Graphics Card Support For QEMU/KVM Comes Closer

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Graphics Card Support For QEMU/KVM Comes Closer

One of the major limitations of QEMU/KVM when it comes to Linux desktop virtualization is that it hasn't provided any form of support for graphics acceleration -- either by passing OpenGL calls onto the host for execution by the host's driver and graphics hardware or allowing guest VMs to tap directly the graphics card. Support for the latter feature continues to be developed and is close to becoming a working reality...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTI4Nzc

[chenxiaolong]

So they seem to be stuck on the error 43 issue for NVIDIA cards as well. Here, in Xen land, the issue was never resolved. In fact, for non-Quadro cards, the only way to get VGA passthrough to work is to patch Xen with the right PCI BAR's, and use the 275.33 drivers on Windows XP x86.

I really hope the Qemu developers can find a way to get all this mess working

[tmikov]

How is this the right direction? It is interesting technically, but not that useful. I don't want to give the VMs access to my hardware. I want them to have optimized para-virtualized drivers which take advantage of the hosts driver stack in a device independent manner.

[Calinou]

How is this the right direction? It is interesting technically, but not that useful. I don't want to give the VMs access to my hardware. I want them to have optimized para-virtualized drivers which take advantage of the hosts driver stack in a device independent manner.

Not that useful? Oh look, another "non-gamer"... Also, think about 3D modelling, rendering and that stuff. OpenCL too.

[tmikov]

Not that useful? Oh look, another "non-gamer"... Also, think about 3D modelling, rendering and that stuff. OpenCL too.

It is useful in highly specialized cases, but definitely not as an universal way to meaningfully accelerate VM graphics.

True, I could stick a second NVidia in and play Windows games in a VM, but at that point it makes more sense to dual-boot... :-)

[BW~Merlin]

It is useful in highly specialized cases, but definitely not as an universal way to meaningfully accelerate VM graphics.

True, I could stick a second NVidia in and play Windows games in a VM, but at that point it makes more sense to dual-boot... :-)

But would this not then allow you to have multiple guest operating system running at the same time giving you near native performance but with the flexibility of being able to "alt + tab" between different operating systems as you need rather than having to reboot? At least that is what I hope for as I think it will be brilliant to be able to play games (I am sure there are other applications like CAD and design software) that you cannot get to run under Wine (or take a large performance hit/buggy experience) without having to keep rebooting back and forth between Linux and Windows.

[tmikov]

But would this not then allow you to have multiple guest operating system running at the same time giving you near native performance but with the flexibility of being able to "alt + tab" between different operating systems as you need rather than having to reboot? At least that is what I hope for as I think it will be brilliant to be able to play games (I am sure there are other applications like CAD and design software) that you cannot get to run under Wine (or take a large performance hit/buggy experience) without having to keep rebooting back and forth between Linux and Windows.

The hardware is allocated permanently to a single VM while it is running. You can't switch between multiple VMs using the same graphics card.

[JanC]

The hardware is allocated permanently to a single VM while it is running. You can't switch between multiple VMs using the same graphics card.

Not to mention that it would be difficult to connect 2 graphics cards to one monitor...

I suppose it might be useful if you have multiple monitors though.

[BW~Merlin]

Not to mention that it would be difficult to connect 2 graphics cards to one monitor...

I suppose it might be useful if you have multiple monitors though.

Still sounds like a really ideal situation to me.