Win Client on Debian Host with VGA passthrough: can it be?

[mcon]

Hi,
I would like to have a win7 VM on my Debian Linux enjoing full VGA passthrough (for gaming), is this possible with current VirtualBox?

My HW (relevent) is:
CPU: Intel i7-4770
MoBo: Asus Z87
VGA: Intel HD Graphics 4600 (integrated) + NVidia GeForce GTX 770 (to be passed to client)
RAM: 16GB

Main (host) system is a fairly up-to-date Debian Wheezy (I have no problems moving to "testing" or even "unstable" Sid)
I would like to setup a Win7 VM "owning" the NVidia card (I already have dual monitor) to fully esploit its speed for games.
Target would be to avoid rebooting when I want to play.

Is this supported?
I'm not a "faint of heart", but I don't want to take a barred road.
From my searches it's unclear current status of this "experimental" feature.

Any comment welcome
Mauro

[Perryg]

Read the following from the manual http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch09.h ... assthrough

Then ask yourself if removing the graphics adapter from the host will cause you any issues, like not being able to see anything?

[mcon]

Uhm...
It's unclear to me if You're trying to be sarcastic...

However:

• I read that part of the manual and it *seems* to indicate there may be problems with VGA passthrough due to its complexity, that's why I asked for conclusive evidence.
• As said I have two video cards and two monitors. I expect to have my integrated intel HD4600 to remain stable on host, while I am perfectly happy to have my GTX770 "owned" by a Win7 VM.
• Perhaps I should move to KVM? (see: debian wiki: VGAPassthrough; I can't post URLs)

[Perryg]

Not even trying to be sarcastic just pointing out issues. The only way you will ever know if it works or not is to try it. Even on KVM.
99.9% of the people that have tried it failed AFAIKT. The big trick will be getting it to boot and then installing drivers, assuming that your processor has VT-d support and you compile the Linux kernel to make IOMMU available.

[mcon]

I am recompiling kernel now.
I will give VirtualBox a try before going to check KVM where reported rate of success is slightly higher
I will report here success/failure.
In case of success I will try to detail what I did to get there for other adventurers.