Switching from new to old nVidia card for VFIO

Software & Operating Systems VFIO
1

Hi fantastic people!
I think I’m making life difficult for myself, but here goes…

I have two GPUs in my system:
1 x GTX1070
1 x GT610 (this was donated to me, for experimenting with VFIO)

What I want to do is:

  1. Unbind the GTX1070 from the nVidia driver and bind to VFIO (this I can do.)
  2. Bind the GT610 to the nVidia driver (or the nouveau driver, doesn’t really matter) for the host.

Then do the reverse when I’m done using Windows. This is all kind of similar to doing single-card pass-through, but I want to still have video output on the host if possible.

I have a couple of issues doing this, but the biggest one I’m having is incompatibility between nVidia driver versions.

  1. The GTX1070 is using nvidia-driver-470, which is incompatible with the GT610
  2. The GT610 can use nvidia-driver-390, which is incompatible with the GTX0170.

This is true as far as I can see anyway, there’s always a chance I’m bone-heading it :slight_smile:

Is there an easy way to do what I’m trying here or am I better off waiting till I either have 2 cards that can use the same driver, or finding an AMD card for the host?

2

Honestly using 2 of generations of cards makes it alot easier, ive been using the Quadro Txx series cards alot for VFIO builds, and since they are Turing based they just work with most modern nvidia cards, you can find them also pretty cheap on ebay, the T400 can be found for under 50 pretty commonly

3

Cool thanks @F1N, I’ve approached this puzzle a couple of ways and thought that might be the conclusion. But, it always helps to have a sanity check, so thanks again!

Good tip on the Quadro, I’m not sure which way I’ll go, but it’s worth considering, for sure.

4

I have a T400 doing nothing atm i could sell you for cheap in the Buy/Sell threads if you are in the EU, ill happily let it go for £50 + shipping if you are intrested, i used it for a week when playing with my NVIDIA A30 for desktop use and needed an display out

5

Wow thanks so much for the offer, unfortunately I’m way down under in Australia, but I’ll have a look around and see what I can get, a bit more locally
:slight_smile:

6

I wish you good luck finding a card that helps with the VFIO adventures! Keeps us updated please!

7

Cheers, thanks. Will do!

8

Maybe try binding the 1070 at in grub and allowing your video output to be set to.the other card. What flavor of Linux are you using? Are you in intel or amd cpu