VFIO should I, could I ‽‽‽

So I’m considering getting a Vega 64 to be the primary GPU in my PC. It will be replacing my elderly 980Ti. Thing is I will then have the 980Ti which is still a decent graphics card. Should I investigate hardware pass-through?

I running Ubuntu 18.04 and what with the introduction of Steam Play and my list of “compatible” games grew with the inclusion of all of those Windows games I own.

Thing is it still has limitations. Anything with anti-cheat is a no go. Then there are all of those Windows games that are not on Steam. Things like Battlefield and Rainbowsix: Siege.

Hardware specs:
Ryzen 1700X
32Gb Ram
ASUS PRIME X370-PRO
Various SSD’s and HDD
Corsair RM650x (I have a 1050W Corsair PSU if the 650W isn’t enough.)

My Linux experience, middling. I have been running Linux for many years but I’m no expert. Copy and paste type of command line user.

Your hardware can definitely do it.

If it’s something you want to do, it would definitely not hurt to give it a go.

Some of the guides on this forum are pretty much just copy and paste status.

There’s obviously a bit of basic thinking required, such as “find the address of this component and use it in this command” but it’s all spelled out pretty well for you.

If you’d like to give it a go and run into problems, we’re definitely here to give you a hand.

Anything with anti-cheat depends on what game you’re using.

The non-steam games work just fine. I used to have a lot of fun in Destiny 2 and Overwatch. Just try Looking Glass.

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I’m walking through the same thought experiment, myself. I 'm a Linux guy and I haven’t bought a Windows game in years, but every once in a while I get the urge to play Far Cry 2, or DE Human Revolution. On top of that I neither like, nor trust Windows. I’m currently dual booting W10, but all I have installed is Steam. So dual booting is very inconvenient, when I need to pause Far Cry to check e-mail, for instance.

Long story short, I am updating my X99 machine with a Vega GPU and I’ll be using my old GTX780 to passthrough to the guest W10 VM, as I no longer trust W10 to touch my bare metal.

I think the best thing would be for you to have a look at Wendell’s Ubuntu wiki and walk through the first few steps to install a new kernel, ensure that your hardware virtualization features are enabled and have a look at your IOMMU groups and determine if this is your bag of donuts.

While there is a lot of good info here on this site, I’ll share a few additional links:

The Arch wiki is considered to be the passthrough gold standard at present:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PCI_passthrough_via_OVMF#Performance_tuning

Several good articles:


Another Ubuntu-specific walkthrough:

Best of luck!

Uh no gib me the gpu bb.