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GPU Passthrough?

C

CactusRB

n00b
Joined
Jun 28, 2012
Messages
14
So i seem to be missing something when it comes to GPU passthrough whatever the hypervisor.

How are you accessing the virtual machine which has the GPU passed through to it, Console, or RDP? I can only assume console.

Console access to VM's is shite at the best of times so i have a hard time believing the GPU passthrough makes this workable.

I can see open console working say on a linux box running full blown x and kvm / xen but esxi and Citrix Xen you would need a seperate Windows box just to access esx client / xencenter.

So how does it work in practice?
 
It works like this.. You pass the GPU through an give the VM a WDDM driver for Vmware.. this gives you the ability to have 2 GPUs and such. Then you set only the GPU to be the output. When you plug a monitor cable into it. You see whatever is on the VM.. I'm currently typing to you from my gaming machine that is actually a virtual machine..
 
And btw.. you can't use the console anymore of ESXI.. so you have to have a machine running for vcenter/vsphere.. In "emergencies" I have an old laptop..
 
well tbh i passed an entire USB controller through(then put a hub there and i have a usb sound card) yadayadayada.. then the other hub is for passing usb devices to the other machines
 
What about boards with integrated graphics and iKVM? Can the ESXi console sit there and a plug-in graphics cards be passed through?
 
Jerky: How well do you think this would work for sharing a desktop machine? I'm currently using SoftXpand Duo; which does terrible things to let you have two distinct login sessions on a windows 7 (client) machine; but it's kind of janky at times (hitting the calculator button on either keyboard pops up a calculator window on both sessions, clicking the middle button on my session doesn't do anything for me, but pops up something for my wife). OTOH, our desk really only has space for one desktop, and I'm happier with this setup than when my wife and I each had a laptop on the desk.
 
To make my GPU work it had to be the primary graphics chip on boot.. which causes iKVM to disable..

To Toast0.. I don't know how well it would work.. I suppose if you were able to get both GPUs to pass through to 2 separate machines it would work pretty good. But the board would have to have multiple USB controllers are ESXI refuses to pass HID devices via the ESXI usb controller so you'd have to present the entire usb controller as a pass through..
 
Btw I recommend VMWare ESXI 5.. NO updates. reason I say this is I tried Update 1 and 5.1 and they both failed at GPU pass through for me on a Supermicro X9SCM-F
 
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