Gotchas with regard to ESXi passthrough for workstation

[IamSpartacus]

I'm looking into the possibility of leveraging one of my (soon to be) vSAN nodes and running a VM (with GPU and USB passthrough) as my everyday workstation. Other than passing through the GPU and USB controller for my displays and USB peripherals, what other gotchas should I be considering? How can I get audio out for this VM? Do I need a PCI sound card or can I use audio via USB?

 

[T_Minus]

Audio over USB or your GPU with HDMI.

The other issue is getting them the distance needed from your server to your 'desktop workstation' area. I have a number of USB over IP and hDMI over IP devices I planned to use last year but fell behind, hoping sometime this year to get the same project finished up and running on my side-4K display

They have a number of options at different price groups from the $30-100 low-end desktop geared to the $300+ higher end 'home studio' geared line up.

 

[IamSpartacus]

Audio over USB or your GPU with HDMI.

The other issue is getting them the distance needed from your server to your 'desktop workstation' area. I have a number of USB over IP and hDMI over IP devices I planned to use last year but fell behind, hoping sometime this year to get the same project finished up and running on my side-4K display

Yea HDMI is out because my monitors don't have speakers (and I also use display port instead of HDMI) but if audio over USB works that's great!

 

[T_Minus]

You can do gfx over usb too.

I have 2 of the adapters I used to use with my Macbook Pro to get extra displays working.

I would imagine these won't go the distance but may be an option if you're systems are close to the workstation area.

The more expensive PCIE USB host devices have unique hubs so you can actually use them for more than 1 VM if you wanted too as well.

 

[IamSpartacus]

You can do gfx over usb too.

I have 2 of the adapters I used to use with my Macbook Pro to get extra displays working.

I would imagine these won't go the distance but may be an option if you're systems are close to the workstation area.

The more expensive PCIE USB host devices have unique hubs so you can actually use them for more than 1 VM if you wanted too as well.

Graphics over USB? Interesting I never thought that was a thing. What adapter would you use to connect the monitor side?

And with regard to PCIE USB controllers, is that something I should be using instead of trying to passthrough one of the on board USB controllers?

 

[T_Minus]

http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-External-1920x1200-Graphics-USB2DVIE3/dp/B005G3066Y

1920x1200 I believe is the max resolution too for USB, but that may have changed with USB3 not 100%.
I ran 2 of these by another company with 2 monitors each at max 1920x1200, worked fine. I wouldn't play games (I don't think you can) but for side monitors for reading they were fine.

Onboard should be fine for 1, but more than 1 VM or more ports make sure to get the higher-end USB controller.

 

[IamSpartacus]

http://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-External-1920x1200-Graphics-USB2DVIE3/dp/B005G3066Y

1920x1200 I believe is the max resolution too for USB, but that may have changed with USB3 not 100%.
I ran 2 of these by another company with 2 monitors each at max 1920x1200, worked fine. I wouldn't play games (I don't think you can) but for side monitors for reading they were fine.

Onboard should be fine for 1, but more than 1 VM or more ports make sure to get the higher-end USB controller.

Thanks for the link! That will definitely come in handy down the line I can tell. However, since this will be my everyday workstation I do want the ability to play the original StarCraft (play once or twice a month with some old buddies). Although considering that game came out in 1998 and the sys requirements were 90 Mhz Pentium, 16MB of RAM, and a DirectX GPU, I should be ok .

 

[TuxDude]

Those USB display devices are NOT a way to transport video over USB - rather they are a complete "GPU" of their own that uses USB to talk to the host system instead of PCIe. And the "GPU"s they use are low-power things (normal USB2 only provides about 2.5W of power) with just enough 3D capability to run windows desktop effects.

They're not bad for desktops running a browser / office apps to hook up additional monitors - but I would never try and use one for a primary display or for gaming.

 

[IamSpartacus]

Those USB display devices are NOT a way to transport video over USB - rather they are a complete "GPU" of their own that uses USB to talk to the host system instead of PCIe. And the "GPU"s they use are low-power things (normal USB2 only provides about 2.5W of power) with just enough 3D capability to run windows desktop effects.

They're not bad for desktops running a browser / office apps to hook up additional monitors - but I would never try and use one for a primary display or for gaming.

Yea that's what I assumed but I agree they could be very handy for when I want to setup a separate workstation for my fiance to just do some simple browsing, word/excel editing.

 

[RyC]

I'm wrapping up a project to do something like this, and for the most part it's worked well for me.

First, I tried those USB display adapters a few years ago in ESXi, and they did not work without a real GPU (the driver said it needed a GPU with OpenGL support above what the software SVGA GPU has or something). Perhaps that's changed now though.

HDMI audio has an issue for me, and I've seen one report of the same thing happening to someone else. On my host, if you pass through the HDMI audio device to a VM, whenever you shut down the VM, the entire host just resets (not even a PSOD). It doesn't do this if I leave out the HDMI audio device when passing through. But it looks like you won't use HDMI audio anyway.

I passed through one of the onboard USB controllers, which mostly works. I seem to get extremely brief dropouts (my keyboard lights go out, and the mouse jumps). It's slightly annoying, but not a deal breaker. I have an Apple Cinema Display which has a built in webcam and speakers that plug in over USB, and both of those work fine.

 

[IamSpartacus]

I'm wrapping up a project to do something like this, and for the most part it's worked well for me.

First, I tried those USB display adapters a few years ago in ESXi, and they did not work without a real GPU (the driver said it needed a GPU with OpenGL support above what the software SVGA GPU has or something). Perhaps that's changed now though.

HDMI audio has an issue for me, and I've seen one report of the same thing happening to someone else. On my host, if you pass through the HDMI audio device to a VM, whenever you shut down the VM, the entire host just resets (not even a PSOD). It doesn't do this if I leave out the HDMI audio device when passing through. But it looks like you won't use HDMI audio anyway.

I passed through one of the onboard USB controllers, which mostly works. I seem to get extremely brief dropouts (my keyboard lights go out, and the mouse jumps). It's slightly annoying, but not a deal breaker. I have an Apple Cinema Display which has a built in webcam and speakers that plug in over USB, and both of those work fine.

Thanks for the feedback @RyC. I'll see what kinds of issues I run into using the onboard USB controller and see if I need to throw in an AIC instead.