QEMU 6.1 Released With RISC-V Improvements, AMD Emulation Fixes

[phoronix]

Phoronix: QEMU 6.1 Released With RISC-V Improvements, AMD Emulation Fixes

QEMU 6.1 is out as the newest feature release to this widely-used, open-source Linux virtualization component...

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=QEMU-6.1-Released

[rabcor]

Man I am just venting here and it has almost nothing to do with the article but I just don't know anyone I can vent to about this that would actually understand what I'm talking about and I need to... well.. vent...

I'm just so frustrated over my ventures into windows VMs on linux.

I don't ask that much of such VMs, I need to be able to run photoshop (I know this is too much for virtualbox and last I checked for vmware player too, but not for qemu!) and I need to be able to run some very light games (think rpg maker and visual novel kind of light), I want all this done at 60fps, 24bpc (32bpc if u count alpha channel) and without crippling amounts of tearing... And of course, perhaps most importantly, I want this all to happen without breaking my host system...

But I just can't have that, even if theoretically it should not be difficult, I just spent a good day or so setting up a qemu VM with windows on it and GVT-G enabled, theoretically this should meet all my performance needs, every last one of them, I can set the desired number of cpu threads made available to the vm, I can have near native (igpu) level graphics performance at least in theory, and I mean at it's core qemu is good at creating high performance VMs right?

Because the resulting VM is high performance, it meets my performance needs at least as far as VM capabilities are concerned, but it's not the VM capabilities that in the end make it so I can't have what I want.

And it's not really that I had to spend most of this time scratching my head over a weird issue where I can not have GVT-G, DMA-BUF and SPICE enabled at the same time, I gotta disable one if I want to use the other two or the VM crashes on boot and this took me like a good half a day to figure out...

It's not that sometimes launching the VM breaks the sound in my PC (host and guest, doesn't matter, just breaks all sound until I turn it off), I mean I'm sure that's a perfectly troubleshootable problem for me (not... if my past experience tells me anything)

It's not even that sometimes the VM just doesn't want to launch with GVT-G enabled and I have to disable it or restart my host if I wanna get into the VM.

All those... Are potentially manageable problems for me.

It's that there's no fucking kvm display technology in existence that is an unmanagable problem for me!

I can't just run a program that says "here it is, 1920x1080@60hz display for you, GVT-G! Go nuts!"

No, what I get is an option between Spice, VNC and RDP. Out of those RDP provides the by far best performance. There's also 'looking glass' but that method requires an external display and I don't have one, I don't even have room on my desk for one, and if it wasn't for covid I couldn't keep one around anyways because I travel a lot and it takes up too much space for that.

So I set up RDP, using freerdp, I do all the tweaks someone recommends to get RFX working with which I should theoretically be able to get decent results... And I do, I do get decent results, but maybe it's because I'm on GVT-G and not dGPU passthrough (Which I will probably try just for kicks even if my chances of success on a muxed laptop are abysmal), maybe it's because it just doesn't work with anything less than a proper dedicated gpu, or maybe it's just not that good in the first place...

Whatever the case, the result is that I get a choppy experience that feels like about 30fps with so much screen tearing I'm surprised my laptop hasn't torn itself into tiny little pieces by now.

And that is the best experience I can get with a kvm, as far as I can tell, at least without a dgpu passthrough (but I'm finding myself questioning if I can actually get any better with that anyways, is it worth the day it'll probably take me to see if I can make it work at all on my laptop? probably. But right now I'm too burnt out to do it).

I even tried to use steam in-home streaming because I know for remote viewing I can get a very good performance that way, one I'd be happy with. But the result was that the only display qemu had to provide to steam for this was an 800x600 virtual display with questionable refresh rate (that translated to the os thinking it had like 1000hz and steam in home streaming thinking that this was a good setup for like 15fps ).

And now I'm just... frustrated and burnt out with all this, why'd it all have to be so hard man

[Quackdoc]

Man I am just venting here and it has almost nothing to do with the article but I just don't know anyone I can vent to about this that would actually understand what I'm talking about and I need to... well.. vent...

I'm just so frustrated over my ventures into windows VMs on linux.

I don't ask that much of such VMs, I need to be able to run photoshop (I know this is too much for virtualbox and last I checked for vmware player too, but not for qemu!) and I need to be able to run some very light games (think rpg maker and visual novel kind of light), I want all this done at 60fps, 24bpc (32bpc if u count alpha channel) and without crippling amounts of tearing... And of course, perhaps most importantly, I want this all to happen without breaking my host system...

Both virtualbox and vmware can do this.

It's not that sometimes launching the VM breaks the sound in my PC (host and guest, doesn't matter, just breaks all sound until I turn it off), I mean I'm sure that's a perfectly troubleshootable problem for me (not... if my past experience tells me anything)

sounds like something in audio config is messed up couldn't say what without seeing the VM config though are you using libvirt or qemu cmd line?

It's that there's no fucking kvm display technology in existence that is an unmanagable problem for me!

I can't just run a program that says "here it is, 1920x1080@60hz display for you, GVT-G! Go nuts!"

you could use qxl + spice or sdl/gtk, soon the virtio-gpu drivers for DOD will get implemented too, leading to a better experience. but Looking glass will work for you it will let you do this.

No, what I get is an option between Spice, VNC and RDP. Out of those RDP provides the by far best performance. There's also 'looking glass' but that method requires an external display and I don't have one, I don't even have room on my desk for one, and if it wasn't for covid I couldn't keep one around anyways because I travel a lot and it takes up too much space for that.

Spice should preform better, make sure you install guest drivers. also any HDMI dummy plug will work with looking glass, but it is not needed with gvt, There is a good guide on YT for setting it up.

And now I'm just... frustrated and burnt out with all this, why'd it all have to be so hard man

Simply because you were looking in the wrong places.

[rabcor]

Both virtualbox and vmware can do this.

I don't know about virtualbox, I haven't actually touched it in years, but I recall with vmware player last I tried I had some major issues with certain programs not working because it only supports a specific set of apis, I think maybe even it supported just directx9 and only directx9 rendering and I couldn't run anything that was opengl or dx11, or god forbid vulkan (I actually know they're working on implementing vulkan now... but on vmware workstation), I at least know they still didn't have dx11 support in it late last year (some tech preview for vmware workstation did tho)

It's not all roses and sunshine over there, clearly... I am obviously going to give vmware and virtualbox a second try though now that you mention it, it's been very long since I last gave them a shot.

sounds like something in audio config is messed up couldn't say what without seeing the VM config though are you using libvirt or qemu cmd line?

Am using qemu command line, I have not tried troubleshooting this issue, only possibly related command I have would be: -

device hda-output

My first thing to try would be adding in something like:

-audiodev pa,id=pa1,server=/run/user/1000/pulse/native

Which is (yes) something I pulled from someone else's config online. I just didn't get there yet because I have priorities to make other things work first, like I said, venting.

you could use qxl + spice or sdl/gtk, soon the virtio-gpu drivers for DOD will get implemented too, leading to a better experience. but Looking glass will work for you it will let you do this.

I don't know what you mean when you say qxl+spice and even less what you mean when you say sdl/gtk, I mean individually I know what these things are, but in this context... When I used spice, I tried spicy, remmina and remote-viewer. All of them 'worked' but the experience was bloody awful, I did not look into getting them to work better, I did not even know it was possible to make them work better (is it actually?)

And I was under the impression looking glass required an external display, I am on a laptop with no room for an external display (I think I mentioned that clearly when I was venting)

But if the virtio-gpu drivers are working on something for this, that's a consolation at least. (No idea what DOD refers to tho)

Still, if you have anything more for me to go on than just pointing towards protocols and libraries I'm all ears.

Spice should preform better, make sure you install guest drivers. also any HDMI dummy plug will work with looking glass, but it is not needed with gvt, There is a good guide on YT for setting it up.

Thanks, I will look into this, all of this.

Simply because you were looking in the wrong places.

Well there's a bit of a story behind that, at least if you mean it the way I think you mean it, but the short of it is that I have tried using virtualbox and vmware player in the distant past and they never worked out for me or more like just felt like miserable failures for my purposes, things like vmware player maybe could provide the performance I wanted but wouldn't launch photoshop or something because it didn't support the latest version of opengl it was using or whatever, and virtualbox launching things properly but being so laggy it just felt like shit, so my impression of those things are "virtualization technology that's not good enough"

But now that you said they're actually capable of what I am seeking, maybe the situation has changed, I have my doubts about vmware player (maybe vmware workstation can do it?... But idk, it's kinda expensive, and do I really want to give money to a company that locks documentation for it's products behind a paywall?...) but virtualbox deserves another chance at least.

Thank you for your insights.

[partcyborg]

I don't know about virtualbox, I haven't actually touched it in years, but I recall with vmware player last I tried I had some major issues with certain programs not working because it only supports a specific set of apis, I think maybe even it supported just directx9 and only directx9 rendering and I couldn't run anything that was opengl or dx11, or god forbid vulkan (I actually know they're working on implementing vulkan now... but on vmware workstation), I at least know they still didn't have dx11 support in it late last year (some tech preview for vmware workstation did tho)

It's not all roses and sunshine over there, clearly... I am obviously going to give vmware and virtualbox a second try though now that you mention it, it's been very long since I last gave them a shot.



Am using qemu command line, I have not tried troubleshooting this issue, only possibly related command I have would be: -

device hda-output

My first thing to try would be adding in something like:

-audiodev pa,id=pa1,server=/run/user/1000/pulse/native

Which is (yes) something I pulled from someone else's config online. I just didn't get there yet because I have priorities to make other things work first, like I said, venting.



I don't know what you mean when you say qxl+spice and even less what you mean when you say sdl/gtk, I mean individually I know what these things are, but in this context... When I used spice, I tried spicy, remmina and remote-viewer. All of them 'worked' but the experience was bloody awful, I did not look into getting them to work better, I did not even know it was possible to make them work better (is it actually?)

And I was under the impression looking glass required an external display, I am on a laptop with no room for an external display (I think I mentioned that clearly when I was venting)

But if the virtio-gpu drivers are working on something for this, that's a consolation at least. (No idea what DOD refers to tho)

Still, if you have anything more for me to go on than just pointing towards protocols and libraries I'm all ears.



Thanks, I will look into this, all of this.



Well there's a bit of a story behind that, at least if you mean it the way I think you mean it, but the short of it is that I have tried using virtualbox and vmware player in the distant past and they never worked out for me or more like just felt like miserable failures for my purposes, things like vmware player maybe could provide the performance I wanted but wouldn't launch photoshop or something because it didn't support the latest version of opengl it was using or whatever, and virtualbox launching things properly but being so laggy it just felt like shit, so my impression of those things are "virtualization technology that's not good enough"

But now that you said they're actually capable of what I am seeking, maybe the situation has changed, I have my doubts about vmware player (maybe vmware workstation can do it?... But idk, it's kinda expensive, and do I really want to give money to a company that locks documentation for it's products behind a paywall?...) but virtualbox deserves another chance at least.

Thank you for your insights.

sounds like you want looking glass: https://looking-glass.io/

I used this for a while when I was passing my GPU to to qemu to play games. Worked great.

[flower]

I am very happy about virtio-mem and eager to try it. For me it is the last missing part to leave containers completely and only use vm.

One question: will it work with encrypted guest ram eg found within epyc?

[spirit]

they are also a new features in rbd block driver for new ceph versions


- zeroes write support (drive-mirror thin provisionned)

https://github.com/qemu/qemu/commit/c56ac27d2ad583aa2db5382bb510a33b638a4ab5

- rbd encryption client side

https://github.com/qemu/qemu/commit/42e4ac9ef5a65f1714dd6f332de160eb63e0d6a4

- migration from aio to coroutine

https://github.com/qemu/qemu/commit/c3e5fac534c6effc329b962162f79c799398f013

[schmidtbag]

rabcor I assume you're using QEMU? In my experience, the best way to get what you want is to use PCI passthrough and forward a GPU (not in use by the host) to the guest. If you don't want multiple displays, you'll need to use something like VNC/RDP.

QEMU in my opinion isn't really fit for running a desktop OS for home or office use. I see QEMU as a convenient shortcut for development and experimentation. As others said, things like Virtualbox or VMWare are more what you're looking for, as they're purpose-built to virtualize a desktop OS.

[rabcor]

I have a bit of an update I suppose, I tried virtualbox, here's how it went.

I installed windows 7 32 bit (accidentally), it worked ok but it was 32 bit so obviously I couldn't use it.

I tried installing windows 10, it worked pretty bad, and after installing guest additions it completely broke down, the start menu was transparent all of a sudden and everything was super laggy, like unusable kind of laggy, about the worst experience I've ever had with a vm ever really, it was completely broken.

I tried installing windows 7 64 bit, that one worked even better than windows 7 32 bit, actually it seems to be at the peak of what virtualbox can achieve. I tried running krita in it, didn't work, couldn't render correctly (didn't matter if I used dx11 or opengl renderer).

Tried running photoshop, it works, and at acceptable performance levels too :O

Tried running some simple rpg maker games and vns and besides an issue where the rpg maker game would crash if I tried to full screen it (probably because of the weird thing it does to the display resolution, horribly poorly designed that game engine), it all worked acceptably too.

So I did... in the end, manage to get what I want in virtualbox, I just barely got it, and I had to jump through hoops to get it (I mean I just so happened to have the idea to try windows 7, which incidentally means I must use an older version of photoshop, just not that much older thankfully)

But at least I now have a windows VM I can use as a fallback if I can't run something

It's not actually perfect though, there's some artifacting here, some lag there, some audio crackling in-between and all those goodies, it's clearly an inferior solution to running native. Feels a bit like duct tape.



Also on a mostly unrelated note, going back to windows 7.... Felt weird, it was different than what I expected, it all started for me there, windows 7 was THE operating system that I loved back in the day, before that it was XP, people refusing to go from XP to 7 I didn't understand, but then I saw windows 8, had some alarm bells go off in my head and decided to try and learn to use linux just so I could have something to fallback on if I didn't like windows 9... err... I mean 10, which incidentlaly I didn't... But I still ended up using 10 a lot anyways, I mean sometimes I've uninstalled windows and used linux exclusively for a year (think it's happened like 3 times) but in the end something always moved me back to windows, last time it was photoshop. Now that I have a solution for that even if it's not perfect (just good enough), and a lot of other potential issues, I can feel a lot more reassured that I won't have to use that blasted OS again (better yet that I'm now actually using 7 instead of 10, even in a VM).

But being on windows 7 again, even just through a VM... It felt like I'd spent years doing damage control, trying to get linux to do things it won't do, to run programs that won't run on it, and trying to get windows 10 to stop spying on me but never feeling secure in that I'd succeeded in doing so regardless of how convincing whichever methods I used seemed... And after all that I'd come back home. Similar to the feeling of doing overtime for a good week and finally reaching the weekend and getting to go home and rest as much as you want for 2 days. That first moment when u know u got 2 days of rest ahead. That's how it felt for me, being back on windows 7.

And it was at this point that I realized that no matter what reason I may have to go back to windows, in the end, windows 10 (or god forbid 11) is not worth the emotional stress. Getting away from it is like escaping from a domestic abuser, at least metaphorically if not literally.

I'm gonna keep messing around with VMs, see if vmware player is any better, see if I can get a proper display for the qemu machine I already have set up, see if I can make dgpu passthrough work this time around.... But at least now, I finally have what I set out to achieve for this round of 'permanently leaving windows behind'.

[bregma]

the newest feature release to this widely-used, open-source Linux virtualization component

QEMU has as much to do with Linux as ASCII does. Sure, it will run on a Linux host, and you can run a Linux guest in it. You can also run it on a Windows or a Mac OS host and have any number of non-Linux guests in it. Also, it *can* use virtualization components when emulating an x86_64 target on an x86_64 Linux host, but it is not itself a virtualization component it's a hardware emulator.