i saw a thread where they were booting to linux, but then having windows in a virtual machine and they were saying they still get like 98% of their hardware and gaming power, but with the reliability of save states and all that good stuff.
i AM interested in giving that setup a shot. but i dont really know where to begin, id really like someone to hold my hand through this. my current pc has oodles of hdds and whatnot tho.
should i maybe just grab a spair ssd and make that the linux boot, like create a dual boot so i dont accidentally jack up my wondblows at least untill such a point in time that im ok enough that ill make a permanent change
You won't get 98% gaming performance inside virtualization. There are two levels of virtualization with hyperviser. VMware, VirtualBox and Parallels are all type-2. This will be what you'll probably deal with. You can download VirtualBox for free. If you want to pay for VMware Workstation, you can mount your hard drives directly to VMs. Yes, create a second drive with COMPLETELY separate booting and run that for a while until you can get around.
id really like someone to sit down with me, and basically hold my hand, where to find the image how to install it from a usb stick get the basics up and running for instance whenever i install a new windows my first stop is NINITE.COM that has most of the basics that i use.
i had wanted the idea sorta to be. have linux as the nice and stable platform then find a way to emulate windows or something to do all my normal day to day stuff and if it crashes or becomes virus ridden to the point of hassle i could just Boop load state back a week or whatever. just like i would if i fucked up in an emulated super nintendo game.
or maybe dual boot for a while ? idk call me Ground ZERO. step zero
@wendell maybe you can chime in here, (love your input btw thank you) ok heres a question then, my cpu is the i5 2500k with the intel hd whatever 3000 gpu
can i use that , and for the purpose of the virtual windows call my gtx 970 as the :secondary gpu: ? been sitting here trying to absorb https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpn1dnDO5Os
with out passthrough, then id be restricted to the section of steam games library that actually supports unless i dual boot are there any other features that i should be on the lookout for in this senario? just completed the download of hte just grabbed ubuntu-gnome-14.10-desktop-amd64.iso PC 64 bit 64 bit version for Intel or AMD computers.
think i should kill that one and go for the LTS version (long term support?)
You can only do that if you have someone physically with and showing you stuff. Do expect anyone here to do this for you remotely/online. It not possible and it rarely even works. You are expected to be as self-sufficient as possible. People write tutorials, help you, give you ideas, there are classes and books out there for the basics (check the relevant threads around here). There generally is a lot of content around to give you the info you need, but do not expect anyone to hold your hand. Especially for things like virtualization which is a bit more advanced than the average use of a system and many problems might be quite unique to your system, thus the best person to solve them would be you.
On the subject
In your case it might be a good idea to buy a simple intel graphics that is really cheep ,run your linux platform on it and have the good GPU passing through to a QEMU/KVM virtual machine. Mind you it will need some setting up and i suspect a good deal of trial and error to make it work properly.
If you have vt-d and vt-x supprted by both the cpu and the motherboard you can use the onboard intel graphics and pass through the real GPU.
I haven't done this but it is possible. I am hopeing that when I get my motherboard back i can see if it supports vt-d and i will be trying to do this vary thing, I know my cpu has it but am unsure of the motherboard.
You can use one card but it would be tricky you would run on chip graphics for the host machine and pass through the GPU to the VM.
You could try wine/play on linux for some windows game support. Just check WineHQ first and see if the game has a gold or above rating and there may be some notes on additional things you have to do.
If you have vt-d and vt-x supprted by both the cpu and the motherboard you can use the onboard intel graphics and pass through the real GPU.
Why cant I use the integrated gpu and the mobo hdmi then just change the channel on the tv to hdmi 2 coming out of the gtx gpu? effectively acting like a second screen at that point it wouldn't be passing through correc t??
are you talking about one system not vitalized and adding the tv to that? but are using a dedicated gpu?
my guess is that the os is set on using the gpu not the onboard one, thus it doesnt know the onboard is even there.
well for one you cant do that if you dont have vt-d.
and as far as i know if you have a dedicated video card you ether use the onboard or the video card. when you're passing through a card you are effectively pulling it out of the system and giving it to the virtual machine thus it is no longer seen on the hosting OS which is why you need two.