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[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index] Re: [Xen-users] Primary VGA Passthrough Status
If you are after a low end card, you might as well just buy a genuine Quadro 2000. It's single-slot, powered from the slot (no auxiliary power required), should be ample for a HTPC, and will "just work". And they are cheap enough on ebay that it's not worth trying to cut a corner.On Tue, 8 Oct 2013 17:49:35 -0700, David Erickson <halcyon1981@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: David or Gordon have you tried this on lower end cards like a GT 640? (Maybe there isn't a Quadro even close to flash it to). These cards are major overkill for a non-gaming HTPC. Thanks! David On Tue, Oct 8, 2013 at 3:22 PM, David TECHER wrote: Gordan is right.In the past patches maintenance for NVIDIA was a real pain. That's thereason why I stopped to maintain those patches in February, 2013. 1) Soft-moding a GTX 480 to a Quadro 6000 aims at unlocking the expected feature on the card http://www.davidgis.fr/blog/index.php?2013/09/18/969-xen-430-vga-passthrough-gtx-480-soft-moded-to-quadro-6000 [2] I tested on two GTX 480 cards and it works very well. Just a bios to edit/update. Check the checksum and updates straps bits 2) Hard-moding a GTX 680 to a 1/2 GRID K2 works very well too. I tested it on a Gigabyte GV-N680OC-2GD...it works like a charm 3) Hard-moding a GTX 670 to a 1/2 GRID K2 works very well too. Itested it on the MSI N670GTX-PM2D2GD5/OC...it works like a charm (justa few resistors to remove) http://www.davidgis.fr/blog/index.php?2013/10/04/971-xen-430-vga-passthrough-gtx-670-msi-n670gtx-pm2d2gd5-successfully-hard-moded-to-grid-k2 [3] This card has a similar PCB than Asus card provided/tested on the eevblog forum http://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/hacking-nvidia-cards-into-their-professional-counterparts/msg217534/#msg217534 [4] ------------------------- DEÂ: David Erickson ÃÂ: Gordan Bobic CCÂ: "xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [7]" ENVOYà LE : Mardi 8 octobre 2013 20h56 OBJETÂ: Re: [Xen-users] Primary VGA Passthrough Status On Tue, Oct 8, 2013 at 9:43 AM, Gordan Bobic wrote: On Tue, 8 Oct 2013 09:20:51 -0700, David Erickson wrote: On Tue, Oct 8, 2013 at 5:42 AM, Gordan Bobic Âwrote: ÂOn Tue, 8 Oct 2013 00:04:33 -0700, David Erickson Âwrote:  On Mon, Oct 7, 2013 at 11:29 PM, Gordan Bobic Âwrote: ÂOn 10/07/2013 09:33 PM, David Erickson wrote:  Hi All- ÂÂIs it possible yet to pass through a ATI or Nvidia GPU as the primary ÂÂVGA card to a Win 7/8 VM, and have it fully functional there (DXVA Âetc), ÂÂWhy exactly do you need the card to be primary in domU? IME this Âdoesn't gain you anything other than being able to see the BIOS splash Âscreen and boot animation on the external monitor (which in itself Âisn't worth the extra effort). ÂPrimarily it is for htpc functionality like Blu-ray playback software Âand Digital Cablecard based playback using devices like a HDHR ÂPrime. I believe the code that tests for playready (or equivalent) Âcompatibility always looks at the primary video card and finds it Âtotally missing any of these features and refuses to play back Âproperly. I need to verify that having a passed through card as the Âprimary actually solves these issues, but I think it is a reasonable Âhunch (unless anyone else has already tried this and proved it wrong). ÂI never used it so cannot comment on it. David Techer maintains a Âpatch set for Nvidia cards that include primary passthrough support. ÂThe one in particular you will need is the one that gives the VBIOS Âloading supprot in domU. Between that and a GTX480 modified to a ÂQuadro 6000 (VBIOS editing required) you _might_ just be able Âto get it to work. I never tried primary passthrough since secondary Âpassthrough has always worked for all of my requirements.   without crashing the guest or the host during operation or when ÂÂresetting the guest? ÂÂIt works fine with Nvidia Quadro cards (real or modified GeForce), Âprovided your hardware works properly (e.g. no dodgy PCI bridges (such Âas Nvidia NF200) bypassing the IOMMU). The latter is, it turns out, Âquite rare - an awful lot of hardware seems to have IOMMU support Âbroken to some extent. ÂIs there something special in the bios/firmware that is enabled when Âconverting these to Quadros? ÂYou have to modify the strap bits. This can be done with a BIOS edit Âon cards up to GTX480, or with some soldering on a GTX680 (you will Âneed good eyes, steady hands, high quality soldering paste and some Âpro grade soldering kit (hot air or oven - you might be able to Âget away with a really tiny soldering tip, but bear in mind that Âyou will be looking at soldering both ends of a resistor that is 1mm Âlong, without shorting it out). If you want the easy option, go Âfor a GTX480 and BIOS mod it (or a GTX470 -> Quadro 5000 or a ÂGTS450 (make sure you get a 1GB GDDR5 one) -> Quadro 2000 I have Âused all of the above extensively without any issues). Thanks Gordon, I probably wasn't clear in my question, but when youconvert it from a standard Geforce => Quadro, what is changing at thecard level to make it more compatible with PCI Passthrough and Xen? GeForce drivers don't implement support for various quirks and side-effects of running in a VM. Quadro drivers do. You change the PCI ID of the card by modifying the straps. That makes the card get detected as a Quadro rather than a GeForce, and the Quadro driver deals with the quirkyness and side-effects of running in a VM (e.g. the fact that the physical BARs differ from the virtual BARs). The hardware between the GeForce and the Quadro is by and large the same. The reason for the modification is to convince the Quadro driver the card really is a Quadro and that you paid an extra pile of cash for the privilege of running it in VGA passthrough. Is it some feature of the new firmware that is being flashed to the card? No, it's a hack to facilitate the use a driver that can handle running in a VM. And do Geforce cards just absolutely not work at all prior to being converted to Quadros? GeForce cards absolutely do not work with VGA passthrough without modifications; at least not without an additional, unsupported patch set which doesn't work for recent cards (4xx cards work, not sure about the more recent ones), recent drivers (more recent than 275.xx), and recent OS-es (more recent than XP). And unless your time really is worthless, getting a GeForce 4xx series card and modifying it once with no other side effects is a lot lesseffort than maintaining your own build of Xen packages with the extrapatches, even if they do work for your specific use-case. ÂThanks that made it very clear, and I totally agree on the time point._______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [11] http://lists.xen.org/xen-users [12] Links: ------ [1] mailto:davidtecher@xxxxxxxx [2] http://www.davidgis.fr/blog/index.php?2013/09/18/969-xen-430-vga-passthrough-gtx-480-soft-moded-to-quadro-6000 [3] http://www.davidgis.fr/blog/index.php?2013/10/04/971-xen-430-vga-passthrough-gtx-670-msi-n670gtx-pm2d2gd5-successfully-hard-moded-to-grid-k2 [4] http://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/hacking-nvidia-cards-into-their-professional-counterparts/msg217534/#msg217534 [5] mailto:halcyon1981@xxxxxxxxx [6] mailto:gordan@xxxxxxxxxx [7] mailto:xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [8] mailto:xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [9] mailto:gordan@xxxxxxxxxx [10] mailto:halcyon1981@xxxxxxxxx [11] mailto:Xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [12] http://lists.xen.org/xen-users _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.xen.org/xen-users
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