How show to a GPU (host linux) in a VM (Windows)

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Deboh
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Joined: 26. Jan 2023, 12:52

How show to a GPU (host linux) in a VM (Windows)

Post by Deboh »

Hello,
I have a client with VBOx installed in Ubuntu. He has a VM (Windows) running specific software that needs a GPU.
They bought a GPU but the VM doesn't see the GPU.
How can he perform this?

I think the user must to buy "Oracle VBox Extension Pack" and then follow these steps:

- open vbox and select the vm to configure
- click on "Settings" and then "Display"
- Change Video Controller into VBoxVGA
- Click on "enable3D Acceleration"

Is it ok?
Thank you in advanced
mpack
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Re: How show to a GPU (host linux) in a VM (Windows)

Post by mpack »

Deboh wrote: They bought a GPU but the VM doesn't see the GPU.
Naturally. VMs have virtual hardware, they do not see the host's hardware.

Install the Guest Additions and enable 3D acceleration to give the VM better graphics performance.
Deboh
Posts: 3
Joined: 26. Jan 2023, 12:52

Re: How show to a GPU (host linux) in a VM (Windows)

Post by Deboh »

Hello,

Thank you for your reply.

Guest Additions are installed and 3D acceleration is enabled but the Windows VM still not using the GPU installed in the host.

More ideas?

Thank you in advanced.
mpack
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Re: How show to a GPU (host linux) in a VM (Windows)

Post by mpack »

mpack wrote:Naturally. VMs have virtual hardware, they do not see the host's hardware.
If you want the software to see the host hardware then you need to install the software on the host.
Deboh
Posts: 3
Joined: 26. Jan 2023, 12:52

Re: How show to a GPU (host linux) in a VM (Windows)

Post by Deboh »

Yes, but is not possible right now, we are finding a lot of problems because the software is not well tested for linux.
We are trying to find other solution while the issues are fixed.

We saw this https://docs.oracle.com/en/virtualizati ... rough.html but needs Extension Pack.
mpack
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Re: How show to a GPU (host linux) in a VM (Windows)

Post by mpack »

I don't know why Oracle are still hosting old documentation, but PCI passthrough is not what you need. First, it's PCI passthrough, not PCIe passthrough which a modern graphics card would need. Next, it redirected all I/O from a selected device to the VM. It did not allow sharing a device with the host. No graphics card is designed to be shared at a PCI level. So for graphics cards this feature was always useless, unless you were prepared to install a separate graphics card for every VM that needed the feature (and I'm not suggesting that it would have worked even then).

PCI passthrough was never very useful - it never grew from being an experimental feature on Linux hosts only, it rarely worked, so the feature was abandoned entirely several versions ago, around v6.0.0 I thought, although I see that the quoted docs are from that version. The feature is not mentioned in the 6.1.x docs.

I stand by what I said above. If all you want is improved graphics performance, install the Guest Additions. If you really need actual access to the host hardware then it can't be a VM. In fact this is practically the very definition of a VM. In the latter case your options would be dual booting, or a separate PC running Windows.
fth0
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Re: How show to a GPU (host linux) in a VM (Windows)

Post by fth0 »

FWIW, PCI passthrough was dropped in 6.1.0 (according to the Changelog).
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