ATI radeon passthrough & vmware 5.1

O

Orddie

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Hi all,

I'm using an intel BOXDQ67SWB3 with an intel i5-2400. I'm attempting too pass through an ati 6950 and am running into BSOD.

If i do not have a monitor hooked up too the video card, I'm able to boot and device manager reports everything is okay. As soon I try and extend the monitor too the ati card, I showed BSOD referencing dxgmms1.sys.

At the moment.. It's just the video card drivers installed...

Any suggestions as to how i might be able to fix?
 
if i disable the vmware savage 3d video card... I then get atikmpag.sys blue screen of death.
 
I'm looking through the 20+ pages now and posted there before here.

Where do you think the issue lies? When i updated the bios on the board, i was able to get little further... Before the update I was getting errors in device manager saying the device failed too start. Now windows boots but as soon as i try and through video over the ports... i blue screen.


I wonder if this issue is related to the motherboards bios verse the ati card itself.
 
Are you using the console in the vSphere client? If so then try not using it, install a VNC client like TightVNC, reboot and don't open the console. Connect a monitor to the card then VNC to the VM and try extending the display.
 
Have you tried passing the card through with Xen? VMWare has poor compatibility for passing video cards through, but most of them work fine on Xen.
 
xen community or commercial?

I'm kinda stuck on vmware b/c of my vmware view setup and cisco products that REQUIRE vmware too run.
 
jjandrob said:
xen community or commercial?

I'm kinda stuck on vmware b/c of my vmware view setup and cisco products that REQUIRE vmware too run.
Click to expand...

Xen Community. I've never used XenServer or any of the commercial distributions, so I can't comment on them. If you need a video card that works passed through VMWare, you should check the Whitebox site for some known-working GPU and mobo combos. There's a couple cards in the 5000-series that work with VMWare passthrough right out of the box, but everything else is a crapshoot.
 
i took a look at ultimate esx whitebox.com and did not see a gpu section.

did i miss something?
 
jjandrob said:
i took a look at ultimate esx whitebox.com and did not see a gpu section.

did i miss something?
Click to expand...

Sorry, read the forums, there's a thread with at least 3 or 4 known working cards listed. The HCL there only has like 2 GPUs in it. There's also a thread or two on the VMWare forums where some people have 4XXX series cards working, but I don't have a link to it.
 
I"ve got 4xxx and 6xxx cards working with passthrough on a couple AMD Fx setups here. I had nothing but problems on the intel hardware here at the office.
 
So... I changed the hardware out and went with an asus sabertooth x58 and an intel i7-950.

Not the best for power usage but it will work since I'm able too passthrough my GPU without issues.

I now need to figure out how i can pass through my keyboard and mouse too the VM. Any Idea's?
 
I'd also recommend Xen over VMWare for video card passthru. Xen Cloud Platform is what you'd use.
 
jjandrob said:
So... I changed the hardware out and went with an asus sabertooth x58 and an intel i7-950.

Not the best for power usage but it will work since I'm able too passthrough my GPU without issues.

I now need to figure out how i can pass through my keyboard and mouse too the VM. Any Idea's?
Click to expand...
If you're using 5.1 this might be trouble, but try passing through the USB controller. A keyboard and mouse plugged into the USB ports on the controller should be seen by the VM. There are a lot of reported problems with this in 5.1 though, a patch is expected at some point.
 
I've had success with this after a few days of struggling.

ESXI 5.1
Asrock Z77-M
ATI 4890

A couple of tips:

1) Boot into VM and disable the ATI card (I had to do this in safe mode otherwise BSOD)
2) Boot into VM as normal and install the drivers (catalyst will enable the card) and you should see the monitor VM monitor fire up. Then select this as the primary monitor in VM.

Also,
remember to have the full memory assigned reserved for the VM (2GB initially). To do this go to: Edit VM settings=>Resources=>Memory=>select reserve all guest memory.


Hope it helps.

Thanks
 
I'm currently running vmware off a USB thumb drive. When i try and pass any USB port through & reboot.. the passthrough is no longer there.. (reboot take awhile to load... when im not trying to pass through any USB drives.. it goes faster). I read on experts exchange that if the OS boots off a USB drive, that none of the drives will be made avail to the host for passthrough.
 
jjandrob said:
I'm currently running vmware off a USB thumb drive. When i try and pass any USB port through & reboot.. the passthrough is no longer there.. (reboot take awhile to load... when im not trying to pass through any USB drives.. it goes faster). I read on experts exchange that if the OS boots off a USB drive, that none of the drives will be made avail to the host for passthrough.
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Having ESXi installed on a USB drive might cause issues with USB controller passthough but keep in mind both legacy PCI and USB2/3 passthrough are broken for myself as well as these users - http://communities.vmware.com/thread/417736?start=0&tstart=0

Right now its either use 5.0 or wait for a fix. PCI-e passthrough seems to have better compatibility with video cards in 5.1 though.
 
Emtu said:
Having ESXi installed on a USB drive might cause issues with USB controller passthough but keep in mind both legacy PCI and USB2/3 passthrough are broken for myself as well as these users - http://communities.vmware.com/thread/417736?start=0&tstart=0

Right now its either use 5.0 or wait for a fix. PCI-e passthrough seems to have better compatibility with video cards in 5.1 though.
Click to expand...

looks like 5.1 patch was released yesterday.

in my view account... i can see VMware ESXi 5.1.0a (CD ISO) Installable
2012-10-25 | 5.1.0a | 301M | Binary (.iso)
 
^ did not fix my issue. I even tried version 5 and with a hard drive... not working as expected.
 
I know I'm resurrecting this thread, but its with good reason. My MSI R5450 does work with ESXi 5.1. So far I've tested it in Ubuntu 12.10. Now, I manually installed the ATI/AMD proprietary FGLRX drivers prior to adding the video card to the virtual machine, so I can't say if it works out of the box with restricted drivers. I can test more on that with a fresh install of Ubuntu (snapshots would have been nice :facepalm:).
Server 2008 did a BSOD when I added the video card. VMware forums have a nice long thread on this, so I'll spend some time there and troubleshoot accordingly.
 
im gonna follow this thread too. some people have had success with 5.1 others with 5.0 or with 5.0 u1.

i'd like to get a 7950 working so I can have a htpc/gamer vm

those epic threads on this passthrough issue are a nightmare to navigate unless one reads everything from beginning to end
 
I have esx running through usb 2.0 port. The usb 3.0 port is on a different controller so I was able to pass that through sometimes it's just trial and error. I forget because I did it so long ago. I passed through mouse/keyboard and a usb audio plug to get audio.
 
cool so usb passthrough works, did you happen to try a gpu? I'm working on a 5.1 install right now going to see if my 5450 will work
 
benzino_86 said:
I know I'm resurrecting this thread, but its with good reason. My MSI R5450 does work with ESXi 5.1. So far I've tested it in Ubuntu 12.10. Now, I manually installed the ATI/AMD proprietary FGLRX drivers prior to adding the video card to the virtual machine, so I can't say if it works out of the box with restricted drivers. I can test more on that with a fresh install of Ubuntu (snapshots would have been nice :facepalm:).
Server 2008 did a BSOD when I added the video card. VMware forums have a nice long thread on this, so I'll spend some time there and troubleshoot accordingly.
Click to expand...

I have an update. Ubuntu 12.10 detected my MSI R5450 on first boot with restricted drivers. Installed without issue. HD YouTube videos looked fine. I'll test it on Windows 7 later this week.
 
So, another update. Windows 7 Pro x64 pulls the driver for my MSI R5450 through Windows Update on first boot. I ran AMD's Driver Autodetect and it recognized the device and downloaded the newest driver. The AMD software doesn't recognize that valid hardware is installed though, which I find puzzling. But, Device Manager recognizes the latest driver from 12/2012, which is newer than what Windows Update pulled by at least a year. So, looks good.
 
can you summarise your specs for the windows vm? 1 or 2 cpus, how much ram, etc?

I don't think I will have much in the way of luck with my gpu but i'm glad you will
 
gigatexal said:
can you summarise your specs for the windows vm? 1 or 2 cpus, how much ram, etc?

I don't think I will have much in the way of luck with my gpu but i'm glad you will
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1 CPU, 2GB of RAM, 50GB disk.
 
I am just curious what you are going to use the gaming VM for if I may ask? :)
 
any updates on this? My gf is getting into 3d modeling and I would like to pass through a 7970 or 7950 (I think I've heard 7850s pass through effectively) or are these not good cards for simple 3d modeling. I already have an esx machine sitting around and I've passed through an audio, keyboard mouse, really old ati card. I'd like to be running my esx and a functioning desktop for 3d modeling for her on the same machine.
 
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xen looks like it has the best support for doing this.
 
I got a 5750 and a 7950 working with a couple issues in 5.1 and 0 issues in 5.5 with the hardware in my sig.
 
gigatexal said:
xen looks like it has the best support for doing this.
Click to expand...

I have been runing a Win 7 vm with a 7970 on a XenServer 6.2 host for about 6 months now. The screen blinks black sometimes (maybe once a week) but except from that it's stable and nice.
 
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