Graphics Cards and Virtualization

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TautologicalRecursion

Commendable
Jul 31, 2016
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I recently built a PC running Linux Mint. I have a GTX 1070 and a i7-6700k processor, and I want to run VMware, VirtualBox, QEMU or something similar that will allow me to virtualize Windows or other flavors of Linux for both programming and security. I've used VMware before, and I have plenty of memory (32 GB), disk space, and CPU cores to power my virtual OSs, but I'm at a loss as to how graphics cards work in this environment.
I initially installed Windows 10 as my host OS (that didn't last long), running Windows 7 virtually through VMware Workstation 12.1.1, but I found that the virtual PC had major graphical input lag and suffered pretty badly in video performance. Doing some research, I became hopelessly confused about how exactly a graphics card works in a virtual environment. Here are my questions:
    Can I use my GTX 1070 (or even just some portion of it...it is multi-core, though I'm guessing that's not how that works) to power my virtual machines?
      If my added on PCI graphics card isn't powering the virtualized OS, what is? The integrated graphics from the processor?
        I know it is possible to run virtualized systems that can support gaming, etc. at over 95% of the host's native ability, but I really don't know how. How?
          I've worked with VMware before and am at least reasonably familiar with VirtualBox, but what is QEMU? Its process seems to greatly differ with those of VMware and VirtualBox, but how does it handle graphics?

        Thanks in advance for any and all replies; I'm really confused.
 
Solution
basroil


RemoteFX is part of Hyper-V, how can that not be compatible? I'm using it right now for a Win10 preview VM from my Win 10 Pro system! It used to be that only Server 2008+ and Win 8.1 Enterprise supported RemoteFX hosting, but as of Win 10 1511 Win 10 Pro also supports it.


VMware should also support vGPU (http://searchvirtualdesktop.techtarget.com/tip/Breaking-down-VMware-GPU-virtualization-options-Soft-3D-vSGA-and-vDGA), though I have personally never tried vGPU on VMware
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basroil

basroil

Glorious
Oct 19, 2013
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Unless you have vGPU support in the hypervisor, VM's os, and the GPU driver, the hypervisor will have a software based "GPU" target.

If you have Windows 10 Pro, enable Client Hyper-V and set up RemoteFX. That will provide GPU passthrough on supported cards (1070 should be supported, my 970 is supported). VMWare should also have support, but VirtualBox might not
 
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T

TautologicalRecursion

Commendable
Jul 31, 2016
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1,510


I didn't think that Hyper-V and RemoteFX were compatible. Also, what do you mean by VMware should have support? Support for what?
 
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basroil

basroil

Glorious
Oct 19, 2013
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RemoteFX is part of Hyper-V, how can that not be compatible? I'm using it right now for a Win10 preview VM from my Win 10 Pro system! It used to be that only Server 2008+ and Win 8.1 Enterprise supported RemoteFX hosting, but as of Win 10 1511 Win 10 Pro also supports it.


VMware should also support vGPU (http://searchvirtualdesktop.techtarget.com/tip/Breaking-down-VMware-GPU-virtualization-options-Soft-3D-vSGA-and-vDGA), though I have personally never tried vGPU on VMware
 
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Solution
T

TautologicalRecursion

Commendable
Jul 31, 2016
4
0
1,510
I set up Hyper-V and am using it to run Linux Mint as a guest OS. RemoteFX with 3D Accelerated Graphics is enabled and configured, and Hyper-V recognizes my GPU properly. However, Mint only recognizes the processor's integrated graphics:
Intel_Graphics.png

After doing some digging, it seems as though the Windows 10 version of Hyper-V doesn't actually allow vGPUs though RemoteFX:
Remote_FX_Fail.png

...which doesn't make any sense as I was able to choose the card as the card used by Remote FX:
Settings.png

What am I missing here? .-.

 
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basroil

basroil

Glorious
Oct 19, 2013
8,698
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You're missing the fact that I stated they only added that functionality as of the 1511 update. Most of the pages are much older than that, hence they state something else. For remoteFX to actually work though, the target OS must support it
 
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