February 3, 201412 yr I'm currently experimenting with VGA passthrough and having an XBMC appliance, which is Xen capable and supports AMD graphics cards without chomping CPU (as these passthrough the easiest and are what I have). As of right now, it works but is NOT ready for primetime. Your hardware must support iommu or vt-d to do this. No ifs, no buts. Sorry. If you want a quick play, download Xbmcbuntu and use the following cfg. http://mirrors.xbmc.org/releases/XBMCbuntu/ builder="hvm" name = "xbmcbuntu" memory = 1024 vcpus = '2' disk = [ 'phy:/mnt/user/cache_only/xbmcbuntu/xbmcbuntu.img,xvda,w', # 'file:/mnt/user/cache_only/xbmcbuntu/xbmcbuntu-12.00.Intel-AMD.iso,hdc:cdrom,r' ] boot="dc" vif = [ 'mac=00:16:3e:xx:xx:xx,bridge=br0' ] usb = '1' usbdevice = 'tablet' vnc = '1' vnclisten = '0.0.0.0' vncpasswd = '' pci = ['01:00.0','01:00.1','00:1d.0'] Of note, you will also need to do some configuration in your syslinux.cfg file under /boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg. Here is mine (look for the xen-pciback.hide bit). You need to grab your device IDs using lspci in unraid itself. label Xen/unRAID OS menu default kernel /syslinux/mboot.c32 append /xen dom0_mem=2097152 --- /bzimage xen-pciback.hide=(01:00.0)(01:00.1)(00:1a.0)(00:1d.0) --- /bzroot This will create a HVM Xen guest, with working GPU passthrough giving you an example of what is possible. It is not production ready, and I haven't yet found an XBMC build for radeon which doesn't stink through CPU usage. It needs a dual core CPU to play a blu ray rip, and that's no exaggeration. I am testing lots of other things to get it going too, but for now it's just a proof of concept. ----- What now? I really need someone who is an XBMC Radeon expert to help me.
February 3, 201412 yr What now? I really need someone who is an XBMC Radeon expert to help me. Time to take you to school... Your ride is here.
February 3, 201412 yr Author Thank you, you really helped more than you could possibly image. I'm working my way through this atm. http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=174854
February 3, 201412 yr Thank you, you really helped more than you could possibly image. I'm working my way through this atm. http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=174854 I already explain how to do it in shitbuntu... http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=31570.msg286363#msg286363 You want a VM, PV drivers and no desktop and without out all the other crap that XBMCbuntu has installed in it.
February 3, 201412 yr Author Oh man, you really took me to school. Until then though, xbmcbuntu is a working alternative. Agreed it installs a bunch of stuff we dont need, but working beats not.
February 3, 201412 yr Do either of you guys know if XBMCbuntu with a Radeon supports bitstreaming of HD audio? I know in the past there were some issues doing that on various linux builds so I just went with XBMC on Windows. It does eat up my CPU though, never could get the hardware accelleration working with ESXi 5+. I'm currently using a 5450 and 6450.
February 3, 201412 yr Do either of you guys know if XBMCbuntu with a Radeon supports bitstreaming of HD audio? I know in the past there were some issues doing that on various linux builds so I just went with XBMC on Windows. It does eat up my CPU though, never could get the hardware accelleration working with ESXi 5+. I'm currently using a 5450 and 6450. I will create an image with XBMC that uses the Radeon drivers and HD Audio.
February 3, 201412 yr Do either of you guys know if XBMCbuntu with a Radeon supports bitstreaming of HD audio? I know in the past there were some issues doing that on various linux builds so I just went with XBMC on Windows. It does eat up my CPU though, never could get the hardware accelleration working with ESXi 5+. I'm currently using a 5450 and 6450. I will create an image with XBMC that uses the Radeon drivers and HD Audio. That would be awesome. Some of these things are easy to me with regards to ESXi, but being fairly new to linux I feel like I am starting over, haha.
February 3, 201412 yr That would be awesome. Some of these things are easy to me with regards to ESXi, but being fairly new to linux I feel like I am starting over, haha. If you have seen any of my previous guides, I will make it noob friendly.
February 3, 201412 yr Author I'm going to have an xbmcbuntu img posted before the night is out with cpu usage less than 5% on a blu ray rip. Just a case of finding the right posts (grumpy's helped me a lot). http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=HOW-TO:Install_XBMC_on_Ubuntu/with_AMD_GPU
February 3, 201412 yr If you have seen any of my previous guides, I will make it noob friendly. I'm sure it'll be easy with a guide. I had XBMC running in a windows VM close to 3 years ago and back then there was little info to be found on GPU passthrough with ESX. Especially for my purposes. You get used to having a disposal of tools to manage ESX so switching to linux xen/kvm can be a little daunting. Definitly looks like a lot more "tweaking" has to be done, but that could just be due to my unfamiliarity with it.
February 5, 201412 yr Question for everyone... How many MB / GBs is your XBMC folder (including sub-directories)? I am curious how many plugins, skins, thumbnails, artwork, etc. people are using and what the total size of other people's XBMC folder is.
February 6, 201412 yr I'd like to move away from XVBA if possible since development has become defunct. If we go this route we are locked into Frodo 12.2 (or Gotham which I would also like to avoid until it is final). OSS is definitely the way to go (http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=174854) but I failed miserably to do so in a VM. John
February 6, 201412 yr Author I'll probably stick with 12.2 until 13 is significantly further along. I know this means xvba. Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk
February 6, 201412 yr Don't get me wrong...12.2 + XVBA has worked really well for me. The one stupid, little thing that drives me nuts is the sound artifacts I get when I start and stop videos (like quick sound stuttering for a second or two). Do you guys get that? FYI...I'm not using an AV receiver...directly to TV. John
February 6, 201412 yr I've never had that problem but I'm going through an AVR if that makes any difference. I did have to add: <audio> <streamsilence>1</streamsilence> </audio> To advancedsettings.xml so that I don't get a 1-2 second break in audio after resuming from pause. But I doubt this has anything to do with what you've described.
March 14, 201412 yr I'm going to take a crack at this on the weekend, it'd be nice to be able to get rid of another device from my home theater
March 21, 201412 yr Awesome. Please try Gotham. Sent from my S4 via Tapatalk No dice, couldn't get PCI passthrough working with XEN. Switched over to ESXi now and I'm using a Windows 8 XBMC VM appliance
April 4, 201412 yr How do you boot to the generic openelec? no iso to boot and otherwise requires USB key. I mean that could be had with pass-through, but I just started a topic on this very specific topic so I am most intrigued to hear more.
April 4, 201412 yr you could tftp boot it and run it from a NFS share. But from what i was told it doesn't have the right kernel to run in a virtualized envrio
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.