Dearest Casey DeLorme,
Thank you very very much for your kind feedback
and input. I would also like to thank Mr. Tobias
Geiger, again, for providing his suggestion on
exposing the fourth memory region in
tools/firmware/hvmloader/acpi/dsdt.asl.
In any
case, either exposing the first 3 memory regions
only or exposing all the 4 memory regions does
not work. Sadly, Tobias Geiger is unable to
help me further.
I have asked Jean David Techer, what about the 4th
PCI memory region? Why only expose the first 3 PCI
memory regions? I don't understand, of course.
Jean David Techer did not reply to my question.
I have decided to post your prompt reply to the
xen-users and xen-devel mailing lists, in case
people think that I am finding fault with Jean
David Techer, or trying to irritate him, or trying
to make him angry, or trying to aggravate him.
Jean David Techer replied me with an email saying
that I
spent too much time and
too
bent on solving the yellow exclamation mark
glitch for my NVIDIA Geforce 8400GS in Device
Manager in Windows 8 Consumer Preview and Windows
XP Home Edition, and that I sent
stupid
requests. Stupid requests? Did he read my emails
carefully, word by word?
Casey DeLorme, please, can I confirm with you
again that you are getting the following errors
after applying Jean David Techer's Xen
4.2-unstable VGA Passthrough patches:
(1) Yellow exclamation mark besides your
NVIDIA GTX 460 in Device Manager
(2) Windows has stopped this device because it
has reported problems. (Code 43)
(3) This device isn't using any resources
because it has a problem.
Jean David Techer insists that our technical
issues are due to a NVIDIA driver problem. He
insists that you have to install NVIDIA driver
versions 275.33 WHQL and 275.50 BETA. Any other
NVIDIA driver versions (above 280.XX) will not
work, according to Jean David Techer.
However,
I have tried installing NVIDIA driver versions
275.33 and 275.50 from www.softpedia.com, as he
suggested, but it caused my Windows XP Home
Edition HVM virtual machine to be
destroyed/terminated/crash after a few minutes
and my dom0 to crash as well. NVIDIA
driver versions 275.33 and 275.50 for Windows XP
32-bit is not available from the official NVIDIA
website.
So it is definitely not a NVIDIA driver problem. I
suspect that the technical issue has to do with
MMIO
BARs pBAR:vBAR 1:1 matching. I don't
think there is any problem with vgabios-pt.bin
extracted out from our NVIDIA VGA cards, because I
have performed a "hexdump -C" on my extracted VGA
BIOS EEPROM, or Electrically Erasable Programmable
Read Only Memory.
Secondly, it does seem strange that Jean David
Techer was able to attain
100%, ie.
perfect success with Xen
4.2-unstable VGA Passthrough to his Windows XP
32-bit and 64-bit HVM domU. Have you watched his
Youtube video? It is only 4 minutes. Please do
watch Jean David Techer's Youtube video at the
following URL:
Jean David Techer's Xen 4.2-unstable VGA
Passthrough to Windows XP x64 HVM domU Youtube
video link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SaYO0ERW44
I am
appalled and
baffled
that he has attained
100% success
while both of us have only attained
partial
success (
i.e. less than
100%) on Xen 4.2-unstable VGA
Passthrough to Windows 8 Consumer Preview and
Windows XP.
Solving the yellow exclamation mark issue is
important because we would not be able to run
3D graphics benchmarks and play 3D games
without solving it. I am not sending silly
emails about some yellow marks, as Jean David
Techer suggested. I can't even run Unigine
Heaven DX11, and 3dmark11 3D display
benchmarks, because of the yellow exclamation
mark for NVIDIA Geforce 8400 GS in Device
Manager.
Casey DeLorme, with your report on relatively easy
success with ATI VGA cards, I think I would go the
ATI way, but I would have to spend a few hundred
dollars compared to my cheap SGD$44 NVIDIA Geforce
8400 GS card. And while deciding to go the ATI
way, I would also like to continue troubleshooting
with the NVIDIA problem, because I consider it to
be a technical challenge.
In essence, Jean David Techner is considered to be
a "boss", or business owner, or proprietor, or
technopreneur, or entrepreneur, or technical
support officer, or customer support officer, or
IT helpdesk engineer, providing services like his
forward-ported Xen 4.2-unstable VGA Passthrough
patches and the documentation on his blog. I
repost Jean David Techer's official website here:
Jean David Techer's Xen 4.2-unstable VGA
Passthrough blog:
http://www.davidgis.fr/blog/index.php?2011/12/07/860-xen-42unstable-patches-for-vga-pass-through
Jean David Techer's official website is his
business venture.
Basically, I am Jean David Techer's
"customer",
trying to obtain technical support from him. Of
course, he is
not obliged to
provide technical support to me since he is
providing
free services. It is,
after all, an open source software project. Nobody
is obliged to provide anybody with technical
support.
To do Jean David Techer justice,
he replied most of my questions while avoiding
some of my questions.
Finally, I have also failed to obtain technical
support from Xen developers like Ian Campbell from
Citrix Corporation and
Konrad Wilk from
Oracle Corporation.
I have always provided all the steps which I
have taken, the configuration files and
necessary documentation, and kernel messages
and error logs to xen-users and
xen-devel mailing lists, but they keep insisting I
did not provide the information they required. I
wondered why. I think they did not read my emails
carefully. They told me they would not reply to me
any more if I do not provide the information they
requested.
But the problem is that I have
always provided information they requested!
I think they missed some of my emails, or did not
read my emails carefully enough. I am an
ardent
supporter and
SERIOUS software
tester for open source Xen
virtualization/hypervisor but they treated me
lightly.
I always read my emails WORD BY
WORD. I have even went to the point of
making a video on the
BUG and
uploading my video to Youtube. The video is only
THREE minutes.
As everybody says, a picture is worth a
thousand words. A video is worth a BILLION
words!
I have also failed to obtain technical support
from Xen developers regarding Xen 4.2-unstable VGA
Passthrough.
I am hoping Xen 4.2 would have official support
for Xen VGA Passthrough for both NVIDIA and ATI
cards.
Casey DeLorme, thank you very much once again. I
will be making changes to my Xen, Linux Kernel and
Xen VGA Passthrough Documentation and will be
releasing Version 1.7 shortly. Jean David Techer's
documentation assumes some level of advanced Linux
technical knowledge, so I am writing documentation
on my own so that everybody, not just advanced
Linux and Xen users, can follow. I have made
references to Jean David Techer's documentation in
my own documentation.
I would be very happy if people would use my
documentation. Of course, it satisfies my ego and
my vanity. Haha.
I have been un-employed for nearly three years
now, and I would hesitate to spend a few hundred
dollars on an ATI VGA card. I quit my job as an IT
engineer 3 years ago because my father suffered
from lacunar infarct, or more commonly known as
stroke. My NVIDIA Geforce 8400 GS costs only S$44.
Please understand why I hesitate to buy an ATI VGA
card. The cheapest one costs SGD$279.
I have a diploma in Mechanical+Electronics
engineering from Singapore Polytechnic and a
Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from
the National University of Singapore. But I do not
have qualifications in Computer Science or
Information Technology. I have worked as an
Information Technology engineer in Defense Science
and Technology Agency, Ministry of Defense,
Singapore, National Computer Systems Pte Ltd,
Asiasoft Online Pte Ltd, and Ishinemax Singapore
Pte Ltd.
Google search terms: Frenchman Jean David Techer,
Singaporean Teo En Ming's Xen, Linux Kernel and
Xen VGA Passthrough Documentation, Xen
4.2-unstable VGA Passthrough to Windows 8 Consumer
Preview and Windows XP HVM Virtual Machines
Thank you very much for reading my lengthy email.
I am always courteous, saying "Please help me.
Please. Please. Please." and "Thank you very much
for your kind assistance" in my emails.
Thank you very much.
