Xen virtualization and VGA passthrough = no more dual-boot

P

Powerhouse64

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I almost thought I'm in the wrong forum. So many VMware users and no Xen users?

Anyway, here is my take:

Asus Sabertooth X79 motherboard with 3930K (C2 stepping) and BIOS rel. 1203
32GB Kingston RAM
AMD Radeon HD 6450 graphics card for Linux
Nvidia Quadro 2000 graphics card for Windows
Linux Mint 13 Maya 64 bit as dom0, with Xen hypervisor 4.1.2
Windows 7 Pro 64bit guest
USB KVM switch to switch keyboard/mouse between Linux and Windows.

Here is my Windows Experience Index for the Windows VM:
original.jpg


The real tricky part for this to work is to get the right hardware. There are better boards out there than the Asus Sabertooth X79, in fact Asus wouldn't be my choice now. Anyway, it works, except the Marvell SATA chipset that's not working (the Intel X79 works fine).

If anyone's interested, I can share a how-to.
 
Cheetoz said:
What did you do for the audio? I heard that was the hardest part.
Click to expand...

I tried pulseaudio but it turned out that the last driver developed for Windows was back in 2001 or so. I followed some guides but couldn't get it work.

In the end I went to a computer shop and bought a $4 USB sound dongle (+$4 for a cable). The USB audio stick is in a USB port I passed through to Windows, and the cable connects to the LINE IN port on the back of the PC. Now I can have sound simultaneously from Windows and Linux.

Mind you, I do pass through the sound on my graphics card, but my screen doesn't have an HDMI port. If you have a screen with integrated speakers, or an HDMI port and connectors for earphones/speakers, then this is a no-brainer. Many graphics cards as well as screens will offer HDMI and sound. It's because I use a high-end screen for photo editing that doesn't come with mundane features :p.
 
Its a neat feat, but these days I would just go with Win 8 Hyper-V and call it a day. Simple as pie to setup and all the hardware works as normal for the main OS. Then you can run other VMs as you like.
 
You should check out http://synergy-foss.org/, you can install it on both Nix, and Windows.

It will allow you to set one as the "server" and the other as a client then you can share the mouse between the two as if they are one PC. One of the coolest things is that it also copies the clipboard between the two so you can copy/paste text seamlessly.
 
QQ~ said:
You should check out http://synergy-foss.org/, you can install it on both Nix, and Windows.

It will allow you to set one as the "server" and the other as a client then you can share the mouse between the two as if they are one PC. One of the coolest things is that it also copies the clipboard between the two so you can copy/paste text seamlessly.
Click to expand...

I tried it. It works beautifully up and until one of two things:

1. Youtube video in Windows - somehow it stops all the time and loads endlessly. It might be a problem with my network setup, so I'm not sure this is the result of synergy. BUT, it also freezes the mouse :(.

2. Anytime I (or Windows) presents me with an administrative login, the mouse and keyboard connections are lost. I tried different settings etc., including elevate, but no luck.

When it works it's great and yes, it even has a shared clipboard cut&paste feature. But as I wrote, it doesn't work always.

It's easier for me to press a button and physically switch my keyboard/mouse between Linux and Windows. If I need a clipboard, I use Remmina and do a RDP remote desktop to my Windows, from within Linux - that works smooth and I can just minimize the window and am right back in Linux. It's like having Windows running under Linux in an application window.

EDIT: I updated the GPLPV drivers in Windows to the latest version 0.11.0.372 and that solves the youtube and networking issues.
 
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I've been thinking about this for an all in one box. Zfs file server, media server, PCI pass through for the media center, among other things. I just finished exams and have a bit of time to look into xen. Do you recommend a particular resource or two that helped you on your build?
 
Grentz said:
Its a neat feat, but these days I would just go with Win 8 Hyper-V and call it a day. Simple as pie to setup and all the hardware works as normal for the main OS. Then you can run other VMs as you like.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I heard about it and it's a valid point. Will both Windows 8 AND the Linux VM run like on bare-metal? What kind of a performance hit will the VM take? Could I play first person shooter games in a VM?

There are a number of reasons I prefer to run Windows in a VM, and Linux as my day-to-day OS:

1. Stability and reliability of Linux

2. Security - never had a virus on Linux, nor any other security threat, though one has to be careful (I'm using Linux for 17 years now)

3. Performance - my current Xen based solution scales perfectly. I did some real-life tests (well, for me): Convert ~600 RAW photos to jpeg using Lightroom in Windows, with individual adjustments per photo, incl. masks, spot removal, noise reduction, lens corrections, resizing, sharpening, you name it - the whole spiel. At the same time I ripped a DVD for my media center using handbrake under Linux. Photo conversion was around 1-1.5 seconds per photo, while the ripping speed was 200-350fps (around 260fps on average).

4. Extended lifetime - with Linux I can extend the usable lifetime of a PC/laptop by several years, actually until the hardware falls appart.

5. Ease of use - Windows is too complicated !

6. Better support under Linux - I'm serious. The chances to find a solution to a problem with a single Google search are much higher with Linux than with Windows.

7. Ability to customize - that's a big bonus for Linux.

8. Abundance and quality of (usually free) software, and ease of installation - it's just amazing. When you buy Windows, you get essentially nothing but an OS, and even that is crippled down when choosing a Home edition. I had to buy an expensive Win 7 Pro edition :mad: just so it would recognize my memory (24GB for Windows, the rest for Linux and Xen).

I could carry on and on...
 
StealthMonkey said:
I've been thinking about this for an all in one box. Zfs file server, media server, PCI pass through for the media center, among other things. I just finished exams and have a bit of time to look into xen. Do you recommend a particular resource or two that helped you on your build?
Click to expand...

The right hardware is the most critical part of getting it up and running. There are a few how-tos available and it depends, which flavor of Linux you prefer. Here some links:

For a Fedora (Red Hat) based how-to, look here: http://www.overclock.net/t/1205216/guide-create-a-gaming-virtual-machine
It's a tutorial and a long thread of useful information.

For a Linux Mint (as well as Ubuntu) based how-to, look here for my tutorial: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=112013
It's long and detailled, but given the right hardware and following the steps should get you there.
Linux Mint has a shortcoming in that it's installer doesn't have an LVM option, but the new LM 14 comes with LVM support out of the box and you can partition the drive(s) with LVM before running the installer. The installer will then recognize the LVM partitions and all is fine.
Ubuntu, on the other hand, has a LVM option in the installer (I'm not sure if it was the Ubuntu server edition, but I believe not).

Some useful links regarding Xen:
http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Main_Page
Check out the Xen beginner/install sections, as well as these sections:
http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/VTd_HowTo
http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/XenVGAPassthrough

More on hardware and compatibility:
Motherboards (this is in the making, but already has some good info): http://www.overclock.net/t/1338063/vt-d-compatible-motherboards
Graphics cards (see also the XenVGAPassthrough wiki link above): http://www.overclock.net/t/1307834/xen-vga-passthrough-compatible-graphics-adapters
Intel CPUs: http://ark.intel.com/search/advanced/?s=t&VTD=true
I think Intel missed my processor in this list, the i7-3930K (C2 stepping - normally ...K processors don't support VT-d, but this one does).

Good luck!
 
I posted last year at tomshardware: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/forum2.php?cat=15&post=336186
Basically I started with ASRock Z68 Extreme (not Gen3 because of availability), i5-2500 (non-K), Radeon 5850. I wrote there a lot of my experiences with my sound cards (onboard, USB, X-Fi Titanium PCIe, Audigy)
My current HW (after december 2012 upgrade) is:
(same)Asrock Z68 Extreme 4
(same)Core i5-2500
(same)16GB RAM
Powercolor Radeon 7950 (for VM)
Hercules Fortissimo IV (Via Envy24 PCI sound card, for VM)
Intel Gigabit CT Desktp Adapter (for VM)
(same) 2nd onboard USB2 controller (for VM)

Additionally I also bought 2 more monitors, making use of triple-screens (worked with 5850 also).
Here is my 7950 3dMark11 result (please bare in mind that only 3 cores are available in VM):
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/5260103
With 4-cores passed to VM, I have the following changes (3->4):
combined score: P6420 -> P7013
graphics score: 7299 -> 7404
physics score: 4715 -> 6074
combined score: 4721 -> 6024
GFX test 1: 33.29fps -> 33.09fps
GFX test 2: 36.27fps on both
GFX test 3: 46.87fps -> 46.99fps
GFX test 4: 21.24fps -> 22.14fps
PSX test: 14.97fps -> 19.28fps
combined: 21.96fps -> 28.02fps

Now that I bought 3dmarks, I will test and save also native mode scores. But even if I lose 10% performance over native, I still prefer gaming VM over dual booting.
 
PS: @powerhouse, what are you using for storage? My WEI is 7.2+7.6 on CPU+RAM, 7.9 on GPU and 6.4 on HDD. And I'm using an Intel 320.
PS2: my Marvel sata chips is also useless, as I can't make it work under linux (so I can't pass the Intel) and it also does not work under VT-d. I'll put a 256 SSD in my laptop, so my existing 128 Kingston will be available for this setup. I want to see if I can buy a cheap sii3112-based card today.
 
mathew7 said:
PS: @powerhouse, what are you using for storage? My WEI is 7.2+7.6 on CPU+RAM, 7.9 on GPU and 6.4 on HDD. And I'm using an Intel 320.
PS2: my Marvel sata chips is also useless, as I can't make it work under linux (so I can't pass the Intel) and it also does not work under VT-d. I'll put a 256 SSD in my laptop, so my existing 128 Kingston will be available for this setup. I want to see if I can buy a cheap sii3112-based card today.
Click to expand...

1. My WEI is based on a Sandisk Extreme 120GB SSD. But the trick was to install the GPLPV drivers from here: http://wiki.univention.de/index.php?title=Installing-signed-GPLPV-drivers*.

* IMPORTANT UPDATE: Univention does not provide the latest drivers. To fix the Youtube video streaming issue, you should use the following newer drivers: http://www.meadowcourt.org/downloads/

2. Marvell SATA: Yes, indeed, they are useless. I posted a bug to the kernel dev team and got this response:
This bug affects vanilla kernels up to and including 3.6.3.

The problem seems to be a design issue with the Marvell controller. With
VT-d enabled, each device gets its own "view" of memory it can get
access to. The Marvell chip only registers one device per SATA port, but
actually uses more than one device. It's this second phantom device that
is not allowed memory access when VT-d is enabled.

It may eventually be worked around in the kernel, but it's not an easy
fix. AFAIK the current thinking is to register the phantom device
automatically when the first one is found.

Also see https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=42679
Click to expand...

Yesterday I bought a Transcend PCD3 USB 3.0 / SATA-III Combo Card to connect another internal drive that had been unused due to the Marvell problem. This card uses the ASMedia ASM1062 SATA controller chip. At first the disk wasn't recognized. It turned out I already had a ASM1062 controller on my motherboard which I had passed through (pciback) to Windows, but never used it (it's an external eSATA port). So I removed the passthrough entry and now it works, but it's far from perfect.

Had I known the Marvell SATA bug I'd never bought the Asus X79 Sabertooth board. Also, Asus doesn't seem to know its products with regard to VT-d support.
 
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mathew7 said:
I posted last year at tomshardware: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/forum2.php?cat=15&post=336186
Basically I started with ASRock Z68 Extreme (not Gen3 because of availability), i5-2500 (non-K), Radeon 5850. I wrote there a lot of my experiences with my sound cards (onboard, USB, X-Fi Titanium PCIe, Audigy)
My current HW (after december 2012 upgrade) is:
(same)Asrock Z68 Extreme 4
(same)Core i5-2500
(same)16GB RAM
Powercolor Radeon 7950 (for VM)
Hercules Fortissimo IV (Via Envy24 PCI sound card, for VM)
Intel Gigabit CT Desktp Adapter (for VM)
(same) 2nd onboard USB2 controller (for VM)

Additionally I also bought 2 more monitors, making use of triple-screens (worked with 5850 also).
Here is my 7950 3dMark11 result (please bare in mind that only 3 cores are available in VM):
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/5260103
With 4-cores passed to VM, I have the following changes (3->4):
combined score: P6420 -> P7013
graphics score: 7299 -> 7404
physics score: 4715 -> 6074
combined score: 4721 -> 6024
GFX test 1: 33.29fps -> 33.09fps
GFX test 2: 36.27fps on both
GFX test 3: 46.87fps -> 46.99fps
GFX test 4: 21.24fps -> 22.14fps
PSX test: 14.97fps -> 19.28fps
combined: 21.96fps -> 28.02fps

Now that I bought 3dmarks, I will test and save also native mode scores. But even if I lose 10% performance over native, I still prefer gaming VM over dual booting.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the detailed scores. Good that you mention your earlier thread at tomshardware - I remember it well and it helped me decide to jump into Xen with VGA passthrough.

If I find some time I will try to run these tests as well, though my Nvidia Quadro 2000 won't be doing so well in this test.
 
I'm setting up Ubuntu at the moment then will be installing Xen hypervisor...

I've been trying to locate places for instructions on how to setup shared storage in Xen hypervisor but I am unable to find anything...I have a NAS with 4TB worth of storage, do you know any decent forums / wikis with information I can go off?
 
mikkhail said:
I'm setting up Ubuntu at the moment then will be installing Xen hypervisor...

I've been trying to locate places for instructions on how to setup shared storage in Xen hypervisor but I am unable to find anything...I have a NAS with 4TB worth of storage, do you know any decent forums / wikis with information I can go off?
Click to expand...

What kind of connection do you have to your NAS? Ethernet, USB, eSATA, etc.?

If Ethernet, which storage protocols does the NAS support? SMB (Samba), NFS?

If it's via Ethernet, there could be a bottleneck with the Xen bridge. For example, I am running 10Gb between my Windows 7 VM and the Linux Mint dom0 and it works incredible. BUT, my LAN speed is sub-optimal. I get some 6MByte file transfer speed on a 1Gb link, and only ~3MByte on a Fast Ethernet link, both wired. Some suggest to install an extra Ethernet card and give each VM (dom0 and domU) his own NIC. Of course, one NIC is passed through to the domU. I haven't done it yet, but I probably will, after what I read on the forums.

If you connect via eSATA or USB, you got several options including passing through the controller to the Windows guest.

In any case, I recommend installing the GPLPV drivers in Windows - they do wonders for Windows disk I/O. You can get them here: http://wiki.univention.de/index.php?title=Installing-signed-GPLPV-drivers.

I wrote a somewhat lengthy tutorial on Xen and VGA passthrough using Linux Mint (Ubuntu shouldn't be much different), have a look here: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=112013. Perhaps it's helpful.

Last not least, I've migrated all my data to LVM drives. Don't know if this is supported in your NAS, but the Xen documentation recommends LVM for storage. If you do make use of LVM formatted drives/partitions under Windows (or any other domU), you can access those LVM volumes using kpartx under Linux. See here: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=111783.

See also: http://wiki.prgmr.com/mediawiki/index.php/Chapter_4:_Storage_with_Xen

I just shoveled some 2TB from regular disks to LVM formated drives used by the Windows domU, using both Samba (Windows shares) and kpartx to get the job done.

Hope this helps.
 
mikkhail said:
I'm setting up Ubuntu at the moment then will be installing Xen hypervisor...

I've been trying to locate places for instructions on how to setup shared storage in Xen hypervisor but I am unable to find anything...I have a NAS with 4TB worth of storage, do you know any decent forums / wikis with information I can go off?
Click to expand...

Sorry, somehow I assumed you are going to install Windows as guest, which you didn't mention. What I wrote above goes for Linux guests as well, except the GPLPV drivers - just get a Xen-ified version of your favorite Linux distro, i.e. one that has the PV drivers, and install it as a guest.
 
Powerhouse64 said:
1. My WEI is based on a Sandisk Extreme 120GB SSD. But the trick was to install the GPLPV drivers from here: http://wiki.univention.de/index.php?title=Installing-signed-GPLPV-drivers.

2. Marvell SATA: Yes, indeed, they are useless. I posted a bug to the kernel dev team and got this response:
Click to expand...

Oh...so the bug is only with iommu=on? I was wondering why the device would still not work on 3.6 kernels. Thanks for the insight.
I've tried using GPLPV drivers but I had issues with the network driver. But that was before I aquired (and passed) the Intel GT NIC. I think I'll give them another try.

I did buy a cheap PCIe SiI3132 card, but for some reason, it didn't work well. It's (virtualized) BIOS was hanging the VM for minutes. I was pleasantly surprised to see it's BIOS messages in VM, until I realized Windows was not booting. Out of about 4-5 tries, I once left it for minutes and saw that it started loading. I'm seriosly thinking about a server controller (I see Adaptec 1220SA is not that expensive).
PS: I didn't have any perceivable reason for getting the NIC; only psycological reasons (knowing about the overhead and me playing an online racing simulator).
 
mathew7 said:
Oh...so the bug is only with iommu=on? I was wondering why the device would still not work on 3.6 kernels. Thanks for the insight.
I've tried using GPLPV drivers but I had issues with the network driver. But that was before I aquired (and passed) the Intel GT NIC. I think I'll give them another try.

I did buy a cheap PCIe SiI3132 card, but for some reason, it didn't work well. It's (virtualized) BIOS was hanging the VM for minutes. I was pleasantly surprised to see it's BIOS messages in VM, until I realized Windows was not booting. Out of about 4-5 tries, I once left it for minutes and saw that it started loading. I'm seriosly thinking about a server controller (I see Adaptec 1220SA is not that expensive).
PS: I didn't have any perceivable reason for getting the NIC; only psycological reasons (knowing about the overhead and me playing an online racing simulator).
Click to expand...

Marvell SATA: If I understood the kernel dev correctly, the bug hasn't been solved by 3.6 and is difficult to fix. I didn't read his mail as a commitment to fix it after 3.6. It affects VT-d enabled systems, not if you run your PC the regular way (VT-d is disabled by default in most systems).
I'm not sure if this bug affects VMware or perhaps even Hyper-V users in the same way. My computer shop guy suggested that I contact Marvell. After all, it looks like they screwed up. The X79 and ASMedia work OK (ASMedia with the limitation I mentioned in my previous reply). I had contacted Asus (my motherboard is the Asus Sabertooth X79), but that was useless. The Asus stance is: If you don't use MS Windows, get lost. And their forum posts on the subject of VT-d or virtualization are incompetent at best.

PCIe SATA card: At the shop I had a close look at the SATA card before I bought it. I knew that ASMedia was supported, I didn't know that you could either pass through all of the ASMedia controllers, or none. My suggestion is to check for the SATA chip used on the controller. Also, if the controller is certified for VMware ESXi, it should be OK. Check on the VMware forums, there is some good stuff that is relevant to Xen too.

GPLPV: Interesting comment about the GPLPV drivers! I hadn't thought of them as a networking bottle neck. In any case, there should be a manual install option when you run the installer which allows you to install individual drivers. I really recommend installing the disk driver.

NIC: It hurts my pride not being able to figure out the low file transfer speed on the LAN, from both dom0 and domU (Windows). Internet is fine, by the way, and domU-dom0 file transfer is incredible (using Samba / Windows shares). Another issue I'm having is watching Youtube in Windows - it hangs all the time. Other than that Internet browsing and downloads are perfect.
Perhaps I should just give it a day and get a Gigabit-NIC. By the way, can you share your /etc/interfaces file? I assume you configured a bridge etc. in there.
I would probably pass through one NIC to Windows, but set up an internal bridge for domU to dom0 traffic. Anyway, I'm curious to see your 2 NIC configuration.
 
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Powerhouse64 said:
Marvell SATA:
....
I'm not sure if this bug affects VMware or perhaps even Hyper-V users in the same way. My computer shop guy suggested that I contact Marvell. After all, it looks like they screwed up. The X79 and ASMedia work OK (ASMedia with the limitation I mentioned in my previous reply). I had contacted Asus (my motherboard is the Asus Sabertooth X79), but that was useless. The Asus stance is: If you don't use MS Windows, get lost. And their forum posts on the subject of VT-d or virtualization are incompetent at best.
Click to expand...
I doubt "fully-paid" SW bothers with cheap HW.
As for Asus, I'm really not surprised. That's the general OEM attitude towards linux. If the chipmaker does not support, why would the integrator?

Powerhouse64 said:
PCIe SATA card: At the shop I had a close look at the SATA card before I bought it. I knew that ASMedia was supported, I didn't know that you could either pass through all of the ASMedia controllers, or none. My suggestion is to check for the SATA chip used on the controller. Also, if the controller is certified for VMware ESXi, it should be OK. Check on the VMware forums, there is some good stuff that is relevant to Xen too.
Click to expand...
I really don't understand your setup for this. Do you passthrough the ASM card? The problem with pciback/pci-stub is that ususally the storage driver is loaded before these 2 can grab any cards (since both are modules). That means that for a few seconds, linux will see the connected HDD, and you could have "interesting" results when you detach it from the native module. Especially if you have 2 controllers under the modules control (so when 1 is forcefully "removed", the original module freaks out completely). Ok....I'm a "worst case" freak...

Powerhouse64 said:
GPLPV: Interesting comment about the GPLPV drivers! I hadn't thought of them as a networking bottle neck. In any case, there should be a manual install option when you run the installer which allows you to install individual drivers. I really recommend installing the disk driver.
NIC: It hurts my pride not being able to figure out the low file transfer speed on the LAN, from both dom0 and domU (Windows). Internet is fine, by the way, and domU-dom0 file transfer is incredible (using Samba / Windows shares). Another issue I'm having is watching Youtube in Windows - it hangs all the time. Other than that Internet browsing and downloads are perfect.
Perhaps I should just give it a day and get a Gigabit-NIC. By the way, can you share your /etc/interfaces file? I assume you configured a bridge etc. in there.
I would probably pass through one NIC to Windows, but set up an internal bridge for domU to dom0 traffic. Anyway, I'm curious to see your 2 NIC configuration.
Click to expand...
My problem with the GPLPV bridge was not about bandwidth (didn't get to test it), but functionality. I'm playing iRacing, and I noticed it would have big problems connectig to the server, which was not a problem with emulated HW (non-GPLPV bridge). Now I'm just using the NIC, no bridge. And both (onboard native+Intel passthrough) are connected to the same gigabit switch, and that's how I do dom0-domU communication.
As for youtube problems, I would say it's GPU-related. My previous 5850 (described in tom's hardware thread) could not play any videos. I would get a green overlay with sound starting to play and after 2-5 seconds it would stop and no interaction with flash. But in my case, only the flash plugin was affected (killing plugin-container would regain control of the browser). Also during those 2-5 seconds I could click for pause (which would freeze the period) and then settings->"HW acceleration" uncheck. Since I've seen some posts blaming DXVA, I tried with MPC-HC and, as I recall, using DXVA would get same results (few seconds with green screen followed by MPC-HC freezing). Disabling DXVA would retain the other accelerations (like scaling).
Why I say it's a GPU issue? Because the 7950 has no such problem, with the same driver.
I see that you have a Quadro....so I have no idea/sugestion.
 
mathew7 said:
I doubt "fully-paid" SW bothers with cheap HW.
As for Asus, I'm really not surprised. That's the general OEM attitude towards linux. If the chipmaker does not support, why would the integrator?
Click to expand...
If I look at their user forums it looks like the users face very much the same problems. I yet have to find a CEO who tells the IT guy: "That's too cheap. Get an expensive one." With limited budgets it's usually the IT guy who has to justify "wasting" the company's money.
With regard to Asus, it's their choice to select chipsets, and also their responsibility to inform the chipset vendor when a bug is discovered.
But I understand their attitude towards Linux/Xen: For desktops it's a niche market. Asus has very little to offer for enterprise customers (see http://www.asus.com/Server_Workstation/. Ah, and click the "Linux" link and then the Linux certification picture!

mathew7 said:
I really don't understand your setup for this. Do you passthrough the ASM card? The problem with pciback/pci-stub is that ususally the storage driver is loaded before these 2 can grab any cards (since both are modules). That means that for a few seconds, linux will see the connected HDD, and you could have "interesting" results when you detach it from the native module. Especially if you have 2 controllers under the modules control (so when 1 is forcefully "removed", the original module freaks out completely). Ok....I'm a "worst case" freak...
Click to expand...
At the moment I have 6 internal SATA drives and a SATA DVD R/W, all assigned to dom0 (i.e. not passed thru). But I got two eSATA ports at the back and since I also use external SATA drives for backup under Windows, I wanted to passthru one SATA controller.
My external SATA comes with both USB and eSATA ports, and I hoped that eSATA would be better/faster/greater etc., in particular since one eSATA port is also a power eSATA which could perhaps power my external drive and reduce some wiring and p/s.

I haven't used the eSATA option yet, only USB. I guess it's no big loss since USB3 has become the standard now.

mathew7 said:
My problem with the GPLPV bridge was not about bandwidth (didn't get to test it), but functionality. I'm playing iRacing, and I noticed it would have big problems connectig to the server, which was not a problem with emulated HW (non-GPLPV bridge). Now I'm just using the NIC, no bridge. And both (onboard native+Intel passthrough) are connected to the same gigabit switch, and that's how I do dom0-domU communication.
Click to expand...
Ok, you tried to connect to the iRacing server using the bridge and it wouldn't connect? You know by chance the protocol used for that communication? UDP, TCP, or both? I just find it strange that most things work, but then some don't. As I said, except for Youtube I didn't see any problem with layer 3 (IP) communication.

mathew7 said:
As for youtube problems, I would say it's GPU-related. My previous 5850 (described in tom's hardware thread) could not play any videos. I would get a green overlay with sound starting to play and after 2-5 seconds it would stop and no interaction with flash. But in my case, only the flash plugin was affected (killing plugin-container would regain control of the browser). Also during those 2-5 seconds I could click for pause (which would freeze the period) and then settings->"HW acceleration" uncheck. Since I've seen some posts blaming DXVA, I tried with MPC-HC and, as I recall, using DXVA would get same results (few seconds with green screen followed by MPC-HC freezing). Disabling DXVA would retain the other accelerations (like scaling).
Why I say it's a GPU issue? Because the 7950 has no such problem, with the same driver.
I see that you have a Quadro....so I have no idea/sugestion.
Click to expand...
I don't think it's GPU related. Youtube video itself works fine. It starts downloading the video but stops after some time. This is quite normal but what's not normal is that it doesn't continue automatically until the video reaches the end of the buffer, and thus creates a delay. Also, when I press pause and start it usually downloads larger chunks than when I let it reach the end of the buffer. I don't see how that relates to the GPU, though everything is possible. I have, by the way, the GPLPV XenNet driver installed. Also, it doesn't matter if I use IE or Firefox - both are the same with regard to Youtube. Dom0 works fine.

I just noticed that I also can't stream videos from my networked media tank. VLC would stop after a few seconds, and that's it. It looks very much network related, but I can't figure it out.
 
Powerhouse64 said:
Will both Windows 8 AND the Linux VM run like on bare-metal? What kind of a performance hit will the VM take? Could I play first person shooter games in a VM?
Click to expand...

most virtualization systems are good enough that broken stuff is the exception. video pass-through is the obvious thing people are still working on, even citrix.

in the case of windows guests on windows server 2012 hyper-v, in my limited experience as long as you have the appropriate hardware, windows guests act as thought on bare metal, and even the video pass through works fine.

microsoft says they support some other operating systems. but they are specific old builds, which is another way of saying their support for other operating systems is not great.

server 2012 is easy to use. the problem with windows has never been difficulty to use. a problem can be that they leapfrog others in technology, and then stagnate for years. lets hope 2012 isn't the only year that microsoft windows leads in virtualization.
 
Powerhouse64 said:
I yet have to find a CEO who tells the IT guy: "That's too cheap. Get an expensive one." With limited budgets it's usually the IT guy who has to justify "wasting" the company's money.
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True, except when looking at a solution, time and human hours also count, not like our home experiments where "yeah...I can accept those craks/pops in the sound". So considering also the time invested in my research, I would have had less hassle and faster end-results(....except that somebody has to do the dirty works..and I didn't find any previous research...well except for the MB part). When you talk about a company, a 3x higher HW prices (with all kind of certifications) is acceptable. Even on limited budget, as most IT staff are specialized and rarely extend beyond their scope (you know, SW guy blames HW guy, and the other way around).

Powerhouse64 said:
Ok, you tried to connect to the iRacing server using the bridge and it wouldn't connect? You know by chance the protocol used for that communication? UDP, TCP, or both? I just find it strange that most things work, but then some don't. As I said, except for Youtube I didn't see any problem with layer 3 (IP) communication.

I don't think it's GPU related. Youtube video itself works fine. It starts downloading the video but stops after some time. This is quite normal but what's not normal is that it doesn't continue automatically until the video reaches the end of the buffer, and thus creates a delay. Also, when I press pause and start it usually downloads larger chunks than when I let it reach the end of the buffer. I don't see how that relates to the GPU, though everything is possible. I have, by the way, the GPLPV XenNet driver installed. Also, it doesn't matter if I use IE or Firefox - both are the same with regard to Youtube. Dom0 works fine.

I just noticed that I also can't stream videos from my networked media tank. VLC would stop after a few seconds, and that's it. It looks very much network related, but I can't figure it out.
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I start to see a pattern here....it seems your networking issues are similar with mine. I uninstalled GPLPV immediately after the iRacing problems and that was the 1st thing I tried. I never got to do other networking tests.

As for GPU video problems, I never got to see the buffering status, as I got only green rectangle (for overlay surface, which the GPU is responsible for replacing it). And my mpc-hc test were done with local video files.
 
As soon as this supports nvidia cards I will jump on this band wagon. I have read several pages about doing this you could Virtualize all your servers and your desktop and still play games. one box to rule them all! right now I have all my servers Virtualized but I don't own any amd/ati video cards to try this out on.
 
Rody said:
As soon as this supports nvidia cards I will jump on this band wagon. I have read several pages about doing this you could Virtualize all your servers and your desktop and still play games. one box to rule them all! right now I have all my servers Virtualized but I don't own any amd/ati video cards to try this out on.
Click to expand...

It might be worth checking if your Nvidia card is supported. Some cards are.
 
@Rody: Unfortunately, according to Intel ark (http://ark.intel.com/products/63697/Intel-Core-i7-3930K-Processor-12M-Cache-up-to-3_80-GHz), your CPU does not support VT-d (which is required for passthrough).
Check all the 2011 socket CPUs (http://ark.intel.com/search/advanced/?s=t&Sockets=2011)and look at "Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d) ".

As for nVidia cards, I've seen on their site that Quadros (and only Quadros) are "Virtualization certified" (whatever that means).
 
mathew7 said:
@Rody: Unfortunately, according to Intel ark (http://ark.intel.com/products/63697/Intel-Core-i7-3930K-Processor-12M-Cache-up-to-3_80-GHz), your CPU does not support VT-d (which is required for passthrough).
Check all the 2011 socket CPUs (http://ark.intel.com/search/advanced/?s=t&Sockets=2011)and look at "Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d) ".

As for nVidia cards, I've seen on their site that Quadros (and only Quadros) are "Virtualization certified" (whatever that means).
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@Rody, @mathew7: If you refer to the Intel 3930K - it DOES support VT-d with the C2 stepping release. See the "description" at http://ark.intel.com/products/63697/Intel-Core-i7-3930K-Processor-12M-Cache-up-to-3_80-GHz. The spec code is SR0KY.

In simple words: If you bought your 3930K within the last 8-10 months it most likely is a SR0KY spec C2 stepping version. Intel discontinued the older version sometime beginning of 2012, I believe January.

I own a 3930K and believe me - it works!

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOMMU_hardware_list

EDIT: I think I better drop Intel a note on that - it's simply incorrect and I guess quite a few people are getting confused about it.

EDIT 2: I contacted Intel and they fixed it. To get a list of all VT-d enabled CPUs, just follow this link: http://ark.intel.com/search/advanced/?s=t&VTD=true
 
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Ok....I remembered forum discussions about the 3930K steppings (me: just reader).

But now I made a new installation and ran some native Win7 3DMarks:

3DMark11:
Native, 4 cores: P7171 (GFX:7396)
Native, 3 cores: P6651 (GFX:7300)
Virtualized, 3 cores: P6479 (GFX:7307)

3DMarkVantage:
Native, 4 cores: P25150 (GFX: 29172)
Native, 3 cores: P22975 (GFX: 29808)
Virtualized, 3 cores: P21110 (GFX: 27700)

All tests done with Catalyst 12.10, Turbo-boost enabled, drivers default settings.
PS: My previous tests seem to indicate Turbo-boost is not working. I have P6471 with TB and P6420 without. And with the new tests, I see 3DMark reporting 3.6MHz vs 3.3MHz for the CPU. I don't know when I'll investigate this.
 
mathew7 said:
Ok....I remembered forum discussions about the 3930K steppings (me: just reader).

But now I made a new installation and ran some native Win7 3DMarks:

3DMark11:
Native, 4 cores: P7171 (GFX:7396)
Native, 3 cores: P6651 (GFX:7300)
Virtualized, 3 cores: P6479 (GFX:7307)

3DMarkVantage:
Native, 4 cores: P25150 (GFX: 29172)
Native, 3 cores: P22975 (GFX: 29808)
Virtualized, 3 cores: P21110 (GFX: 27700)

All tests done with Catalyst 12.10, Turbo-boost enabled, drivers default settings.
PS: My previous tests seem to indicate Turbo-boost is not working. I have P6471 with TB and P6420 without. And with the new tests, I see 3DMark reporting 3.6MHz vs 3.3MHz for the CPU. I don't know when I'll investigate this.
Click to expand...

Hm, how do you get "native, 3 cores" results? Is 3dmark able to use individual cores, so that you can tell it how many cores to use?

The 3dmark doesn't show a big performance difference between native and virtualized, only ~2.6% in favor of native. That is totally negligible.

As for 3dmark vantage, there is a 8% difference, still not much. Considering that this tests the old DirectX 10 performance, it's even less critical.
 
I am encountering the same issues with my networking in the Win7 domU. The network 'stops' soon after starting a youtube video, I get the yellow triangle over the network icon in the taskbar. The network (internet) stops working completely until I close the browser with the youtube video.

I have not seen this happen with anything else in my domU, I can watch videos streamed from my NAS.

I have installed the GPLPV 0.11.0.356 drivers.

I see that there are version 0.11.0.357 drivers here, has any one tried these out?
 
romihs said:
I am encountering the same issues with my networking in the Win7 domU. The network 'stops' soon after starting a youtube video, I get the yellow triangle over the network icon in the taskbar. The network (internet) stops working completely until I close the browser with the youtube video.

I have not seen this happen with anything else in my domU, I can watch videos streamed from my NAS.

I have installed the GPLPV 0.11.0.356 drivers.

I see that there are version 0.11.0.357 drivers here, has any one tried these out?
Click to expand...

Yes, .357 or later solves the problems! The latest drivers are .372 now. I downloaded and installed them today and they work too.
 
Thanks for the info.

Could I ask you where you found .372 drivers? I can't find anything newer than .357... but I will still be searching.. :)
 
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