Linux Mint Virtualized in ESXi with GPU Passthrough Problem

Great article, I might give that a shot over the weekend when I have the extra time and see if I can get it to work

So I got my 1080 Ti working in a Linux Mint 19.1 Cinnamon VM on VMware. Here’s the details:

Hardware (that’s relevant):

Ryzen 1700
x470 Taichi Ultimate (latest BIOS as of Nov 15th 2018)
GTX 1080 Ti (Top slot in x8 config)

VMware ESXi 6.7.0, Kernel Build 8169922

Create Linux VM:

Ubuntu 64-bit
VMFS6 Datastore
RAM: (reserve all memory)
Changed HDD Controller to LSI SAS (shouldn’t matter)
Remove USB 2.0 controller

Under VM Options:
hypervisor.cpuid.v0 = FALSE

  • Install Linux MInt 19.1 Cinnamon, remove install media, and reboot
  • sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
  • sudo apt install open-vm-tools
  • shutdown, add GTX 1080 TI, and turn back on
  • switch GPU driver to Nvidia Proprietary driver, shutdown
  • VM Options: svga.present = FALSE
  • add additional USB card from VMware to have mouse and keyboard. Also added NVMe drive for games library
  • Boot VM. Everything worked

I will note I set my login type to auto-login, but I’m pretty sure it will display the login screen (my screens don’t turn on until Linux is already booted to the desktop lol)

Heres lspci on the VM:

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Do you have more details on adding the nvidia driver, then switching to said driver? I’m installing the recommended driver but my Nvidia settings does not match the documentation-

Also since adding the card and drivers, Mint has a pop-up message that Cinnamon has crashed and went into Fallback mode.

I opened up the Driver Manager and switched the driver from the nouveau driver to the nvidia driver. The noveau driver doesn’t like to work with passedthrough GPUs for whatever reason, and neither will work if the SVGA adapter is present. The nvidia one works fine if the nvidia GPU is the only one present, but its not the default

Tried all sorts of things, in different order, with Cinnamon, Mint and even CentOS7 (totally different instructions for Nvidia driver install), all no-joy. I’m thinking it could be that I’m using ESXi 6.0.0, or the Nvidia 630 is not as well supported as other Nvidia GPUs. I feel its the latter as the pass-through seems to work fine (GPU seen in linux), the drivers maybe not (no display out when switching drivers then setting svga.present to FALSE) . I’m going to have to tap out- learned a lot more about linux trying this though- and thought of the “why don’t more people use linux?” type threads A LOT LOL. So many hang-ups and googling to get past login loops, apt update freezes and trudging through multi-page tutorials requiring multiple google searches to get through etc.

Due to Win10 updates my physicalized win10 VM is getting slower- I might try Linux again with an old AMD card I have sitting here.

Alrighty. I am using ESXi 6.7.0., so it is possible this could be due to the age of the hypervisor. It’s also possible the driver for the 630 just isn’t good for whatever reason.