Re: [Xen-users] Please recommend a cheap ATI display adapter for Xen VGA Passthrough

[Gordan Bobic <gordan@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 07/31/2013 06:51 PM, Singapore Citizen Mr. Teo En Ming (Zhang Enming) 
wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Could you recommend a cheap ATI display adapter for Xen VGA Passthrough?
> It needs to be less than SGD$200.
>
> Please recommend an ATI graphics card from the following computer
> component price list:
>
> http://www.fuwell.com.sg/uploads/misc/Fuwell270713.pdf
Any particular reason why ATI? I've had much better luck with Nvidia 
cards. If you are on a budget, see if you can get a GTS450 ($60 or so on 
eBay) and doctor the BIOS to make it into a Quadro 2000. I have modified 
several this way and they work fine (no performance degradation after 
domU reboots). If you want to go this route instead of ATI, drop me an 
email off list and I'll point you in the direction of what you need to 
modify in the GeForce BIOS to make a GeForce 4xx into a Quadro. Or just 
get a real Quadro 2000 (~ $160 on eBay).
But if you are determined to go the ATI route, what are your actual 
requirements?
1) Cheap: HD6450 works fine (slow but they are available passively 
cooled if you want a quiet machine).
2) Fast: Several people, myself included got a HD7970 working. Any 
Radeon HD4xxx or later should work the same for purpose of VGA 
passthrough (see the list that people have used here:
http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_VGA_Passthrough_Tested_Adapters

Chose according to your budget.

3) I also got an older HD4850 working (advantage: single slot card, 
several times faster than HD6450, both DVI ports are dual link unlike on 
all later cards where one is single-link only).
Pretty much anything HD4xxx or later should work, with all the usual 
well documented issues (performance degradation with domU reboots).
Personally, I'm currently using GTX470 and GTX480 cards modified into 
Quadro 5000 and 6000 respectively quite successfully (gaming in VMs).
Gordan

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