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Re: [Xen-users] Is there any ATI card, which works with VGA Passthrough and allows rebooting guest?


  • To: xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • From: Gordan Bobic <gordan@xxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 17:50:45 +0000
  • Delivery-date: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 17:51:11 +0000
  • List-id: Xen user discussion <xen-users.lists.xen.org>

On 2014-01-21 17:14, Adam Ryczkowski wrote:
On 21.01.2014 17:40, Gordan Bobic wrote:
On 2014-01-21 16:23, Adam Ryczkowski wrote:
I'm planning to build a system that allows gaming on domU with
VGA-passthrough.

 Are there any graphics cards besides few expensive NVidia Quadro
models, that are fully compatible with Xen VGA-passthrough, including
rebooting the virtual guest?

 I'd very much prefer to use ATI family then NVidia, with price <=
$500.
Depends on the performance level you required. IIRC I had
marginally better luck with the HD6450/7450 card than higher
spec ones, presumably because it doesn't take auxiliary
power so putting it to sleep by removing PCIe power
works on it.
Dear Gordan,

thank you very much for an answer.

Do you mean, that you are actually able to reboot the guest as many
times, as you want, without any issues?

I only tried a couple of times, I was never going to use
that card longer term, so it could have just been luck. But
having said that I have _never_ managed to reboot the same
VM with a 7970 card without issues.

If you want to go faster and aren't afraid of a little
bit of soldering, get a non-Gainward GTX680 and remove
one resistor to make it into half of a Tesla K10, which
also works well for VGA passthrough purposes (yes, I
also use those).


Do you have, by any chance, a link to the photograph describing which
resistor to remove? As I understand, the "solution" depends on the
motherboard manufacturer...

You need to remove resistor 3 as per the photos attached to this
post on EEVBLOG:
http://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/hacking-nvidia-cards-into-their-professional-counterparts/msg207550/#msg207550

That will turn it into a Tesla K10. Note that my experience
shows that Gainward cards (both my Gainward 680 Phantom and
Gainward 690) have issues when modified - they work fine on
bare metal but when passed through to a VM they seem unable
to output dual-link DVI modes, or anything over DisplayPorts.
My MSI GTX680, OTOH, works just fine.

While there may be non-reference 680 cards that are different,
I have not seen any.

I've found tons of these on several forums, but they were about
modifying GTX 690 into Tesla K10, not GTX 680.

Read the eevblog forum thread I linked above end to end (yes,
I know there are 60 pages), all of the available knowledge
on Nvidia modding that I am aware of is either there or linked
to from there.

I also made an attempt to start moving the info to a wiki on
wikia, so by all means, if you get it working, please put the
info on the exact mod you did on gpumod.wikia.com.

Besides, many are
poorly explained, and I didn't make out precisely if the modification
really worked.

Read the eevblog thread. :)

BTW Why non-Gainwart?

See above - I have experienced odd issues such as being
limited to only SL-DVI modes in a VM (but not on bare metal)
when using Gainward cards, so best to avoid them.

Gordan

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