How many vCPU's do you assign to your Gaming VM

[DragonZeal]

I've been testing and testing Unraid Gaming VM with the help of SpaceInvader One Youtube Videos which are fantastic.

But I've never been completely satisfied.

I tested this on 2 builds and there is always something that doesn't feel natural.

My 2 builds:

Xeon E5-1650v2 @4.5Ghz 32GB DDR3-1600 2x GTX 1080ti Asus Rampage IV Extreme

Dual Xeon E5-2690 64GB DDR3 ECC 2x GTX 1080ti Asus Z9PE-D8 WS

 

On the first build I'm limited to 6 Cores but higher frequency

On the second build I'm "limited" to 8 Cores per GTX.

 

Is it because I'm using Server grade CPU's that I'm having this unnatural feeling?

Anyone experiencing this also?

 

How many vCPU's do you assign for best performance in a Gaming VM?

And what do you use for sound?

[testdasi]

It's impossible to know what "unatural feeling" you are having without your description of it.

You could just be hungry and need a Snickers.

 

1st thing that stands out is that you seem to be assigning core 0 to your VM's (by your description of "limited to x cores"). That's a no-no for gaming VM because core 0 (and its hyperthreading sister) needs to be free for Unraid OS itself.

For best performance, you also need to isolate the cores used by the VM by using isolcpus.

In the case of dual CPU, the 1st core of each CPU should also be left free so that the CPU can talk to each other + you need to pay attention to NUMA nodes (e.g. which CPU is connected to which GPU + allocate RAM (from the same NUMA node i.e. connected to the same CPU) and cores correctly to the same VM.)

 

Most people use sound via HDMI from the GPU.

[DragonZeal]

1 hour ago, testdasi said:

It's impossible to know what "unatural feeling" you are having without your description of it.

You could just be hungry and need a Snickers.

 

1st thing that stands out is that you seem to be assigning core 0 to your VM's (by your description of "limited to x cores"). That's a no-no for gaming VM because core 0 (and its hyperthreading sister) needs to be free for Unraid OS itself.

For best performance, you also need to isolate the cores used by the VM by using isolcpus.

In the case of dual CPU, the 1st core of each CPU should also be left free so that the CPU can talk to each other + you need to pay attention to NUMA nodes (e.g. which CPU is connected to which GPU + allocate RAM (from the same NUMA node i.e. connected to the same CPU) and cores correctly to the same VM.)

 

Most people use sound via HDMI from the GPU.

I followed the guides from SpaceInvader One which do cover CPU pinning and NUMA nodes. 

Which I configured accordingly.

The only thing I'm wondering is how to make sure that the 2nd CPU is using the RAM in the same NUMA node. Is unRaid NUMA aware like SQL Server is?

 

The unnatural feeling is mostly the responsiveness and the audio quality.

I've most are using HDMI audio do they connect there Headset/Headphone to the monitor?

I have a USB Xonar U7 Soundcard connected on a USB Controller passed through and sometimes I hear these distortions even with the MSI interrupts.

[testdasi]

Pinning is not enough. You need to isolate.

 

But first emphasis: you should NOT pin and/or isolate core 0 (and its hypertreading sister).

 

Worrying about NUMA is going too far at the moment. You need to sort out the single-CPU case first.

Have you tried assigning only 5 cores to the VM, leaving core 0 free?

 

For USB sound, the best way is to pass through the whole controller.

Leaving core 0 free may mitigate the issue to some extent (because the emulated USB controller has some spare CPU power to process).

 

[DragonZeal]

Forgot to mention the isolation is also configured on 0 1 2 3

 

Which system should I use for 2 Gamers 1 PC?

Higher Core or higher Clock?