ESXi GPU Acceleration

[Zarathustra[H]]

Hey all,

I have an interesting problem I'm trying to solve.

I've been musing about setting up a Civ5 Pitboss server for some time.

I figured, since I have an ESXi box with extra capacity up and running already why not?

I could install a windows guest, and set it up.

It turns out - however - that the Civ5 engine is programmed such that even when operating as a server, it needs hardware GPU support in order to run.

Apparently it doesn't need a ton of GPU horsepower to run, but it needs at least some.

The on board graphics on my server is an old Matrox G200eW, so that's obviously not going to cut it, even with new fancy GPU accelerated features in ESXi.

I do - however - have a DDR3 Geforce 630 GT kicking around from an HTPC build I am no longer using.

I figured I could install it, direct I/O forward it to the guest, and then use it for running th Civ 5 pitboss server.

Now, if I do this, it is going to want to display on a local monitor near the server, which would not be ideal. I still need to set things up, etc, using the GUI.

Is there any way to get it to use the GPU for acceleration, but instead output graphics to the remote screen? Maybe if I run it in windowed mode, set the virtual screen and the external screen to the same resolution and mirror the two?

Appreciate any ideas!

--Matt

 

[bds1904]

.http://www.servethehome.com/lantronix-spider-review-essential-datacenter-tool/

Would allow for remote viewing from the video card and still allow everything to be hardware accelerated. Rdp tends to break hardware acceleration so that's out.

AFAIK you should be able use use the hardware acceleration from within the esxi management client also much like horizon view pcoip.

 

[Abit667]

How responsive does the external display need to be? If it's just for making a couple settings changes and then starting the server VNC would work fine.

I do this with a VM for the Steam in home streaming thing. To get the passed through GPU to work right I had to use a dummy plug on one of the outputs and then set whatever resolution and make that fake monitor the primary display. After that games will render using the GPU instead of trying to use the VMWare console adapter. Using VNC lets you login and use the machine without RDP taking over the primary display and messing up GPU rendering.