I've got a Steam Link in my living-room, a desktop/gaming PC in my home office and a recently deployed server tucked away in the basement. So far my kids and I have streamed from the desktop-PC to the Steam Link, which works great, but since that ties up the desktop PC I'd much rather stream from the server.
The server spec is the well-known Natex-bundle consisting of an Intel S2600CP2J motherboard + dual Xeon E5 2670 SR0KX + 128GB RAM mounted in a Supermicro 836 chassis. For most games this CPU should be sufficient, but I'll obviously need a GPU to be passed through to the VM which will be running Windows (probably Win 10). The server runs Proxmox.
After reading various threads in this forum and elsewhere, I think I have a fairly clear view of what needs to be done to get this to work, including adding a HDMI display emulator, bypassing the Windows login-screen, using a virtual sound card driver and such (My headless steam host / Steam Link setup - Kind-Of-a-How-To :: Steam Link General Discussions). But there are some concerns I was hoping someone could help me with. In no particular order:
a) The CPUs have Vt-d support, so passing through a GPU should work. But how do I ensure that the Proxmox base system uses the mainboard Matrox GPU so that the gaming-GPU can be passed through with no issues during boot?
b) Many sources claim that consumer-type cards from Nvidia (read: GTX models) cannot be used in VMs, but I have also read that this is not true for KVM. Can anyone confirm or deny this for KVM in Proxmox? I have a Radeon HD 7950 that hopefully still works, but if not then I'll need to consider getting a new card, and having choices is always a good thing.
c) How will the built-in VNC server in KVM play along with the gaming GPU? Do I need to install a separate VNC server on the host, as explained in the link above, or will I be able to use Proxmox to VNC into the server and see the desktop as generated by the physical pass-through GPU?
d) Any other gotchas I need to think about?
If I can't make this work in VM for any reason, then I have two options:
1. Install a GPU in a Dell r210 that is currently not in use and install Windows on bare metal. Primary issue is probably going to be finding an appropriate GPU since it needs to be single-width and half-length.
2. Mount my current desktop-system (complete set of parts for new server are currently in the mail) in a cheap rack-chassis and install it in the basement alongside the primary server.
These two options may actually be better than a VM energy-wise since I will be able to use sleep/power-off and WoL to bring the server up on demand (this is supported by Steam Link). But since I already have a capable server I'd sort of prefer to use it instead and sell off hardware I no longer need.
Hoping to get some feedback from people who have done this sort of thing themselves. I'll be sure to report back how I get along.
The server spec is the well-known Natex-bundle consisting of an Intel S2600CP2J motherboard + dual Xeon E5 2670 SR0KX + 128GB RAM mounted in a Supermicro 836 chassis. For most games this CPU should be sufficient, but I'll obviously need a GPU to be passed through to the VM which will be running Windows (probably Win 10). The server runs Proxmox.
After reading various threads in this forum and elsewhere, I think I have a fairly clear view of what needs to be done to get this to work, including adding a HDMI display emulator, bypassing the Windows login-screen, using a virtual sound card driver and such (My headless steam host / Steam Link setup - Kind-Of-a-How-To :: Steam Link General Discussions). But there are some concerns I was hoping someone could help me with. In no particular order:
a) The CPUs have Vt-d support, so passing through a GPU should work. But how do I ensure that the Proxmox base system uses the mainboard Matrox GPU so that the gaming-GPU can be passed through with no issues during boot?
b) Many sources claim that consumer-type cards from Nvidia (read: GTX models) cannot be used in VMs, but I have also read that this is not true for KVM. Can anyone confirm or deny this for KVM in Proxmox? I have a Radeon HD 7950 that hopefully still works, but if not then I'll need to consider getting a new card, and having choices is always a good thing.
c) How will the built-in VNC server in KVM play along with the gaming GPU? Do I need to install a separate VNC server on the host, as explained in the link above, or will I be able to use Proxmox to VNC into the server and see the desktop as generated by the physical pass-through GPU?
d) Any other gotchas I need to think about?
If I can't make this work in VM for any reason, then I have two options:
1. Install a GPU in a Dell r210 that is currently not in use and install Windows on bare metal. Primary issue is probably going to be finding an appropriate GPU since it needs to be single-width and half-length.
2. Mount my current desktop-system (complete set of parts for new server are currently in the mail) in a cheap rack-chassis and install it in the basement alongside the primary server.
These two options may actually be better than a VM energy-wise since I will be able to use sleep/power-off and WoL to bring the server up on demand (this is supported by Steam Link). But since I already have a capable server I'd sort of prefer to use it instead and sell off hardware I no longer need.
Hoping to get some feedback from people who have done this sort of thing themselves. I'll be sure to report back how I get along.
Last edited: