Cheap GPU for ESXi passthrough?

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legopc

legopc

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Nov 2, 2014
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Currently running mac os 10.11 on esxi with a passed through hd4870 (hd7970 on the way) and it is running like a charm. Installation was actually somewhat easy, just make sure you run the unlocker, get a preinstalled mac os image and install vmware tools on it and passthrough the gpu and done. I do have one issue though, I can not disable the vmware console without messing up my wallpaper for some reason :L http://i.imgur.com/VUpTHlV.png
 
marcoi

marcoi

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Apr 6, 2013
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still looking for ideas on a card with 2-4 dp that wont break the bank. Im currently using old pc (FM2 board and a10-6800k) for remote desktop. it powers my two monitors but the 3440x1440 is only 30 refresh rate. I like to put a card into my server and use pass through and eliminate one extra pc.
 
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nk215

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Oct 6, 2015
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CyberianSoldier said:
Has anyone tried sharing a gpu with multiple vms? if so, how did it go?

I am looking at using an r9 270x, but the only motherboard I can test it on is this:
ASUS P5N-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard-Newegg.com
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You can't with the above hardwares.

To share VGA card among multiple VMs, you only have 2 options vSGA and vGPU. For vSGA (slow software share) you need ESXi drivers provided by the card manufacturer. For vGPU (fast software share), you'll need the GRID family cards (K1/K2 etc, not the M40).
 
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Docop

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Jul 19, 2016
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For a vGPU and vSGA compatibility, all those Nvidia Quadro K4200 or K5000 can't be used... for View 6.2 ?

And about Horizon 7 , was it the same requirement or performance, as only the Grid K are supported... and not cheaper K series.. ?
 
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Rand__

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Mar 6, 2014
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legopc said:
I just got myself a GTX 480 form ebay for 25 euro's and my plan is to soft mod it so I can pass it through to a VM so I can finally virtualise my gaming rig :D
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How did that turn out?
Originally was hoping to get a 1060 (excellent idle power utilization and plenty of speed for a single game box), but after reading here that GTX's can't be passed through I am slightly weary...
 
legopc

legopc

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Rand__ said:
How did that turn out?
Originally was hoping to get a 1060 (excellent idle power utilization and plenty of speed for a single game box), but after reading here that GTX's can't be passed through I am slightly weary...
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My 480 is now a coaster... It has a short in the power delivery. Later gtx cards can work but from all I have read it requires a hard mod, as in changing positions of resistors and general soldering on the card. A rx480 will most like work just fine but personally I am not the biggest amd fan.
 
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aero

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Apr 27, 2016
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Perhaps a bit off topic, but is anyone else lamenting the fact there is no vSGA solution for KVM? Pass-through is nice if your server sits right next to you and you don't need more than 1 or 2 desktops...

One would think with the introduction of nvidia grid cards that this would be easily possible (like in xen and vmware, but that's $$$$). Of course in the scenario I'm envisioning the Spice client or RDP would also need to be revamped. /rant
 
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nk215

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What don’t quite get what you are saying.

vSGA is just bad. You can get a very expensive GPU and with vSGA you get a similar performance of a $50 GPU card in dVGA. With sVGA, the limit current is 512M video ram per VM.

Pass-through (dVGA) needs a lot of PCI slots which many large server boards offer. If that’s not enough then look into high end workstation boards. You don’t need to sit next to the server for pass-though to work. It works via remote clients also. dVGA is also expensive in power usage.

If you get Grid cards then there’s little point of vSGA or dVGA. You’ll do vGPU and get the best of both (unless CUDA is what you are after then you’ll need the new generation Grid cards for vGPU to work with CUDA).
 
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aero

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With the grid card I suppose I really mean vGPU functionality. It doesn't appear to be supported in KVM yet (or I just can't find any recent literature/documentation on it).

For remote clients RDP and Spice don't do a good job with graphical acceleration (dVGA or vGPU). Spice can't do it at all, and I read conflicting information about the ability of RDP to do so...perhaps it works but only with DirectX. I haven't tested this out myself yet.

I could be wrong on some of this...let me know if I am. I'd just like to see a decent VDI solution using KVM that scales well (e.g. not using tons of individual dedicated gpus).
 
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nk215

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aero said:
With the grid card I suppose I really mean vGPU functionality. It doesn't appear to be supported in KVM yet (or I just can't find any recent literature/documentation on it).
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I am pretty sure GRID 2.0 has linux support. I was looking into grid and saw that.

It turns out to be way to expensive for my need so I bought a bunch of quadro 4000 cards and stick pass-through. I am pretty sure RPD uses graphic acceleration but only with RemoteFx (windows).
 
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aero

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nk215 said:
I am pretty sure GRID 2.0 has linux support. I was looking into grid and saw that.

It turns out to be way to expensive for my need so I bought a bunch of quadro 4000 cards and stick pass-through. I am pretty sure RPD uses graphic acceleration but only with RemoteFx (windows).
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GRID supports Xen/Xenserver which is also linux, but apparently not KVM. There are no drivers available.

Are you using Hyper-V with your setup?
 
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nk215

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aero said:
GRID supports Xen/Xenserver which is also linux, but apparently not KVM. There are no drivers available.

Are you using Hyper-V with your setup?
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I am using ESXi at the moment just for the ease of PCI pass-through.
 
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macattack

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Jan 11, 2017
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@whitey you said you "got vDGA working" for the Quadro 4000. How exactly did you manage that? I have two of them but they are grey'd out in the hardware section as unavailable for passthrough.
 
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James Alexander

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Feb 11, 2017
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legopc said:
Currently running mac os 10.11 on esxi with a passed through hd4870 (hd7970 on the way) and it is running like a charm. Installation was actually somewhat easy, just make sure you run the unlocker, get a preinstalled mac os image and install vmware tools on it and passthrough the gpu and done. I do have one issue though, I can not disable the vmware console without messing up my wallpaper for some reason :L http://i.imgur.com/VUpTHlV.png
Click to expand...
Thinking of going for an HD4870 too. Did you have to do any config or just pass it through to ESX and it worked? Have you tried a USB sound card under the MacOS VM for a complete experience?

Cheers
James
 
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TLN

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Feb 26, 2016
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James Alexander said:
Thinking of going for an HD4870 too. Did you have to do any config or just pass it through to ESX and it worked? Have you tried a USB sound card under the MacOS VM for a complete experience?

Cheers
James
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Think you have to reserve all th ememory for VM to make it work, and chage PCI.hole settings.
USB card will work. Theoretically I can test one, if needed.
 
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Eric Faden

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epicurean

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Sep 29, 2014
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@RyC,
Could you share how you got the Nvidia 2000 passthrough working in esxi 6 with the Intel S2600 motherboard? was it the ONLY GPU card passthrough?
I cannot get more than 1 GPU passthrough to a single VM, with any permutation I tried (eg AMD + AMD, AMD + Nvidia)
 
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