NVIDIA Publishes Open-Source Linux Driver Code For GPU Virtualization "vGPU" Support

[qarium]

GPU SR-IOV is the holy grail everyone's waiting for
.. Sadly this news smells awfully like another feature for wealthy enterprise users

years ago i had a talk with bridgman and other people from AMD... about SR-IOV and they pointed out that this hardware feature does NOT do what people think it would do ...

even if your gaming GPU would have it it is not the feature you need to share 1 GPU between multible Virtual machines means you can not run windows 11 in a virtual machine on linux to play a game ,,,

years ago someone or even multible people did spread the disinformation that SR-IOV is the hardware feature who would allow you to do share 1 hardware GPU between multible virtual machines to run whatever game you want...

believe it or not to do so you do not need a hardware feature like SR-IOV at all you can all do it in software Vulkan/SPIR-V just like QEMU VirtIO-GPU means "VirGL is an OpenGL driver for VirtIO-GPU" and "Venus is an Vulkan driver for VirtIO-GPU,"

intel also spread the disinformation that you need SR-IOV and they put SR-IOV into the gpus to make you able to share 1 gpu with many virtual machines but if you look closer most of the parts that make this run is software not a hardware feature.

that you need SR-IOV to share 1GPU with many virtual machines is clearly disinformation.

[qarium]

I was kind of under the illusion Intel is actually ahead of AMD on sriov in their GPUs.

yes intel is ahead in put SR-IOV into the GPU on consumer cards but it is disinformation that you need this hardware feature to share 1 GPU with many virtual machines.

[qarium]

To all the people complaining about the consumer side, is there any demand for this among regular Joe consumers?
Or are you all under the illusion that the large corporate clients would switch to using consumer cards if only NVIDIA wasn't so evil and greedy?

there is a large demand for just running windows 11 in a virtual machine on linux and run games in it who are incompatible with running the same game in Proton natively on linux.

and you really foolishly believe that nvidia does not want market segmentation to make more money to makje sure large corporate clients can not use cheap consumer cards instead of the most expensive server and workstation cards ? man you are a fool...

one solution could be to limit it to only 2 instances ... the server and workstation people of course want to run 32 instances and not only 1-2

[qarium]

It is strange that nobody mentions it and it seems to be something that few people know about.
AMDVLK supports SR-IOV virtualisation and works with VMware Workstation.
I've had it running on a virtualised Windows for a while now using a single 7900XT (the same as the host).

the 7900XT and 7900XTX does not have the SR-IOV hardware feature

not even my AMD PRO W7900 does not have the hardware feature.

the truth is you do not even need this hardware feature to do so you can do it software without the hardware feature.

it is disinformation that you need SR-IOV as a hardware feature to do so.

[Quackdoc]

My vague recollection is that for the dgpu's it required flashing enterprise (flex?) gpu firmware on the consumer cards by bypassing some version checks. I don't think the details as to how to do it were ever publicly released.

this is roughly what I thought as well

It is strange that nobody mentions it and it seems to be something that few people know about.

AMDVLK supports SR-IOV virtualisation and works with VMware Workstation.

I've had it running on a virtualised Windows for a while now using a single 7900XT (the same as the host).

are you sure this is SRIOV and not virtualized GPU? last I checked 7900xt was fused off

even if your gaming GPU would have it it is not the feature you need to share 1 GPU between multible Virtual machines means you can not run windows 11 in a virtual machine on linux to play a game ,,,
...
believe it or not to do so you do not need a hardware feature like SR-IOV at all you can all do it in software Vulkan/SPIR-V just like QEMU VirtIO-GPU means "VirGL is an OpenGL driver for VirtIO-GPU" and "Venus is an Vulkan driver for VirtIO-GPU,"

I'm not sure what he said, but you misinterpeted it, or he was wrong. GPU SR-IOV will allow you to run gpu accelerated vms. Virgl is bad, Venus has bad support. No word on a windows driver for it in sight, nor do we know what the performance penalty of it will be.

[NeoMorpheus]

Of course not, lol. NVIDIA exists for your money and your money only.

Shh, dont ruin his childhood hero image.

[flischo]

the 7900XT and 7900XTX does not have the SR-IOV hardware feature

not even my AMD PRO W7900 does not have the hardware feature.

the truth is you do not even need this hardware feature to do so you can do it software without the hardware feature.

it is disinformation that you need SR-IOV as a hardware feature to do so.

are you sure this is SRIOV and not virtualized GPU? last I checked 7900xt was fused off

I don't know if it's really SR-IOV. But with AMDVLK (on top of Mesa), VMware allows you to enable 3D acceleration, with just Mesa it doesn't work.

There is some performance loss but it is more than enough to be able to use some CAD type applications in a 4K screen.
The GPU usage in the benchmark is high, so the VM is using it.
PwxTYyy.png

[qarium]

I'm not sure what he said, but you misinterpeted it, or he was wrong. GPU SR-IOV will allow you to run gpu accelerated vms. Virgl is bad, Venus has bad support. No word on a windows driver for it in sight, nor do we know what the performance penalty of it will be.

it was not only bridgman it was other AMD people to... they said very clear that SR-IOV is made to accelerate something else in the server space... not made for what people spread misinformation about play games in a virtual machine.

this misinformation started on phoronix years ago... the experts in this field for example from AMD do not have the time and show up here in the forum to battle misinformation all the time.

just see what people claim here they claim they run SR-IOV on a 7900XT with VMware and not even my AMD PRO W7900 has this hardware feature. then they say "There is some performance loss" but if SR-IOV would really do what all the people claim the performance loss would be near to zero...

[Quackdoc]

I don't know if it's really SR-IOV. But with AMDVLK (on top of Mesa), VMware allows you to enable 3D acceleration, with just Mesa it doesn't work.

There is some performance loss but it is more than enough to be able to use some CAD type applications in a 4K screen.
The GPU usage in the benchmark is high, so the VM is using it.

this is virtual GPU. The amount of GPU loss is high, but it is "good enough" for a lot of use cases. I too use it a lot.

it was not only bridgman it was other AMD people to... they said very clear that SR-IOV is made to accelerate something else in the server space... not made for what people spread misinformation about play games in a virtual machine.

As someone who has played games on SRIOV using firepro gpus. You have been lied to.

this misinformation started on phoronix years ago... the experts in this field for example from AMD do not have the time and show up here in the forum to battle misinformation all the time.

SRIOV is perfectly fine for gaming, Lots of people have been doing it with Firepros. Lots of people have been using it with intel igpus to get basic gaming VMs working to play low end games that don't work on linux via wine as well.

just see what people claim here they claim they run SR-IOV on a 7900XT with VMware and not even my AMD PRO W7900 has this hardware feature. then they say "There is some performance loss" but if SR-IOV would really do what all the people claim the performance loss would be near to zero...

That's because of their misunderstanding

[WonkoTheSaneUK]

Nvidia conforms to whatever it is that makes them money. I'll eat my hat if this ever trickles down to consumer GPUs.

Jensen needs more leather jackets!