Seeking advice - GPU worth it for this?

[Tomahawk51]

I'm looking for some practical advice, and am at the point I realize I need to ask for better informed advice.  I built my server many years ago, and it's doing everything I need...but... 

 

Goal I'm seeking: 

• I want to stream older games to a few Steam clients (ShieldTVs, AtGames Arcade, maybe my laptop as well).
• Primary interest in Games like Starcraft/2, Command & Conquer/Generals.
• Sure it would be nice to also be able to run more advanced games or emulators, but I'm not looking to play with a monitor attached, and not anticipating having top notch graphics and performance.
• note: I've run some basic games over steam and they did work...but the experience wasn't great.  I'm assuming I need a GPU - I have none now.

 

Initial Questions: 

• Is this worth pursuing?  Can I expect reasonable performance over Steam Connect, or am I wrong in my assumption that this could work satisfactorily with the addition of a GPU.
• I have been out of the HW game for so long, that I wonder: is my HW (below) still reasonable to run or should I be upgrading instead?  It works for everything else besides gaming (many Dockers, VMs, etc).

 

Notes:

• I'm using a Win11 VM.  I tried passing through the Mobo integrated GPU (Matrox g200e).  Windows turns off the driver, citing issues.  I assume I should move on from this idea.
• I had an old Nvidia 7900 GS so I tried it, kind of.  It wouldn't fit in the PCI x16 slot since hits the RAM modules.  I read that I could move it to one of the other open 8x slots, so I did. These slots have no space constraints.  I didn't realize this was doable as there are pins just hanging off...but Unraid shows it and VM dropdowns show it.  I have hit the wall on getting it to passthrough to the VM after many days of trial and error (IOMMU, vBios, etc.).  I also may have damaged a capacitor when learning it was going to hit the RAM, though I did spot solder the connection after (shaky confidence). 

 

Secondary Questions:

• I'm assuming if I buy a middle / value "mini" gpu, then maybe it would fit in the x16 slot vs. using one of the open ended x8 slots.  I have not yet gotten out a ruler to check, but will before buying.  What should I plan on - a regular card in an open x8, or find a mini card for the x16?
• Any input on what cards are easiest to passthrough to the VM, and perhaps what series/vintage would support my goal (and isn't top of the line and price)?

Thank you in advance for reading all this!

 

Specs:

Quote

M/B:Intel Corporation S2600CP Version G56797-508 - s/n: xxxxxxx

BIOS:Intel Corp. Version SE5C600.86B.02.06.0005.xxxx Dated: 08/03/2016

CPU:Intel® Xeon® CPU E5-2670 0 @ 2.60GHz

HVM:Enabled

IOMMU:Enabled

Cache:512 KiB, 2 MB, 20 MB, 512 KiB, 2 MB, 20 MB

Memory:64 GiB DDR3 Multi-bit ECC (max. installable capacity 512 GiB)

psu = Corsair RM850x

 

Motherboard Slots:

Quote

Add-in Card Slots  Support up to six expansion slots  From first processor:

o Slot 1: PCIe Gen III x4/x8 electrical with x8 physical connector

o Slot 2: PCIe Gen III x8 electrical with x8 physical connector

o Slot 3: PCIe Gen III x8 electrical with x8 open-ended physical connector (blue connector for open-ended)

o Slot 4: PCIe Gen III x8 electrical with x8 physical connector

o Slot 6: PCIe Gen III x8 electrical with x16 connector, support riser card.  From second processor:

o Slot 5: PCIe Gen III x8 electrical with x8 open-ended physical connector (blue connector for open-ended). P

 

[Decto]

I have some experience of this, but around 12 months out of date as I sold a lot of my GPU's in the crypto mining boom as even basic GPUs were selling for great prices and there were no longer used that much.

 

My main server is E5 2660 V3 10C/20T which has similar base/boost freq to your system.

At one point I had GTX1650, Quadro 2000 (GTX 1060) and Quadro 1000(GTX 1050) installed and running for simultanious x3 remote gaming and it worked fine.

 

I had a lot of issues (random black screen, VM won't boot etc.)  with AMD cards, but I was using RX550, RX580 so more modern cards may be better, I have no experience of these though so personally would stick with Nvidia which seem better supported for pass through.

 

To have an encoder on the GPU you generally need either a GTX /RTX card or a quadro. I had the quadros for plex initially, they perform slower than the equivlent GTX card as drivers are not optimised but were both single slot  which was ideal in a tight case and multi GPU. I did need to use a fake HDMI / DVI dongle ($5-10) otherwise the cards will often not power on properly in the VM. Stick to 1080p dongles if you can, nothing worse than desktop defaulting back to 4k and you have tiny unreadable icons.

You can look here to see which cards supported encoding. Nvidia encoding cards.

 

Ideally you want a reasonable card that can support the games you want to play comfortably, the encoding shouldn't be a significant hit but if you underspec the card you may have the double problem of game latency + remote play latency.  I did use steam steaming, but mainly used Parsec (free for personal) as that gave a full remote desktop at 60FPS which meant the kids Roblox and other game stores were available as well. You can config Parsec to enable you to start from the unlock screen but always setup Remote Desktop as a backup. Windows updates can throw a curve ball. 

 

I was able to play a variaty of games even FPS such as left4dead (single player) etc without any issue, no real noticable lag but it was obvious that there was video compression so in some dark areas it was a little hard to see detail as a result of this, but over lan and even over decent wifi, I had a very playable experience, much better than my aged X230 laptop would manage alone.

 

I don't see what you have to lose, as long as you don't overpay for a GPU, you would get a chunk of the cash back if it doesn't work out as you hope.

So depends on budget, a GTX 1650 used is likely the minimum I'd aim for and be aware that some base cards + the super may need additional power above the 75W PCI-E slot with the PCI-E 6/8 plug so you need to check what cabling you have from your PSU. I think the 1660 up had a better encoder version, but the price of the card also increases. 

 

-- Forgot the PCI-E bus width.

 

With PCI 3.0 there is barely any notable bottleneck at x8 vs x16 even with 2080TI / 3070 which are £400-£500+ GPU's.

No issue running in a X8 slot and for the lower end cards X4 is not likely to make that much difference.

 

Only other observation would be that your server is best if all memory channels are populated as bandwidth is king, not clear if that is the case.

Edited February 22, 2023 by Decto
PCI-E bus width

[bsm2k1]

I don't have too much experience compared to others, but I can tell you what I had running. 

 

I had a gtx 1080 in a Windows 11 VM streaming to a shield tv over a wired connection and the experience was excellent. My son and I played fairly modern games like Wreckfest together without any noticeable latency. 

 

I did previously try an AMD card but didn't have much luck with that route.