VM without GPU passthrough


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I don't game.  But it would be nice to have a Windows VM for

 

1. MS Office

2. Photoshop

3. Internet Browsing

 

Also a linux desktop for internet browsing.

 

Can I skip right by the passthrough of a video card and use RDP or something like that?

 

What will be the disadvantages of that?

 

(I find that both my test systems are not able to do vt-x, but hvm is enabled.

 

Model: Custom
M/B: BIOSTAR Group - TH67+
CPU: Intel® Core™ i5-2500K CPU @ 3.30GHz
HVM: Enabled
IOMMU: Disabled
Cache: 256 kB
Memory: 16384 MB (max. installable capacity 32 GB)
Network: eth0: 1000Mb/s - Full Duplex
Kernel: Linux 4.0.4-unRAID x86_64

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Can I skip right by the passthrough of a video card and use RDP or something like that?

 

What will be the disadvantages of that?

Sure, you absolutely could use RDP for MS Office and Internet Browsing. (I am currently doing both on my Win 8 VM with RDP and I do this daily). It works great!

Photoshop should be OK with RDP, you may notice a little bit of a delay but it shouldn't be much. Honestly I can watch a 720p video through RDP onto my iPad and it only lags very slightly. I wouldn't want to watch a movie with it but it would be acceptable if that was the only thing available. I did not check through your systems spec to make sure your system supports VM's so you should look into that.

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I'm sure you can do vt-x, its vt-d that you can't do, since you have a "K" processor (at least, MB could also be an issue).

 

I'd go ahead and make a windows VM and try it out. JonP has a video on here somewhere with the windows VM he made, and streaming nice high quality HD video via RDP through the VM, and it works pretty well.

 

Its definitely worth you pursuing.

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What kind of Photoshopping are you planning to do.  If you're serious about quality and color, you'll have issues due to the compression of the image.  If you use it just for minor editing, cropping,splicing, you should be fine.  I wouldn't do it if you were using it in a professional matter, though.  I'd definitely go with a passthrough vid card then. 

 

I have first hand experience that the intel 2500k does not work for gpu passthrough (no vt-d support).

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What kind of Photoshopping are you planning to do.  If you're serious about quality and color, you'll have issues due to the compression of the image.  If you use it just for minor editing, cropping,splicing, you should be fine.  I wouldn't do it if you were using it in a professional matter, though.  I'd definitely go with a passthrough vid card then. 

 

I have first hand experience that the intel 2500k does not work for gpu passthrough (no vt-d support).

 

So for Photoshop, passthrough is a must for a good user experience?  But for general MS Office and internet browsing, vt-x is fine?

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You'll be able to move the mouse just fine, make edits as needed, and performance will more be based on your CPU, so you should be fine in that regard.  It's just that due to the compression being done, the full color range is going to be shrunk and what you see in an RDP session may not be the same as what you see when you display it on a machine through a native display.

 

As for the other VM settings, you can see in your screenshot in the tab structure up top, there is a new "VM" tab.  Three to the right of the Settings tab you are on right now.

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Thanks, I was blind.  Which is easier to start with, Window or Linux?

 

Are you asking what's easier to create as a VM or what's easier to use as an OS in a VM?  If you want the best RDP experience with the least amount of effort, Windows is the way to go.

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What kind of Photoshopping are you planning to do.  If you're serious about quality and color, you'll have issues due to the compression of the image.  If you use it just for minor editing, cropping,splicing, you should be fine.  I wouldn't do it if you were using it in a professional matter, though.  I'd definitely go with a passthrough vid card then. 

 

I have first hand experience that the intel 2500k does not work for gpu passthrough (no vt-d support).

 

So for Photoshop, passthrough is a must for a good user experience?  But for general MS Office and internet browsing, vt-x is fine?

 

Photoshop can work through RDP, but the experience will vary depending on which version of Windows you're running (7 vs. 8), what kind of editing you're doing, and the strength of the connection between your endpoint device and the VM. 

 

Windows 8 has a newer version of RDP than 7, which leads to a better user experience.  I believe there is a guide to installing RDP 8 on Windows 7, but I haven't tested that yet myself.

 

If you're only doing small projects with Photoshop that require basic work only, RDP should be fine, but if you're trying to do things that require extreme detail/precision, your experience may be a little frustrating.  You'll just have to try it for yourself and see.  Also, a lot of Adobe software will try to utilize a physical GPU for hardware acceleration if available.  This can increase performance for the app.  Without VT-d, you won't have this option, but again, it may not be required for what you're trying to do.

 

Lastly, from a connection standpoint, I wouldn't advise using photoshop over a WAN (e.g. using a WiFi hotspot at a starbucks to connect to your virtual desktop at home).  When you're bandwidth constrained, the performance of RDP won't be as solid, and things like click delay can really affect you.  When you're at home on the LAN, however, it should be fine, so long as your endpoint device has a decent wired or wireless connection.

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Ok, got it figured out, the virt-io driver install requires you to change the setup template to advanced and also put in the location to the virt-io cd

 

But I didn't find any good instructions on installing them.  Hope this is the best one for Win10. 

  Stable virtio-win iso: https://fedorapeople.org/groups/virt/virtio-win/direct-downloads/stable-virtio/virtio-win.iso

 

They have everything inside them and it's not real clear which driver is required for initial drive install.  I used the virtiostor driver which is a SCSI disk driver.  Was that correct?

 

Edit it appears I got lucky and loaded everything backwards but something is working...  Do it this way, not the way I did.

http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/UnRAID_Manual_6#Obtaining_Virtual_Hardware_Drivers_.28VirtIO.29_for_Windows

 

oEp7fmx.png

 

Then, I still have the following items not installed.  Which drivers are the right ones to get rid of the yellow error triangles?

 

5xeg3d1.png

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I got the vt-x Win10 VM working on my AMD system, and am pleased at how quickly and smoothly it installed even though I didn't follow jonp's instructions here:  (I did it all backwards since I didn't find this helpful bit until afterwards. )

 

http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/UnRAID_Manual_6#Obtaining_Virtual_Hardware_Drivers_.28VirtIO.29_for_Windows

 

The RDP video speed of the vt-x VM is definitely slower than RDP into a bare metal workstation.  (on local gbit lan)  I tested by grabbing the header of an Explorer window with the mouse and dragging it around the screen.

 

1. Local win8.1 i5 laptop with integrated graphics, was smooth as silk

2. RDP into Win10 bare metal workstation over gbit lan, no longer smooth.  Definitely jerky.

3. RDP into vt-x Win10 VM on unRaid, even more jerky.

 

I will now work towards getting a full vt-x solution in place.  I want to see if we can get to the place where you can't tell whether you are running on a bare metal Windows laptop or an unRaid RDP vt-x VM. 

 

With full video passthrough, do you have to be sitting at the unRaid keyboard and look at the screen attached to the unRaid box to get the best experience?  (my unRaid box is a 24 bay rackmount)

 

(installed Win10 10074 preview on the following hardware with 2gb ram and 1 core allocated)
unRaid 6.0  M/B: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. - GA-880GA-UD3H
CPU: AMD Phenom(tm) II X6 1055T @ 2800
HVM: Enabled
IOMMU: Disabled
Cache: 128 kB, 512 kB
Memory: 16384 MB (max. installable capacity 16 GB)
Network: eth0: 1000Mb/s - Full Duplex
Kernel: Linux 4.0.4-unRAID x86_64

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Tr0910, a couple things to note.

 

What machine did you RDP from?  Was it the 8.1 laptop?

 

You might want to look into a different remote application.  I personally like Teamviewer, myself.  I feel it provides a pretty good audio/video performance. 

 

You will NOT get it to look like a bare metal machine, though.  Only way to do that from a VM is with GPU passthrough, which requires VT-D.  You will then need a monitor connected to the video card that you are passing through.  I have my server rack in my basement, and then run HDMI over Cat5e to my office on my second story. I also have a 90' active USB extension cable run up there with a hub on the end for my keyboard, mouse, wireless headset, camera upload, and anything USB else I need, and that's how I game.  I freaking love it.  There are USB over cat5 devices, but I have found them to be VERY unreliable. 

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What machine did you RDP from?  Was it the 8.1 laptop?

 

You will NOT get it to look like a bare metal machine, though.  Only way to do that from a VM is with GPU passthrough, which requires VT-D.  You will then need a monitor connected to the video card that you are passing through.  I have my server rack in my basement, and then run HDMI over Cat5e to my office on my second story. I also have a 90' active USB extension cable run up there with a hub on the end for my keyboard, mouse, wireless headset, camera upload, and anything USB else I need, and that's how I game.  I freaking love it. 

 

Thanks for tempering my expectations.  Yes it was from Win8.1

 

I guess my options are a wee bit of wire pulling before I get the smoothest performance.  (not impossible, but not presently in place)

 

It does work well for batch processing with no issue whatsoever.  I just had hoped for bare metal like video performance via RDP over wi-fi or wired gigabit for MS Office, Photoshop and video editing applications.

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Yeah, that would be an amazing feet, though.  That's the type of tech that would be super expensive and only available to enterprises due to the cost since it currently is such an unachievable feat at this time.  They're starting to get there, but I think it's all cloud clients, so no remote apps for local servers. 

 

I feel the wire pulling is definitely worth it.  Just make sure to test what you want to do on the actual wire you're going to use at the length you're going to be using!

 

The last thing you want to do is run that length of wire and then have it not work because it's just outside the length of acceptable levels.

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Then, I still have the following items not installed.  Which drivers are the right ones to get rid of the yellow error triangles?

 

5xeg3d1.png

Based on my attempts this weekend with WHS2011 VM the "PCI device" is under the "Balloon??" directory and the "PCI Simple Communications Controller" is under "vioserial??" directory.  My memory at work may have the names slightly off from actual but I think it will give you the clue you need to find them on the ISO correctly. 
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Thanks for tempering my expectations.  Yes it was from Win8.1

 

I guess my options are a wee bit of wire pulling before I get the smoothest performance.  (not impossible, but not presently in place)

 

It does work well for batch processing with no issue whatsoever.  I just had hoped for bare metal like video performance via RDP over wi-fi or wired gigabit for MS Office, Photoshop and video editing applications.

 

 

Seen this?  I'm showing rdp into a VM running win 8.1 on a system without vt-d or GPU assignment. I am watching video content in a browser over WiFi with audio and doing so from a Mac.

 

GPU pass through isn't required for a decent experience with applications, but I won't lie, no remote graphics solution will ever be equal to what you can do with a local monitor, but you can get pretty darn close and certainly usable.

 

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It is really usable for some things, but the mouse precision is lacking compared to a local bare metal Windows experience.  The easy way to see the worst of RDP is to play a game of Freecell.  Dragging cards around the screen is a laggy process, compared to a local bare metal Windows install.  I am creating win10 vm's using build 10074.  I have done 2, one on AMD 1055 Thuban, and one on Intel i5 2500k.  I upped the memory to 4gb and used an SSD on the Intel VM, but this doesn't seem to help RPD performance.  I used the Intel box for a baremetal Win10 install and RDP'ing into this is essentially the same as RDP'ing into an UnRaid Win10 VM. 

 

(Freecell was included in Win7 and earlier, but you have to install it on Win 8.  Win10 brings it back via the Microsoft Solitaire Collection Pack.  )

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It is really usable for some things, but the mouse precision is lacking compared to a local bare metal Windows experience.  The easy way to see the worst of RDP is to play a game of Freecell.  Dragging cards around the screen is a laggy process, compared to a local bare metal Windows install.  I am creating win10 vm's using build 10074.  I have done 2, one on AMD 1055 Thuban, and one on Intel i5 2500k.  I upped the memory to 4gb and used an SSD on the Intel VM, but this doesn't seem to help RPD performance.  I used the Intel box for a baremetal Win10 install and RDP'ing into this is essentially the same as RDP'ing into an UnRaid Win10 VM. 

 

(Freecell was included in Win7 and earlier, but you have to install it on Win 8.  Win10 brings it back via the Microsoft Solitaire Collection Pack.  )

 

I will say this, when it comes to anything requiring precision mouse movement (drawing content / playing games), RDP is not going to be nearly as good as a local desktop.  That said, for most other applications, it's fine.

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