GPU virtualization (virtio-gpu, virGL, sr-iov, MxGPU, VDI, spice)


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Hi,

 

The issue:

 

At the moment, there is two way to use a 3D application in a VM with unRAID. First way is to passtrough a GPU to it. While this solution is nice and work well if you have only 1 or 2 VM's that need GPU acceleration, it's not ideal when you need multiples accelerated VM's. The second way is to use the intel GVT capabilities, however, the UPT is not super well implemented yet and the graphical power of those IGD are not that great.

 

The solution:

 

It would be nice if you could include GPU virtualisation (vGPU) solution, there is more than one solution to achieve this, but I think virtio-gpu and virGL is our best shoot. There is also MxGPU with the AMD GIM driver or Nvidia GRID but it require expensive gpu card to work. 

 

If virtio-gpu is implemented, it would be nice to see spice implemented as well since its more efficient than a VNC.

 

Also I might dreaming here, but if there was a way to use one GPU to display more than one VM desktop. Example, if there 3 hdmi output on the card, display the desktop on the VM 1 on the HDM1 and the VM 2 on the HDMI2 and so on. 

 

Some interestings links :

 

https://www.spice-space.org/spice-user-manual.html 

https://www.kraxel.org/blog/2016/09/using-virtio-gpu-with-libvirt-and-spice/

https://www.kraxel.org/slides/qemu-gfx-2016/

 

Regards, Mathieu

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Better VM Graphics needs to be a priority, i have gone through 4 different computers and 3 different graphic cards all with mixed mostly failed results, and the videos by Spaceinvader and others are out of date and in those videos issues are pointed out that should have been addressed by now, and i have not found a updated list of supported tested hardware ether, the wiki by unraid is very out of date.

 

Unraid is looking less and less of a option for me unless the whole VM issues get fixed/updated

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5 hours ago, mark seaton said:

Better VM Graphics needs to be a priority, i have gone through 4 different computers and 3 different graphic cards all with mixed mostly failed results, and the videos by Spaceinvader and others are out of date and in those videos issues are pointed out that should have been addressed by now, and i have not found a updated list of supported tested hardware ether, the wiki by unraid is very out of date.

 

Unraid is looking less and less of a option for me unless the whole VM issues get fixed/updated

This feature request has nothing to do with your problem. Based on your previous post, it's GPU pass-through, which isn't GPU virtualisation.

 

Also, SIO tutorials with regards to pass through are very certainly NOT outdated.

 

While I understand your plight of not being able to get PCIe pass-through to work, I don't think you appreciate the danger of having a "list of supported hardware" when it comes to PCIe pass-through.

There are nuances that would be impossible to put in a generic list. For example (just to name some that I know of),

  • Some cards work but only if it isn't initialised at boot
    • Some motherboards don't allow you to change primary display
    • Some motherboards disable onboard graphics if dedicated card is installed
    • Some motherboards (BIOS) + CPU combo just downright don't cooperate with passthrough
    • UEFI boot may or may not initialise display
  • Motherboard BIOS e.g. different BIOS for different vendors may or may not work and there's no way to know in advance without someone actually testing it out
  • Some cards work with quirks if already initialised at boot e.g. reset issue
    • There are workarounds for reset issue but may or may not work
  • Some cards work with special kernel patch e.g. Vega
    • Kernel patch would break other working cards so can't be released with general Unraid release
  • Dumping vbios
    • User cannot dump own vbios and download wrong vbios from TechPowerup
    • Dump vbios incorrectly
  • New hardware / technology / kernel version breaking existing working hardware (or making previously-not-working-hardware work)
    • Plenty of examples with Ryzen BIOS updates
    • Threadripper "dirty patch", PCIe root port patch etc.
    • 10th-gen iGPU can't be passed through but 8th-gen is ok

So having a "list of supported hardware" would put the burden and responsibility on LT to provide support for things that would be virtually impossible to support without being physically at the site. A lot to ask for a small team with such cheap product (if you know how much Microsoft and the like charge for that kind of support).

 

 

Edited by testdasi
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This is really needed moving forward, Been a unraid fan for years back before Linus showed everyone the 2 gamers 1 cpu setup. Unfortunately many more application I'm running need gpu access and I don't need 2-8 gaming VMs I just need multiple VMs with GPU assist and compute help. Without making the change I'd have to have dedicated graphics for each, which is over kill. Hyper-v GPU-P is even looking like a solution at this point, but can't run unraid nested on it due to USB issues, so might just have to slowly start moving to proxmox and nest unraid if I decide to keep it. Love ya, but when needs are not being met relationships end :(
PS Spent better part of 20 hours trying to work around to keep unraid with nested esxi or hyper-v but the shared gpu needs to be at host level and nested just doesn't work from what I've tried. Gonna give it some time as I've slowly been plinking away at the proxmox vgpu hack on unraid.... requires a lot more, but still only at the compile drivers part and I'm no expert.
note for anyone trying the vgpu github has a 'merged' version of the hack for kernel 5.10 and up

 

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