So there is 3 solutions for GPU support on a VM.
Para-virtualised - a software solution that is good enough for CAD etc. And older games.
Direct pass-thru - which many on level1 build and is now available with most hyper-visors.
SR-IOV the ability to share a GPU amongst VMs without the hypervisor overhead. This is not yet available on gaming cards, but is basically what the OP wants.
Here is my other question. When doing gpu passthrough, why is anyone even DOING a second monitor? Most monitors have a secondary input. Why not just connect second gpu to your monitor?
And while we’re at it, why isn’t anyone using the program synergy? So you can use same keyboard and mouse on two machines. Just put it on the vm too?
Or am I just oversimplifying?
I can’t speak for others and I also don’t do any GPU passthrough in my VMs, but my guess is that it is easier to monitor the host and the VM if you have 2 monitors. But again, not really sure.
As for synergy, that would work. But if you have 2 monitors, why wouldn’t you just use the release command of your hypervisor to jump back to the host? Since synergy works through the network, I would think latency would be an issue if you are gaming.
Again, no first hand experience, just an educated guess.
It is definitely easier to have the second monitor. Since moving, I do not have room to setup both monitors for my wife’s VM and mine.That said when dealing with 2 VMs with GPUs off one host with the iGPU, synergy was my friend to control the host since I had passed the keyboard and mouse through to reduce latency.
Your not over simplifying at all.
As far as using one monitor or two it is up to the individual’s wants and needs, I use 3 monitors actually but I have the space to do so, it all comes down to how and why you use your pass through, in my case it runs all the time so I need a second monitor for the host system, also I like to multi-task and use both the host and guest at the same time so a second monitor is needed.
There are lots of people running a pass through system that use Synergy, I don’t I use a separate keyboard and mouse for the host and guest systems but it again is because of my usage.
Look at it like this I may be playing a game in the guest and watching a video on the host (typically TV…lol) I even do file maintenance or brows the web on the host while playing a game on the guest.
It all depends on what you want to do with your system.
So it should in theory be possible to use SR-IOV with a window on the host vm as a virtual monitor? I haven’t found any concrete examples of this, but maybe @serial_wombat will figure out something with the FirePro W7100.
I have searched a bit about the opportunity to stream the guest desktop to the host. jsmpeg-vnc could probably do the trick, or maybe just regular vnc.
But to stream a desktop, you need to have a monitor to stream. Apparently, you can in a simple way create a dummy desktop on Windows. I might actually try this, as I have a ryzen desktop with an X370 motherboard and two GPUs connected.
I do this all the time. And no, there’s no appreciable latency — virtual NICs are hella fast.
I think you are talking about vfio (which apparently has new features for virtual gpus in Linux kernel 4.10). I haven’t tried it.
Hey guys!
One of our users Wrexthor posted a video a couple weeks ago demoing Parsec running in a VFIO situation. It works pretty great from what he said, I am really hoping Parsec becomes the de facto for VFIO use, though there may be some pushback as we are not open source. The good thing though is our pipeline offers really low latency. I would recommend NVIDIA GPU’s over AMD though as the AMD hardware encoder is not so great - still usable tho.
Until nvidia removes the quadro requirement for GPU Passthrough (Error 43), I’m never going to be able to recommend them for passthrough. It’s definitely an option, but by doing it, you’re in breach of EULA. I suppose I’m just nitpicking though.
I hadn’t heard of Parsec before today. The main barrier to entry I’m seeing is that it’s not open source. You’ve only got a deb for Linux and a lot of people are running Arch or Fedora (and a few others), so if you’re not willing to make it open source, either making something like a Snap package or providing packages for more distros would be beneficial.
What makes this better than Steam in-home streaming in the situation displayed in the video? (I can imagine this also works with origin/non-steam games, but I’m specifically talking about Steam games)
Sorry for the late reply, I’ve been travelling and don’t get L1T alerts to my phone.
Yea I have a Quadro M2000 that I bought so I could experiment with passthrough, the great thing about the Quadro is that you can simulate a virtual display EDID from within the NVIDIA Control Panel.
As far as the benefits of Parsec vs Steam in Home Streaming? Well, on testing, we can hit a much more consistent frame times, and we work over the internet natively (that’s our focus actually).
https://blog.parsec.tv/steam-in-home-streaming-latency-test-versus-parsec-7884144b29f1 - this is my testing over local lan frame times.
We built Parsec on the back of our desire for more functionality from Steam in home and that kind of thing.
It’s definitely interesting software. I’m going to have to check it out. I haven’t been super excited about in-home streaming, so since you’re hitting better frame times, color me impressed.
Would you consider going open source if it means more adoption?
That second graph where it shows likelihood of frames captured at x time is definitely the one I’d have on the index page. That’s an impressive improvement.
I feel that and no worries. I have a tendency to not be on the forums unless I’m at work.
That’s funny lol
I don’t use my computer much outside of work and I’m constantly doing other things like working on the house or prepping for autox/track day.
To that end, I spend a bit of time on the forums during work because I’ve got the time and this place is a good resource if I do need help somewhere, so it’s only fair if I give back.
As a tech enthusiast and gamer it is frustrating because this is not new it a solid working tech. However Nvidia and AMD are keeping it professorial cards only and basically blocking consumer gaming cards from using the tech.
It would be a revolution for gaming if the feature comes to linux with a consumer gaming card.
So just to clarify with SR-IOV you could allocate gpu resources to a VM running in a “windowed mode” like virtualbox. Not needing extra video, sound, input devices,… just for a VM.
More or less, yes.
This is what i was imagining how it will work when all the talks about passthrough where fresh and new. Literally opening up Windows like a game or app or like how Wine is working now.
Well, currently we’ve got in-home streaming which works wonderfully when streaming to the host, and that works pretty much seamlessly. If you’re interested in getting sr-iov working, I’m thinking that’s going to be 2019 or 2020 for GPU.