ironicbadger Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 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. Quote Link to comment
SchoolBusDriver Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 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. Quote Link to comment
ironicbadger Posted February 3, 2014 Author Share Posted February 3, 2014 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 Quote Link to comment
SchoolBusDriver Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 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. Quote Link to comment
ironicbadger Posted February 3, 2014 Author Share Posted February 3, 2014 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. Quote Link to comment
intoran Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 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. Quote Link to comment
SchoolBusDriver Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 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. Quote Link to comment
intoran Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 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. Quote Link to comment
SchoolBusDriver Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 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. Quote Link to comment
ironicbadger Posted February 3, 2014 Author Share Posted February 3, 2014 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 Quote Link to comment
intoran Posted February 3, 2014 Share Posted February 3, 2014 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. Quote Link to comment
generalz Posted February 4, 2014 Share Posted February 4, 2014 awesome thank you. Quote Link to comment
SchoolBusDriver Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 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. Quote Link to comment
generalz Posted February 5, 2014 Share Posted February 5, 2014 less them 2 gigs *446mb to be exact Quote Link to comment
johnodon Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 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 Quote Link to comment
generalz Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 that only works in Gotham atm. Quote Link to comment
ironicbadger Posted February 6, 2014 Author Share Posted February 6, 2014 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 Quote Link to comment
johnodon Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 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 Quote Link to comment
hoek Posted February 6, 2014 Share Posted February 6, 2014 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. Quote Link to comment
arbitrary Posted March 14, 2014 Share Posted March 14, 2014 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 Quote Link to comment
ironicbadger Posted March 14, 2014 Author Share Posted March 14, 2014 Awesome. Please try Gotham. Sent from my S4 via Tapatalk Quote Link to comment
arbitrary Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 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 Quote Link to comment
NAS Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 Why not just use OpenELEC generic 64bit? Quote Link to comment
smakovits Posted April 4, 2014 Share Posted April 4, 2014 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. Quote Link to comment
generalz Posted April 4, 2014 Share Posted April 4, 2014 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 Quote Link to comment
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