Sweet, it works Thanks.

This is soooo good.  Thanks for putting this together.  I have an almost identical setup to you and have been using the built-in LT templates without HD audio passthrough up until this.

 

Now, I have 4 of these running with the GT720s and full HD audio passthrough and IR control, all tied to a centralized MySQL DB on a separate Debian VM.  It's awesome when it all comes together.

Is it possible to store the userdata outside of the img, similar to the unRAID template? if so, would it be possible to run OpenELEC in a ramdisk with the userdata stored on a disk?

 

Not sure if there would be any benefit to this, and I have no real knowledge of ramdisk, but I have plenty of ram and trying to find ways to use it

 

Is it possible to store the userdata outside of the img, similar to the unRAID template? if so, would it be possible to run OpenELEC in a ramdisk with the userdata stored on a disk?

 

Not sure if there would be any benefit to this, and I have no real knowledge of ramdisk, but I have plenty of ram and trying to find ways to use it

 

I actually just enabled SSH from inside OE and copied my user data files in that way.

 

Is it possible to store the userdata outside of the img, similar to the unRAID template? if so, would it be possible to run OpenELEC in a ramdisk with the userdata stored on a disk?

 

Not sure if there would be any benefit to this, and I have no real knowledge of ramdisk, but I have plenty of ram and trying to find ways to use it

 

I actually just enabled SSH from inside OE and copied my user data files in that way.

 

You guys do know that OE shares out its relevant folders via SMB (i.e. \\htpcplayrm in my case), right?

 

 

John

 

 

so, I finally finished doing it.  installed windows 10 with kodi, win10 native AMD drivers give me perfect passthrough and HD audio bitstreaming in a VM.  so yes, as we know, the linux AMD drivers suck and until they are fixed, used the Nvidia 720.

 

or wait for the noted above news for maybe a real fix from AMD, but who knows when that will be.

 

Either way I am going to stick with nvidia cards.  The one other HUGE advantage I am seeing (maybe just specific to me) is that I can force shutdown a VM with an nvidia card and start it up again without issue.  With the AMD cards this always caused a kernel panic in the VM and the only way to fix was to restart the server.  All 3 of my HD6450's (3 different vendors) exhibited this behavior.

 

Every time i stop my openelec vm i i can not get it to work again unless i reboot the Unraid machine  i am on a nvidia 430 how can i tell if the VM has a kernel panic?

so, I finally finished doing it.  installed windows 10 with kodi, win10 native AMD drivers give me perfect passthrough and HD audio bitstreaming in a VM.  so yes, as we know, the linux AMD drivers suck and until they are fixed, used the Nvidia 720.

 

or wait for the noted above news for maybe a real fix from AMD, but who knows when that will be.

 

Either way I am going to stick with nvidia cards.  The one other HUGE advantage I am seeing (maybe just specific to me) is that I can force shutdown a VM with an nvidia card and start it up again without issue.  With the AMD cards this always caused a kernel panic in the VM and the only way to fix was to restart the server.  All 3 of my HD6450's (3 different vendors) exhibited this behavior.

 

Every time i stop my openelec vm i i can not get it to work again unless i reboot the Unraid machine  i am on a nvidia 430 how can i tell if the VM has a kernel panic?

 

I would see it on my TV during the boot process.  So, output was making it to the display but eventually paniced.

 

John

so, I finally finished doing it.  installed windows 10 with kodi, win10 native AMD drivers give me perfect passthrough and HD audio bitstreaming in a VM.  so yes, as we know, the linux AMD drivers suck and until they are fixed, used the Nvidia 720.

 

or wait for the noted above news for maybe a real fix from AMD, but who knows when that will be.

 

Either way I am going to stick with nvidia cards.  The one other HUGE advantage I am seeing (maybe just specific to me) is that I can force shutdown a VM with an nvidia card and start it up again without issue.  With the AMD cards this always caused a kernel panic in the VM and the only way to fix was to restart the server.  All 3 of my HD6450's (3 different vendors) exhibited this behavior.

 

Every time i stop my openelec vm i i can not get it to work again unless i reboot the Unraid machine  i am on a nvidia 430 how can i tell if the VM has a kernel panic?

 

I would see it on my TV during the boot process.  So, output was making it to the display but eventually paniced.

 

John

 

hmm i will check though i am 100% sure i just get a black screen i really hope this gets fixed so i can change VM's without having to reboot the Unraid machine

like i run Pfsesne and that uses VNC works fine when it reboots

Hey JohnOdon,

 

You said you allocated a single core to each of your VMs, with 1GB of RAM. Did you make any configurations to the buffer, or anything else in AdvancedSettings? Or, when you split up a physical core by assigning one core to a VM - where did the other one go?  I thought it didnt really matter how you split up physical cores.

 

When I enable DTS-HD or TRUE-HD passthrough, I get random CPU spikes during playback.  Sometimes playback settles in around 25%, but then it goes on these long runs of 60,70,80% or higher.  I get occasional frame skips - maybe 200-300 for a full movie run when the CPU spikes up to 100%.

 

If I enable 2-cores, they each settle in around 25%, and can spike as high as 50%.  No skips or drops - its nice and clean.

 

We have the same board, same chips, and same video cards. I'm streaming my m2ts files off a NAS.

Hey JohnOdon,

 

You said you allocated a single core to each of your VMs, with 1GB of RAM. Did you make any configurations to the buffer, or anything else in AdvancedSettings? Or, when you split up a physical core by assigning one core to a VM - where did the other one go?  I thought it didnt really matter how you split up physical cores.

 

When I enable DTS-HD or TRUE-HD passthrough, I get random CPU spikes during playback.  Sometimes playback settles in around 25%, but then it goes on these long runs of 60,70,80% or higher.  I get occasional frame skips - maybe 200-300 for a full movie run when the CPU spikes up to 100%.

 

If I enable 2-cores, they each settle in around 25%, and can spike as high as 50%.  No skips or drops - its nice and clean.

 

We have the same board, same chips, and same video cards. I'm streaming my m2ts files off a NAS.

 

I assigned 1 core / 1 GB just as proof of concept.  I finally settled on 2 cores / 2 GB for each VM since I have plenty of headroom.

 

So, OE1 has cores 15/16 pinned.

OE2 has cores 13/14 pinned.

OE3 has cores 11/12 pinned.

 

I have not done anything special in advancedsettings or any extra config.

 

I haven't experienced any CPU spikes when watching movies on my VM for the home theater which as an amp.  All of my media is MKVs.

 

John

I tried to set this up on a new gpu using OVMF and am stuck at the shell screen. When I try the fs0:, it says its not found. Suggestions?

Hey JohnOdon,

 

You said you allocated a single core to each of your VMs, with 1GB of RAM. Did you make any configurations to the buffer, or anything else in AdvancedSettings? Or, when you split up a physical core by assigning one core to a VM - where did the other one go?  I thought it didnt really matter how you split up physical cores.

 

When I enable DTS-HD or TRUE-HD passthrough, I get random CPU spikes during playback.  Sometimes playback settles in around 25%, but then it goes on these long runs of 60,70,80% or higher.  I get occasional frame skips - maybe 200-300 for a full movie run when the CPU spikes up to 100%.

 

If I enable 2-cores, they each settle in around 25%, and can spike as high as 50%.  No skips or drops - its nice and clean.

 

We have the same board, same chips, and same video cards. I'm streaming my m2ts files off a NAS.

 

I assigned 1 core / 1 GB just as proof of concept.  I finally settled on 2 cores / 2 GB for each VM since I have plenty of headroom.

 

So, OE1 has cores 15/16 pinned.

OE2 has cores 13/14 pinned.

OE3 has cores 11/12 pinned.

 

I have not done anything special in advancedsettings or any extra config.

 

I haven't experienced any CPU spikes when watching movies on my VM for the home theater which as an amp.  All of my media is MKVs.

 

John

 

Perfect, thank you.  It looks like I had all of my cores assigned and running on several test VMs, so I had all my resources completely maxed out.  Now that I freed those up, those spikes are gone.  Just basic VM management. 

 

It looks like one core is plenty for basic playback and the stock skin.  I found that if I started using some of the more advanced skins with all the extra plugins, 2-cores makes the interface a little snappier.

 

 

Hi,

 

I'm about to set up my very first VM using OE.

 

I just purchased a Geforce GT720 for video passthrough but will not be able to use HDMI audio at the moment because I use a soundbar which only has one optical input left.

So my question is, can I assign onboard audio to my VM so that I will be able to passthrough audio over spdif and video over the gt720?

 

Hope someone can clear me up here.

Analog audio worked for me did not try others. Does it show up in the audio drop-down ?

sounds good.

graphics card not installed yet. Right now I can choose between

-Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3/4th Gen Core Processor HD Audio Controller

-Intel 9 Series Chipset Family HD Audio Controller

 

which one do I have to choose here? 

The Intel 9 did give me audio over the regular audio jack (green color I think).

Okay I'll give this a try the next days. Thank you.

 

Another question. Yesterday I installed OE the way it is described in this thread via VNC.

After installation I made the primary image my first boot disk by changing the xml file.

But when I boot my OE VM the welcome screen won't show up via VNC.

I can only see the OE boot dialogues stating that everything is ready to use.

 

Is this the normal behavior without having a GPU passed through yet?

Because I thought I would be able to configure Kodi that way before installing my graphics card.

 

Sorry for the noob question. I'm still new to this

Okay I'll give this a try the next days. Thank you.

 

Another question. Yesterday I installed OE the way it is described in this thread via VNC.

After installation I made the primary image my first boot disk by changing the xml file.

But when I boot my OE VM the welcome screen won't show up via VNC.

I can only see the OE boot dialogues stating that everything is ready to use.

 

Is this the normal behavior without having a GPU passed through yet?

Because I thought I would be able to configure Kodi that way before installing my graphics card.

 

Sorry for the noob question. I'm still new to this

 

I get the same, the Xorg (graphics?) service doesn't start correctly if you don't have a graphics card passed through.

OE requires GPU hardware acceleration (I think).

 

John

Hi,

 

I finally put in my new GT720 and tried starting the VM (after adjusting everything as described in the first post)

Unfortunately my screen just stays black and does not seem to get a signal.

 

What I get from the logs is just this:

2016-04-09 10:15:42.478+0000: starting up libvirt version: 1.2.18, qemu version: 2.3.0

Domain id=6 is tainted: high-privileges

Domain id=6 is tainted: custom-argv

Domain id=6 is tainted: host-cpu

char device redirected to /dev/pts/0 (label charserial0)

 

The unRAID system information tab says both HVM and IOMMU enabled.

Is there anything I may have forgotten? Did someone else experienced this issue?

 

 

 

update: I got it!

Don't really know what did it but I updated the BIOS and changed the primary monitor in the BIOS from auto (pcie used when graphics card installed) to cpu.

johnodon, thanks for the updated instructions (yea it's been a few months since i checked in)...  i used these to install the openelec 7 latest beta and I didn't have a single issue while playing back full dts-hd audio...

 

unreal...

 

finally get to use my unraid box to it's fullest.

 

Thanks!

I have periodic audio dropouts when bitstreaming lossless HD audio codecs using the LT built-in OE image. I want to try using the method described in this thread to use the latest OE beta release. The only thing I'd like to clarify is whether any of the instructions in the first post change now that virtio support is included in the latest OE releases?

 

Also, not sure what I'm missing here, but when I try to create a custom VM all I get is a space to copy and paste a custom XML configuration file. It looks nothing like the VM configuration screen shown in post #1.

 

Thanks!

i tried and tried to get it working without swapping virtio to sata and e1000 while using the 7 beta, no dice.

 

So I simply did it the way he shows it in his post instead; worked like a champ and no audio dropouts...  I can finally stop using my stand alone Openelec box; happy dance.

Just an FYI, I am running Libreelec with the virtio drivers. You still need the sata and e1000 mods for the installer, but after adding the GPU it should just work.

Thanks, I am going to try and install Plex Media Player (which is based on OE) using this method. Much appreciated!

 

I am going to try the same.  I only ever tried PXE booting the PMP IMG file but that was throwing a stack error.  I'll try it this way to see if I get any further.

 

John

 

SUCCESS!  I am looking at the sign in screen right now.  I was able to link this to my PMS but I do not have a Plex Pass so I can;t go any further.  However, It should work just fine.

 

Total success here too with this. I passed through an HD5450 and I get full bitstreaming as well.