I am going to need 1 or 2 systems for showcasing VR tech, I have 2 HTC vives to connect.

I tried both on a single machine without virtualization but it won't work due to USB issues. (Asus Rampage V extreme motherboard)

 

For cost and mobility purposes I'd prefer using a single system with unraid, each system having a single 980ti for now (might upgrade to 1080's later).

Will it be enough to get a PCI-e 4 port USB 3.0 card to connect the vive to so I can switch that entire controller to the secondary virtual system?

I'm passing through an entire usb controller (inateck pcie usb3) to my VMs. It works great

Any recommendations for a brand or is it all the same?

Any recommendations for a brand or is it all the same?

 

They are definitely not the same.

 

Oculus recommends the Inateck one because of its "Fresco" controller: http://www.amazon.com/Inateck-Express-Connector-Controller-Internal/dp/B00FPIMJEW/

 

On some others, all usb ports will share the usb3 bandwidth, so if you plug multiple usb 3 devices, they can't get the full bandwidth.

 

If you're going to pass the whole usb card to VMs and you'll have two VMs, then you'll probably need 2 of these cards.

 

Or, I guess you can pass individual usb devices to VMs, then one might suffice for both VMs

It's going in a µ-ATX build with dual GPU's so only room for one extra pci-e card.

I suppose I can hook up one device to the motherboard and the other to the card?

The reason I'm going for unraid with 2 virtual machines on a single PC is that it seems impossible to run 2 vives since they share the same ID/vendor (and I was told adding a pci-e USB card to give completely to another virtual machine can circumvent that problem).

 

I'll get the card you advised, thanks! (and congrats on your 999th-1000th post )