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PCI-E x16 Graphics Card in PCI-E x8 slot with Radeon HD 4350 / ESXi 5 Passthrough

D

dmg210

n00b
Joined
Dec 13, 2011
Messages
34
Hi all,

I can confirm you can successfully use an ASUS ATI Radeon HD 4350 in a PCI-E x8 slot.

Hardware Specs:
SuperMicro X8SIL-F
Xeon 3440
32gb ram
Dell Perc6i with 8 x 2tb Samsung F4's (raid 5) - pass-through to Windows Server 2008 R2 (need firmware 6.3.1-0003+)
Dell Perc6i with 4 x 120gb OCZ Agility SSD (raid 0) for VMFS

ASUS ATI Radeon HD 4350 - pass-though to XBMC for HDMI out with Audio

I plan on using HDMI over ethernet + USB over ethernet for remote control to connect to my TV in the lounge.

I have successfully passed through the Radeon HD 4350 to a Windows 7 VM under ESXi 5. I have only assigned 2GB RAM currently so I'm too sure if there is a limitation here or not.

The drivers installed without a hitch and I'm able to play 1080p video via Remote Desktop / RemoteFX.

I guess hardware acceleration is enabled as I had under 1% CPU utilisation when playing 1080p video / Youtube HD.

EDIT: The Radeon HD 4350 works flawlessly under Windows 7 x64 with the 11.12 Display Driver Package. HDMI audio working too!

EDIT: DXVA doesn't seem to be working via HDMI, only via RDP / RemoteFX

Has anyone tried passing through a TV tuner like the BlackGold BGT3600 DVB-T2 / DVB-S2?

Next thing to try will be XBMC + yaVDR (PVR) if the card supports it...
 
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which driver did you use?

Was the 1080p playback 100% smooth?

I'm anxious to hear the results of your further testing with sound and such :)
 
I used 11.12 Display Driver Package (13/12/11) - perfectly smooth 1080p playback :)

I'm unable to open the actual Catalyst software but there is no need for this anyway.

How can I verify DXVA is actually working?

I'm going to purchase the Radeon HD 6450 and give that a shot... Reason being it supports AC-3, AAC, Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master 7.1 audio whereas the 4350 only supports stereo sound :(

Apparently people have had success with Radeon HD 6450 in pass-through with OSX so I'm going to try it with Windows / XBMC.
 
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the 43xx series is the only one that anyone has luck with. I've never seen anyone pass through anything more- it was really completely and utterly not designed for this.
 
Even though its completed unsupported and really not designed for it, if it saves me needing a separate HTPC machine then I'm all for it... The reduced power bill of only having one machine running 24/7 is also a bonus especially now I've combined the storage server with the ESX box.
 
lopoetve said:
the 43xx series is the only one that anyone has luck with. I've never seen anyone pass through anything more- it was really completely and utterly not designed for this.
Click to expand...

Maybe you mean 4xxx series. I am successfully passing a 4830 to vm for my htpc. Dolby/DTS/AC3 passthrough a cheap pci optical card. Even plays skyrim and dirt 3 without issue at 1080p.
 
dmg210 said:
Even though its completed unsupported and really not designed for it, if it saves me needing a separate HTPC machine then I'm all for it... The reduced power bill of only having one machine running 24/7 is also a bonus especially now I've combined the storage server with the ESX box.
Click to expand...

Storage server + appleTV + XBMC ftw. :)
 
deltronik said:
Maybe you mean 4xxx series. I am successfully passing a 4830 to vm for my htpc. Dolby/DTS/AC3 passthrough a cheap pci optical card. Even plays skyrim and dirt 3 without issue at 1080p.
Click to expand...

Any chance I could get the full name of the radeon card in question?

+ drivers used
+ OS used
+ resources assigned to VM?
:)

Im also interested in your mobo and your choice of audio card to passthrough
 
I still haven't heard of anyone who has gotten this running on a Intel C20x-based board. I have an ASUS P8B-E (C204) and a Radeon 5450, and haven't been able to get passthrough working correctly with any OS (Win7, Linux fglrx or radeon). Win7 either blue screens or (when the VMware SVGA driver is disabled in device manager) doesn't crash but just plain doesn't work. In Linux, the problem is that the passed-through Radeon doesn't have a VBIOS/expansion ROM, so the drivers have no way to get info about the card.
I also experimented with EFI booting in the VM, and that really doesn't work--the VM literally will not boot to an OS (either Win7 setup or Linux grub2) through EFI if a video card is passed through.

I'm passing an LSI SAS controller to a Solaris VM, so I know passthrough works for other cards.
 
I can confirm the Radeon 6450 also works in my system as a passed through device in ESXi5.

HDMI audio works fine and DXVA also works too!

I'm using the 12.1 x64 drivers on Windows 7 which work flawlessly. I've also tried yaVDR which also works fine with the 12.1 drivers.
 
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