VGA Passthrough Experience

VGA Passthrough Experience

[Jeff Mercer]

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This is my first time posting to the mailing list, so I hope I post
everything that is needed.  I built a new computer to play around with VGA
Passthrough and I got it working.  The wiki (
http://wiki.xen.org/wiki/Xen_VGA_Passthrough_Tested_Adapters) said post
details here.

The computer:

Motherboard: ASRock 890FX Deluxe5
CPU: AMD Phenom(tm) II X6 1090T Processor
Kernel: 3.0.6-gentoo (pvops)
Xen: 4.1.2
DomU Video Card:
Sapphire RADEON HD 6570 Graphics
07:00.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Device 6759
07:00.1 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc Device aa90
The ATI card is secondary to the computer (I have an Nvidia card for
linux).  The ATI was passed through as a primary to the DomU
I passed through both PCI Id's since I wanted audio through the HDMI out as
well.
Guest: Windows XP
Driver: Windows says the video is driver is 8.840.0.0 from 3/9/2011
Windows says the sound driver is 5.0.40001.9 from 7/13/2007

It was a bit of a pain to get working.  The Catalyst Drivers won't install
(it hangs at 'Checking for Hardware').  I tried the version on the cd
bundled with the card and the latest on AMD's website.  Neither would
work.  I decided to click 'Update Driver' in Device Manager and point it
down the expanded Catalyst path and it was able to find the driver and
install it.  That got video to go out of the HDMI but not audio.  The same
trick did not work with the audio device.  I ended up reverting to a
snapshot prior to installing any drivers.  I allowed Windows to connect to
the internet to find the audio drivers before even trying video.  Windows
was able to find something (know idea what) and sound started working.  I
then 'installed' the video drivers and both audio and video were working.
I was able to set the screen to 1920x1080.  The computer is hooked up to a
42" LCD TV in my living room.

I was able to install and play Spore and Star Wars: Empire at War.  Star
Wars: Battlefront 2 installed and started but I was not able to actually
play the game.  It would crash as soon as I started a game.  I have not
tried any other games yet, but I am planning to.  Let me know if you need
any other details or have any questions

-Jeff

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Re: VGA Passthrough Experience

[dmitzov]

Hi,
I am trying to run xen 4.1.1 on the same motherboard ( Asrock 890fx deluxe 5
bios v1.50) and gentoo 3.2.12 but the PC cannot but into xen. The machine
reboots immediately a short moment after starting to load Dom0. 
http://xen.1045712.n5.nabble.com/file/n5627103/xen_fail.jpg  Probably the
problem is in the Dom0 kernel itself. I can however boot this kernel without
xen.
I also noticed this error on the screen
(XEN) AMD-Vi: IOMMU not found!
I have certainly iommu enabled in the bios.
Did you encounter these problems? Could you send me more details of your
configuration?

Thanks,
Deyan

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Re: VGA Passthrough Experience

[dmitzov]

Solved! I finally realised that GRUB2 was my trouble from the very beginning
since I went for GPT disks. I converted the disk (luckily without having to
reinstall) to MBR and replaced grub2 with grub-legacy. All is working, IOMMU
recognized by xen too.

Deyan

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