ESXI 6.7 GPU PassThrough and "Expose hardware assisted virtualization to the guest OS" not working.

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Kristian

Active Member
Jun 1, 2013
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I am evaluating ESXI 6.7.

When activating "expose hardware assisted virtualization to the guest OS" (hope I am translating correct) (CPU Options, one line above IOMMU)

it is possible to additionaly add a PassThrough GPU to my Windows 10 VM guest,

but the VM is not starting, showing error

"It is not possible to pass through devices, while nested virtualization is active".

Is this "normal" behaviour?
Or am I doing something wrong here?

Regards
 
Last edited:

whitey

Moderator
Jun 30, 2014
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You can ONLY pass thru vt-D devices off of phys HW to BASE ESXi, not nested hypervisors if that is what you are thinking and I am interpreting this request as.
 

Kristian

Active Member
Jun 1, 2013
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Thanks for the reply @whitey . Again you come to my rescue.
I am not shure if we understood each other correctly.
So I try to explain again.

I have a Baremetal machine running a super micro x 10SLH with a Xeon E3 1241 V3.
I am running ESXI 6.7 in eval mode.
On top there is a Windows 10 vm
This machine runs an application called Bluestacks (Android Emu)
When I start Bluestacks the performance is horrible and in settings I can only assign one core.

If I enable Hardware virtualization (see picture above) I can assign all 4 cores, but I can no longer pass through a video card (well I can select pass through, but the vm is no longer starting up, displaying an instant error message)

what is another performance killer...

Have I understood you correctly: This is the normal behavior?
 

Rand__

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2014
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From the error message you get I'd say so.
If you activate assisted virtualization you can't use pass through
 

marv

Active Member
Apr 2, 2015
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Hi @Kristian, this works fine for me on X9SRL + ESXi 6.5 u1 (March 2018 patch). I can run Windows 10 on Windows 10 on ESXi, but now I fear to upgrade to 6.7 :)

upload_2018-5-30_17-50-0.png
 
Last edited:

Kristian

Active Member
Jun 1, 2013
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@marv : well... that is strange... so isn't the possibility higher that I am doing something wrong?
I was already believing that it is not possible, without understanding why it would not be possible.

Perhaps someone else can chime in...
Otherwise: I will try 6.5 U1 and post the results.
Unfortunately this would have to wait until July....
 

marcoi

Well-Known Member
Apr 6, 2013
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Gotha Florida
@Kristian did you ever get this working with 6.7? I just upgraded one of my servers and i can no longer do pci passthrough (usb card) and nested virtualization (run virtualbox under w10).

I was fine with 6.5.
 

epicurean

Active Member
Sep 29, 2014
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I upgraded from 6.5u2 to 6.7 ( unsupported)via the "esxcli software vib" install route. And all my passthrough VGA cards could not output any display. I would stay away from 6.7, till a few more patches come up
 

marcoi

Well-Known Member
Apr 6, 2013
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Gotha Florida
I got one of my VMs to work with 6.7. I did not upgrade it's hardware compatibility and i manually edited the vmx file to add vhv.addPassthru = "TRUE" and it started right up. I have access to my usb passthrough and can run Virtualbox. the VM i used as a test i upgraded the hardware compatibility and since then i cannot get the pass through working at all. I'm trying to find a backup to restore from to re-test.

I still have another server that needs to be upgraded but worry since i have Freenas with passthrough which has all my data. So i might hold off on that one for a bit.
 
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Lili Jason

New Member
Oct 8, 2018
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Also had this issue and downgraded to 6.5 where it seems to work. Does anyone know why they removed this feature or is this a bug?
Thanks
 

liv3010m

New Member
Jul 22, 2018
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Buenos Aires, Argentina
Sorry to jihack this thread but it seems that it's still a no go even after updating to 6.7U1 and upgrading the vm hardware compability level to the latest version of 14.
As mentioned earlier this was working on 6.5.

Greetings,
Olivia