PCI-Passthrough for Graphics card

PCI-Passthrough for Graphics card

[Kai Meyer]

When I heard that kvm had pci-passthrough working for network cards, I 
thought I'd make an attempt to get my nVidia 8600GT video card to work 
in a Windows VM (thus satisfying my desire to quit dual booting, so I 
can play my stinking games.)

I'm having trouble interpreting my results so far. In windows, I get a 
Code 10 error, which if I read it correctly, means "There was an error, 
but I don't know what it is." To sum it up, nVidia has this to say:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_13957.html

With a fedora 10 i386 guest, any time a driver tries to touch the 
device, the cpu grinds, and the only thing that responds is moving the 
mouse around (and highlighting stuff.)

I'd like to contribute what I can, but I'll admit my programming is 
still at a pre-graduate level.

Thanks,
-Kai Meyer

Re: PCI-Passthrough for Graphics card

[Amit Shah]

* On Thursday 13 Nov 2008 00:46:55 Kai Meyer wrote:
> When I heard that kvm had pci-passthrough working for network cards, I
> thought I'd make an attempt to get my nVidia 8600GT video card to work
> in a Windows VM (thus satisfying my desire to quit dual booting, so I
> can play my stinking games.)
>
> I'm having trouble interpreting my results so far. In windows, I get a
> Code 10 error, which if I read it correctly, means "There was an error,
> but I don't know what it is." To sum it up, nVidia has this to say:
> http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_13957.html
>
> With a fedora 10 i386 guest, any time a driver tries to touch the
> device, the cpu grinds, and the only thing that responds is moving the
> mouse around (and highlighting stuff.)
>
> I'd like to contribute what I can, but I'll admit my programming is
> still at a pre-graduate level.

As I mentioned in my private email exchange, you'll have to look at the way 
the host BIOS is accessed by the drivers as well as the video BIOS.

There was talk of such support on Xen as well, you can search for that if 
they've already done it.

Amit.

Re: PCI-Passthrough for Graphics card

[Kai Meyer]

Amit Shah wrote:
> * On Thursday 13 Nov 2008 00:46:55 Kai Meyer wrote:
>> When I heard that kvm had pci-passthrough working for network cards, I
>> thought I'd make an attempt to get my nVidia 8600GT video card to work
>> in a Windows VM (thus satisfying my desire to quit dual booting, so I
>> can play my stinking games.)
>>
>> I'm having trouble interpreting my results so far. In windows, I get a
>> Code 10 error, which if I read it correctly, means "There was an error,
>> but I don't know what it is." To sum it up, nVidia has this to say:
>> http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_13957.html
>>
>> With a fedora 10 i386 guest, any time a driver tries to touch the
>> device, the cpu grinds, and the only thing that responds is moving the
>> mouse around (and highlighting stuff.)
>>
>> I'd like to contribute what I can, but I'll admit my programming is
>> still at a pre-graduate level.
> 
> As I mentioned in my private email exchange, you'll have to look at the way 
> the host BIOS is accessed by the drivers as well as the video BIOS.
> 
> There was talk of such support on Xen as well, you can search for that if 
> they've already done it.
> 
> Amit.
> --
I looked in to the Xen solution, and their method requires a driver on 
the back end (the host) and the front end (the guest) that support the 
pci pass-through function. So for a windows guest, it didn't work.

-Kai Meyer