When Wendell made his Windows VM video a year ago, I was excited to do a WIndows VM, but alas, I have a 3570k missing the key visualization extension. I will hopefully be solving that with either an X-99 system (preferably) or a Skylake build.
First off, I should say that I am fairly tech savvy on the Windows side, but completely NOOB with Linux. I think taking the plunge and trying a Windows vm will be a good start (since I can always dual boot if I get stuck).
I plan to follow this setup for a VM https://forum.teksyndicate.com/t/what-if-i-want-everything/41520/7 but I am wondering if this setup is done running only one graphics card? Wendell said you needed a second graphics card to pass through using other software, but does the method using QEmu-kvm pass through the video card that Linux is otherwise using? The thread seems to imply so, but I want to be sure since X-99 doesn't come with onboard graphics to allocate to Linux.
Also are there any other things I should consider BEFORE I finalize a new system?
You need a GPU for the host and one for the guest. If your CPU does not have an iGPU, then you will need two discrete cards.
That thread is pretty old and outdated. Since you mentioned it, I'm sure you have read this. Look at the references Wendell linked to, especially the ArchWiki article on setting up the vm with OVMF and the VFIO blog.
There's some homework to do on this actually. Some games don't run well in VM environments, but you can do some tinkering. Personally, I kept Windows on 1 HDD and Linux on another. That can be counter-productive but it worked for me. You can run the Windows VM with PCIe pass through, use play on linux etc etc. What you want is possible and with hardware implementations compared to your current rig, X99 has benefits for this environment.
I bought an XFX 5450 a few years ago for about $20 on eBay. It seems that either prices rose or I got some crazy deal, but I just looked now and you can still find some buy it now listings of 5450/6450 for $30 and less.
As for motherboard support on the Intel side, ASRock and Gigabyte have the best track record on VT-d support. Asus has a history of broken implementation. Best bet is to find confirmation from someone who has the board you want saying that it is functioning.
I looked through the manual and it says it can enable virtualization, and enable vt-d virtualization, but I am mainly confused at the relationship beween vt-d and IOMMU.
The thread you linked is as stated old but does provide the basis and is a good source of reference, there are other threads here on the TS forums that can also help, the thing to remember when planning a KVM with gaming in mind is that you will be building two computers in one box so yes you will need two GPUs but you will probably want two NICs and will most likely need two sound cards, you will need a CPU with as many cores as you can afford and a ton of memory.
You will be providing CPU cores, memory, and other devices to the KVM virtually, while providing other devices like the GPU physically to the KVM, you have to have enough resources ie CPU cores, memory, etc to be able to provide both systems everything they need to operate concurrently both the host Linux system and the guest Windows system and be stable.....to do this any other way will leave you resource short for both systems and the experience will be short lived because you won't have two stable systems.
If you are serious about doing this and making it work I'd recommend a minimum of a 6 core processor which would let you pass 4 cores to the Windows KVM while leaving 2 cores for the host system, 32gig of RAM would be ideal but you could maybe get by on 16gig depending on what you are going to be trying to run game-wise.
You should look at the hardware resources that Win X requires to operate and make sure you have that amount to give to the KVM while leaving Linux (host system) with enough to operate efficiently and remain stable.
I have been running a setup like this for about 10 months now and it works very well, I can play every game I've tried (currently playing FO4) , but it isn't without it's quirks. It comes down to how bad do you want to do this and what your end goal is, mine was to get off Windows as my primary OS and move to Linux which this has allowed me to do, it has costs associated with doing it and of course a learning curve, in my case it has been worth the cost and effort you may find that not to be the case.
One other thing is that there is nothing wrong with dual booting, it's valuable if you want to learn Linux before jumping in with both feet which is what I'd recommend you do, play around with KVMs learn what you can before trying a KVM with hardware pass through as it will give you a big head start and save you a few headaches.
Since your new to Linux I'll say one more thing, try different distros before committing yourself to one, when it comes to KVMs and virtualization not every Linux distro is the same nor does it offer the same level of support, some are easier and some are harder....find one you like before jumping into hardware pass through.
Hope this helps.
Edit: something else you might not know is the difference between a VM and a KVM, a VM is a virtual machine that uses a 3rd party program/software based virtualization like VirtualBox (there are others and even Win X now has Hyper-V built into it), it will allow you to pass hardware resources to a VM virtually but will not run games or software that require direct hardware access (most games want to control the GPU). a KVM is a Kernel Based Virtual Machine, what that means is the necessary support for virtualization is built into the Linux kernel, it does allow for hardware pass through and direct hardware control by the KVM as long as you have the hardware that supports virtualization. When your talking about hardware pass through on Linux you are talking about a KVM not a VM although a KVM is a VM.....lol
I had looked closely at windows 7 requirements, and I can eat up all my system ram when running games in 4k or 1440p (vram spills over the 3GB on my 780 into system ram). I figured x99 would be the way to go for the extra cores, and I was thinking of getting 32 GB of ram so I could pass through more than 16GB until I get a new video card with lots of vram.
Wendell did say that this is a 400 level project, so I may be a bit over my head, but I figured I would dedicate the system build and the Linux install and VM setup to a whole Saturday. If I am stuck at the end of the day I would just install Windows and dual boot.
The Linux distro is definitely up in the air and I have to figure that out. I believe Wendell said Fedora worked really well for the kvm, so I will look at that first. Obviously as a noob, I would probably also want a good GUI heavy interface (training wheels) to learn off of first.
On that note, does anyone have recommendations for a distro that would be solid in the kvm gaming stability first, and a gui/user friendly experience as a close second?
Personally I'd recommenced openSuse to you if you have limited Linux experience, I won't say every Linux distro is different but you'll want a distro that uses the latest kernel and is kept up to date with regular updates and support. It's hard for someone to recommend a distro, it's really something you have to experience yourself and choose what you like or dislike, lots of people like Mint, or even Ubuntu, others like Fedora or Arch and it's variants, there are many many choices.
My current situation is no sound on linux - no distro can output sound on my system (Tascam US-322), internal mobo yes, but I'm not pulling my machine out and re connecting other cables etc when I can use Linux for work.
Gaming, performance wise, she can, but she aint quite ready yet. It's coming. I hope... As for game support it's growing, and it will get even better, but just not yet.
For me the big move would be Adobe Creative Cloud..... Come on!
I'm going to sound like a total buzzkill. but you will have problems, lots of them. Maybe for going all in on the windows VM GPU pass through, use Linux for a bit and buff up on your general knowledge. Alot of the help guides require a certain level of familiarity with system commands etc.
Yeah that wouldn't surprise me. Since it is a pain in the ass to scrub drives for the dual boot, I am waiting to get Windows 10 anyway (need it for gaming unfortunately). I figure I may as well take a crack at a VM first, and can always install WIndows boot if I fail.
Even just getting a basic vm for Windows non gaming working and using Steam Linux with a couple games to tide me over would be a huge step forward. At the very least War Thunder has a Linux client.
I actually would recommend that also at first, dual booting will give you a fall-back when things go south which they will a few times, I would also recommend separate drives not partitions for each OS it makes dual booting easier and gives you enough space to do whatever you like, if you trash your Linux install it's easier to re-install or switch distros without the worry that Windows is going to have a issue or that worse case you'd be re-installing both.
Dual booting will also give you the ability to "play" and be productive at the same time, I built 7 different KVMs testing different things and configurations before settling on the setup I have now and all that testing was done over weeks of trial and error, wipes and re-installs, crashes and burning....lol