VIRTIO 1.1 Standard Moving Closer To Release With GPU Device, Better Performance

The Virtual I/O Device standard, VIRTIO, is moving closer to seeing its big 1.1 release. The VIRTIO standard as a reminder devices/drivers around networking, storage, and other areas akin to Xen paravirtualized drivers and VMware Guest Tools but designed with cross-hypervisor and cross-OS support in mind.

The VIRTIO 1.1 specification has been under a public review period since the end of December. Linux virtualization developer Stefan Hajnoczi has pointed out that this public review is happening until 21 February.

Exciting us about VIRTIO 1.1 is that it brings VirtIO-GPU into the fold with its 3D mode via Virgl. But besides adding the GPU device type, there is also other networking and input work. Additionally, it presents a new vring layout for better performance and other overhead reduction work.

This PDF slide deck covers some of the other work in VIRTIO 1.1. Separately there is also the presentation embedded above from last year's FOSDEM conference about VIRTIO 1.1 (plus those PDF slides) including about the performance gains over VIRTIO 1.0.

The tentative VIRTIO 1.1 specification for public review can be viewed here.