Single GPU Passthrough 2600/RX580

Actually turns out, yes it does, however the problem is with the amd video card. Apparently the rx580 (along with others from that age range, including Vega) don’t support being turned back on (during the process of resetting). So when the host (esxi) was relinquishing control of the card and passing it through to the VM, the card would power off, but not on. This is apparently a common problem that people with vfio setups have reported too, but they are able to circumvent that by other custom means that I can’t flesh out in esxi. So I’ll have to find another way.

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Thanks for the tips and confirming my suspicions about the reset bug. ESXi would’ve worked perfectly if the damn card would have reset properly.

I use ubuntu as my daily desktop, windows for gaming, I have node js code running on the host, if a vm is being dumb and needs to reboot i can do that easily, I’m using looking glass to play games too

I get that, but none of this can be done with a Single GPU Passthrough, or am i missing something? You’d need at least iGPU to use Looking Glass under Linux.

I guess the EXSi stuff that I am using is old (it is, 5.5). You learn something new everday. Thanks.

As much as I’m glad to get GPU passthru working after trying in vain when IOMMU was a brand new thing years ago I feel it likely that this is a bit of a stillborn technology. In theory this will be supplanted by a technology like SR-IOV long before it ever becomes mainstream. Though, ironically SR-IOV has been around for nearly as long. It just hasn’t been thoroughly developed on the GPU side. Anyways, PCI passthrough will still have it’s use cases but something like SR-IOV just makes more sense from the perspective of sharing host resources to run a VM.

And yes, it would let you do windows gaming with a single GPU. But afaik it’s not totally ready. Maybe Navi will lead the way once the dust settles and linux driver support is good. And unless Nvidia changes their tune (say like they did with Gsync vs Freesync) they won’t be supporting SR-IOV with their GPU’s anytime soon.

So PCI (VFIO) Passthrough is fun to play with but keep in mind it’s not the end all. Personally wouldn’t go all in on it in terms of time/money. Which may be odd to say considering how long I’ve put into it. If it’s your hobby, like it is mine, more power to you.

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You can do VFIO with a single GPU and release the GPU to have the host be headless and pass the video card to the VM. Then when you are done gaming, simply shutdown and have a script run to pull the card back to the host. The problem is these damn RX 5xx cards have an issue with them where they won’t reset properly and you need a system reset to regain power to the card.

I never said you can’t (mostly). I just said that you can get a GPU that’s sufficient to run a Linux Desktop for under 30 Bucks new, so i doubted that it’s worth it. Unless you are building SFF. In that case i still think dual-booting is much less hassle.
But it’s technology. What ever we put our mind to CAN be done. It’s just a question of how much work it is.

Did you get any answers?

I only have this to go on,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUSrdUoedTo

and I’m creating the start and release scripts right now, but I have no Idea how to get the info about the AMD modules. I don’t even know if I need to do anything about it.

Also!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYrTajuYhCk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yhwJxWSqXI