than dualbooting?
I do GPU pass through with my dual GTX 980s in ESXi 6 U2

>just remember nvidia gimps using the card.
It is easy to enable passthru and still have the drivers work. Add the following to your VMX file and the VM wont realize it is virtualized

hypervisor.cpuid.v0 = "FALSE"

If you need SLI to work, use DifferentSLIAuto 1.5

>So nVidia cards lose more performance when passed through?
No

Do listen to the retard recommending SVGA. Use ESXi and add the setting I mention above and you'll be fine

It was an Nvidia driver parameter or something. It's old news.

It's true in ESXi, not anything else. It's a driver thing.

>hypervisor.cpuid.v0 = "FALSE"

Sweet. Thx user.

why esxi over unix + kvm?

pic 2

>I see it mentioned a lot, but my GPU passthrough setup with a gtx 960 works just as fine as it does on bare-metal.
What hypervisor?

Don't listen to this moron suggesting playing games in a VM over, at best, your GbE connection when 3D acceleration can do this:
youtube.com/watch?v=EnaUPg6DGqg

Not to mention you require an entirely separate host to use ESXi. Stop spamming your stupid bullshit, dude.

Because it isnt shit?

>GbE connection
I have dual 10GbE fiber poorfag

>Not to mention you require an entirely separate host to use ESXi.
This is absolutely retarded. You run ESXi and pass through the USB controllers and GPUs and it acts just like a windows desktop, plus you can run all your other VMs in the background.

Not op, but could you use integrated graphics to run the displays, and your dedicated card for gaymes?

>I have dual 10GbE fiber poorfag
Are OP, retard? Fuck off.
>This is absolutely retarded. You run ESXi and pass through the USB controllers and GPUs and it acts just like a windows desktop, plus you can run all your other VMs in the background.
And now in order to control it you need the thick client or rely on the premature web client.

Shit solution. Why are you pushing this autism? ESXi is literally not for your workstation, that's why they make a separate product.

I have another question regarding this one

So if I want to do gpu passthrough I must have a dedicated videocard for the vm? Can't I game on linux with the same videocard when the vm is not running?

>And now in order to control it you need the thick client or rely on the premature web client.
Control as in keyboard and mouse? As I said, pass through the USB controller.

Control as in manage the host? Who the fuck uses the thick client or web client? You run vCenter like any sane person does.

>ESXi is literally not for your workstation
lol no, GPU performance is shit, and why you pass through GPUs. Let me guess, you dont have VT-d on your shitbox

>GPU performance is shit,
SVGA

>Control as in keyboard and mouse?
No, you fucking retard.
>Who the fuck uses the thick client or web client?
People who aren't paying thousands for a license or hundreds for a subscription?
>lol no, GPU performance is shit, and why you pass through GPUs.
Did you watch the video? Of course not, you're just an idiot.
>Let me guess, you dont have VT-d on your shitbox
They didn't make E5-2670v2s without VT-d, did they?

I followed these two guides to set it up in QEMU.
archive.is/YDoXX
archive.is/uuvOi

>People who aren't paying thousands for a license or hundreds for a subscription?
Who the fuck pays for software? Its called a keygen.

>Did you watch the video? Of course not, you're just an idiot.
Performance with SVGA will always be shit compared to pass through and you're limited to DX9 so enjoy your shit graphics. For fucks sakes to prevent video from stuttering you have to setup high latency sensitivity for the VM so it has reserved coars.

>They didn't make E5-2670v2s without VT-d, did they?
If you didnt know vCenter has keygens I doubt you have 2670v2s at home.

Thats why, normally the drivers wont run in a virtualized environment. I didnt read the link but that is either not telling the VM it is virtualized or changing the device IDs to a quadro.

enjoy your ban

I find that some games like Overwatch and gmod take a massive performance hit while others are perfect.

What's a good gpu to use for the machine itself? Obviously the vm would use a normal one, but I assume the focus for the main gpu would be free as in freedom drivers? Old ati card, or is there some third brand with free drivers?

If you use ESXi there would be no need for a secondary GPU. Passthru the primary to the windows VM for vidya and just remote control the Linux VM with Workstation/VNC/whatever. Or if you really need native GPU performance for Linux, and can live with only one of the VMs running at once, you could pass through to both.

Don't listen to this retard.

that's a girl, r-right?

Does it matter?
c:

>hey guise SVGA is fine, a GTX 980 can run a DX9 video game at 1366x768, that is totally native performance. Passing everything through Xorg totally wont make you take a massive performance hit, and who the fuck wants DX12.
stay butthurt poorfag with no 10GbE fiber and no Xeons

no

Aight nigga, lead the man down the path to your retarded autistic solutions. Have fun with your bullshit.

>playing any modern game with DX9 or OpenGL 2.1
>not retarded
go show me doom 4 playing at 4K with ultra settings on your lolburg SVGA

I mean, I do have an ESXi host that I use for headless guests, but my question really was for virtualizing Windows and giving it a big gpu, while linux would have a smaller gpu assigned to it.

I understand then that while KVM does provide good bare metal performance, the workaround for using nvidia doesn't work?

>while linux would have a smaller gpu assigned to it.
If you dont need serious 3D the SVGA adapter would work fine for Linux.

>but my question really was for virtualizing Windows and giving it a big gpu
see

I think he meant two DP ports.

Wanted to do GPU passthrough

I spent the extra money to get a 4670k
Intel jewed me and took out VT-d

just get an hdmi > dvi converter

>looked the archwiki page on GPU passthrough

Yeah, no.

Simpler to have my Windows separated from my Linux by having two machines.

Yeah, that's what I meant lol.

I mean, my mobo has hdmi and vga, but

>vga

remember when we used to have jobs?

Is it possible for the VM in GPU Passthrough to just be in a window opposed to a whole separate monitor?

I don't think so, no.

The whole GPU is passed through to the VM, so the VM, so the only output is through the physical GPU that was passed through.

Got it.

Are there any other options for people who prefer the super Linux UX but want their windows games that don't want to do GPU passthrough?

Would running Linux in a VM on Windows in fullscreen for media purposes be okay?

Would X11 Forwarding be a good option?

Not that guy, but if you want as few headaches as possible (and the best performance) you run games on a native Windows install. After that there's GPU passthrough, with the whole hassle of setting it up and the GPUs that are passed through are unavailable to Linux. As for Linux in a VM on Windows - you can easily try that out if you want to check performance. You however lose much of the supposed extra security/stability, since you're running Windows as the host.

The simple way to do this shit is to just dual boot. With modern operating systems and a SSD you should be able to boot into another OS within 20s, easily.

Why not just dual booting? You just learn to separate your gaming hours from your work hours.

yeah like this

prefer linux superior UX, not really for work.

Yup, they added it to 4690K and 4790K though.

Can you do this with a AMD, ati card, and an old nvidia card? Running linux on the older card of course

Yes. If you have two cards that use the same driver (ie. radeon/radeon fglrx/fglrx amdgpu/amdgpu), you will have to blacklist the driver on the passthrough card and make sure the vfio driver gets hooked to it before the main driver has a chance to.