vGPU - which graphics card supported?
-
Hello guys, hello dear Olivier,
Huge thanks for all your work regarding XCP-ng. I recently started using it and deploying it in production. Open Source technology really helps SMBs in my part of the world (Transylvania, Romania). XCP-ng has been great so far.
Regarding the nVidia Grid K1/K2 cards, I believe there is a huge business opportunity here. I don't have all the information but here is my idea:
nVidia Gamestream technology (video codec, remote protocol) is a dream. It enables 4K 60 fps streaming at very low latency. Unfortunately it relies on nVidia GTX cards and is only doable with GPU passthrough. If the Grid cards would be able to emulate this kind of behavior, it would be a game changer for the VDI industry in my opinion. For this to work, I believe the VM and the OS on it would need to be able to use the GeForce experience software and "think" it's running a proper GeForce GTX card.
Maybe I'm greaming big here, but think of this:
There is a great opensource software called MoonLight. It is an opensource port of the proprietary nVidia GameStream protocol. It enables small single board computers like the Raspberry Pi to act as a high-end thin client. This is working today, but with single hardware passed-through GPUs of the GeForce GTX kind. If this could be done with the Grid cards, enabling multiple VMs to utilize GameStream as if they would have a GeForce card, this would mean a total disruption of the current VDI market. Grid cards are as cheap as $170-$200.Unfortunately there are some closed source software in the mix, the biggest question being the ability of the GameStream technology to work with Grid cards. nVidia has it's own game streaming cloud solution and I am almost certain they are using Grid cards with their GameStream tech. The only question is how can it be done.
Citrix HDX is pretty expensive, vmWare Horizon with it's own high-end graphics protocol is also expensive. If it would work with XCP-ng, the HighEnd workstation VM market would have a new player with a disruptive solution.
-
vGPU require drivers on xen , which will need to work with Nvidia. Unlikely you can get it work as an open source. If you can get passthrough working, I will be very happy.
-
We have a new expansion project underway. We currently use the FirePro 7150x2 with Xen 7.2 and are using XCP-ng latest in the new infrastructure build. I just wanted to check in and see if it's in the roadmap plans to support the MxGPU drivers as time goes on with XCP-ng? I did follow the github issue related to this and see activity happening, but wasn't sure if this was "best effort" type of support or planned?
In other-words, if we spend $$$ to continue building on FirePro MxGPU platform, are we eventually going to get stuck without ability to upgrade?
-
As long there is drivers provided by AMD, I think there's no problem to build them and include them into XCP-ng
Maybe the real question is more on AMD side of things.
-
Hello,
Has anyone managed to get XCP-ng 8.1 working with AMD S7150 MxGPU?
I got it working on 7.6 with the 1.05 AMD driver but 8.1 with the new 2.0 AMD driver doesn't give any virtual functions.
Does someone have a working setup with XCP-ng 8.1 + AMD S7150(x2) ? -
Citrix and AMD apparently haven't provided any updated MxGPU packages for 8.0/8.1, so it relies on us and on the community to do it. There's been work on this but no working result for now: https://github.com/xcp-ng/xcp/issues/200
open Build AMD MxGPU and package them #200
-
I tested with xcp-ng 8.1 with latest AMD Driver 2.0 (6/22/2020) and It works fine. But I don't know how can I see the temperature of AMD 7150 card
-
@darabontors said in vGPU - which graphics card supported?:
Has anyone managed to get XCP-ng 8.1 working with AMD S7150 MxGPU?
Yes. For me It works fine
-
That might be interesting info for @r1
-
@savage79 What is the AMD advised way of knowing temperature of the card on Linux machines?
-
Ok. So I did some extensive testing with the FirePro S7150x2 card. While SR-IOV works OK in XCP-ng 8.1 with the 2.0 AMD host drivers, unfortunately there is no codec engine (VCE) support in the VMs. So while there is nice accelerated graphics in the VM itself, it is not possible to use any modern high performance remoting protocol that uses hardware encoding. My use case would've needed Parsec to work, but unfortunately Parsec requires VCE engine that is available only via passthrough and not SR-IOV. I have confirmation about this from AMD so VCE is not available for MxGPU on the S7150x2. It might work for the newer cards but the Instinc cards for example are not available retail, just through other channels. So for my use case, the only solution appears to be Intel GVT-g. Anyone had any success with GVT-g Quicksync support in VMs?
-
I wonder why AMD isn't selling its more modern Pro cards on the market directly?
-
Same reason nVidia isn't selling them directly either. I guess it's business policy. For some reason they are holding on to GPU virtualization technology very tightly. I understand the nVidia GeForce Now concept and the fact that they don't want competitors for their cloud gaming service. Also, other big cloud providers are working on their own solutions. SR-IOV is available technology since many years now and it is open source. It is a simple and elegant solution for resource sharing. MxGPU works, so it can be done. Why not enable SR-IOV on lesser performance cards or Quadro cards? That would make competing with the big GRID cards impossible but give access to the technology for people who need it.
-
Is anyone using vGPU on the XCP-ng yet? If so i would like to know the setup.
Iam running 1xE1230v5 on SuperMicro Server (X11SSL-F). Only got one PCI-E 3.0 x8 free for use. Would mind its not worth to get it a try on this machine.
vGPU is very interesting at all and would be a huge part to take over other virtualization solutions.
-
Guys, would it be possible to use a Matrox G200EH as a vGPU? I see my vm using a basic microsoft video
-
@gustavoninetyone -- it's not on the supported hardware list, hence highly unlikely. See Olivier's response near the top of this category to see what GPUs are supported.
-=Tobias -
@gustavoninetyone It would also be very slow (or very, very slow) over virtualisation instances, even if added. As it utilises the AGP interface for connection, this interface is very slow. Especially when compared to PCIe graphics cards especially those from the PCIe versions 3.0 and above.
So there would likely be possibly dropped frames and/or other issues both graphical and technical.
It would also limit what can be done in virtual machines, on hosts with it. Though it would have its uses, just bear in mind the performance cost.
If your going to go low cost for VDI then the use of Radeon Pro cards can get hardware video acceleration. Additionally there's open source drivers, for this acceleration so missing parts can be developed by community and driver can be forked if necessary. This would occur through the pass through. Though Radeon Pros are for workstations, I don't know how well the hardware acceleration works on the equivalent data centre graphics cards.
-
@gustavoninetyone @ChuckNorrison @olivierlambert A graphics card suitable for vGPU is AMD Radeon Pro V340 this card supports both SR-IOV and also AMD MxGPU Technologies. These have extremely high performance, with suitability for virtualisation.
Other cards with the capabilities from AMD are designed for workstations primarily. The workstations based Radeon Pro W6000 Series has these technologies. It would enable the capability for vGPU as it can be used for VDI.
Edit: If you can get a hold of a card from NVIDIA or a card using a chip from this list (https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/data-center/graphics-cards-for-virtualization/) then you can also use it as a vGPU.
-
Note also that with NVIDIA, for their vGPUs you'll need licensing which is itself fairly expensive, requires a license manager VM, and takes a bit of learning to get up and running. There are different licenses depending on the feature sets you require (for example, Quadro support requires a vWS license). See: https://www.nvidia.com/content/dam/en-zz/Solutions/design-visualization/solutions/resources/documents1/Virtual-GPU-Packaging-and-Licensing-Guide.pdf
AMD currently has no licensing requirements. -
Guys, thanks a lot for the replies! Despite that, xcp-ng is a fantastic solution and has been helping me a lot since the last year!
