Some questions about VGA passthrough

[jocelyn.falempe@free.fr]

Hi,

I'm trying get the following configuration working with Xen VGA passthrough (no more dual-boot for gaming !):

Core i7 3770 (with Vt-d)
ASRock z77 Pro4-M
Sapphire Radeon HD 7950

my goal is to have a Linux Dom0 using the intel HD 3000 gfx integrated in the CPU, connected to 1 display, and a Win7 DomU, using the Radeon 7950, connected to another display.

I installed Ubuntu 12.04, and xen 4.1.2 from the packages.

- Do I need VGA passthrough, or PCI passthrough might be enough in my case ? (Dom0 doesn't use the Radeon, and I saw some reports with 3D graphics with PCI passthrough).

- Do I need to extract the VGA Bios ? I think it is only required for NVIDA cards, but I didn't find a clear statement.

- Do I need to add vga passthrough patches ? which version to use for xen 4.1.2 ?

my xen is able to boot a HVM 64bit win8 consumer preview (but there are no driver for 7950, so I will go back to win7).

also I added this in grub :

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="quiet splash xen-pciback.permissive xen-pciback.hide=(01:00.0)(01:00.1) pci=resource_alignment=01:00.0;01:00.1"

~# xm pci-list-assignable-device
0000:01:00.0
0000:01:00.1

so normally I should be able to pass the graphic cards to the HVM.

Any help greatly appreciated,

Regards,

-- 

Joc