DDA Compatible consumer hardware

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redundus

New Member
Jul 30, 2017
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I want to create a possibly cheap (but modern) machine compatible with Windows Server 2016/Hyper-V and DDA GPU passthrough.

I understand that the basic requirement is that processor and motherboard have to both support vt-x and vt-d.

As I did not find many concrete hardware suggestions for Hyper-V/DDA I looked through XEN forums and hardware compatibility lists for XEN/pci-passthrough - which I believe is a similar feature as DDA and found that a lot of consumer grade processors and motherboards are compatible (VTd HowTo - Xen). Based on this list I picked the following hardware:

-two motherboards ASRock Z87 extreme 4, MSI Z87 G55

-i7-4790 processor

-two GPUs: Radeon RX460, Radeon 290

Then I enabled vt-d in bios, installed fresh Windows Server2016, installed all availeble updates and gpu drivers and tried to enable DDA in Hyper-V with no success.

It seems that even if my hardware is vt-d compatible and enabled - it is no compatible with DDA.

When I am running a survey-dda script (Virtualization-Documentation/hyperv-samples/benarm-powershell/DDA at master · Microsoft/Virtualization-Documentation · GitHub) - the output says that all my devices are "Old-style PCI device. Not assignable"



Can somebody help me to find a enthusiast consumer grade hardware compatible with DDA?

I thought also about:

-i7-4790 paired with some "better" motherboard (any suggestions for mobo?)

-AMD Ryzen 7 paired with X370 chipset motherboard?

-incoming AMD Ryzen Threadpipper paired with X399?



Do I really have no choice except for some Xeons and typpical server grade chipset (C236, C612 for Xeons E3 and E5 respectively)?
 

realtomatoes

Active Member
Oct 3, 2016
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my aio esxi-freenas at home runs on asrock z77 extreme 4 and passes through hba and gpu just fine. i did have to enable intel vt-d in the bios and then set the passthrough from the esxi to the guestvms but that was easy as pie.

i'd start by confirming intel vt-d is enable.
then test passthrough using esxi or xen (that should tell you if it's a hyperv issue).
 

Boris

Member
May 16, 2015
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@redundus
My insert will be not really useful.
I have E5-2620V4 + X10SRM-F and Quadro P400, LSI 2008 installed.
Only LSI 2008 controller was listed as "possible for DDA" during script run.
Not able to DDA P400 (was able under ESXi 6.5).

Just my 2 cents.
 

ycp

Member
Jun 22, 2014
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Most Consumer Graphics Cards are not allowed to be passthrough'ed to VM's. Nvidia for example doesn't allow Geforce cards to be used in this manner. You must be using Quadro Cards.

I have been successful with a Quadro 4000. So anything better than this card should work fine.

I have heard the AMD Radeon cards will work but dont have a modern card to try out. I had an old Radeon R9 280x and that did NOT work with DDA. But maybe the new Polaris or Vega based cards will work. Hope somebody can check and post on this forum.

Also the script that you are using isnt always 100% correct. I used the script on my build and said DDA wont work but i was successful with it using the Quadro 4000 and my build has been stable for the last 6 months.

So the graphics card limitation is more important than any modern cpu or motherboard for DDA compatibility.
 

Rand__

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2014
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DDA seems to be way more picky then ESX. so I'd be weary with non DDA tested good parts ...