Intel KVMGT 2018-Q1 Release Offers Mediated GPU Pass-Through Improvements

While the relevant bits for supporting Intel GPU mediated pass-through to virtual machines with KVM are now upstream in the Linux kernel as well as in QEMU 2.12, Intel developers have just announced their quarterly release of "KVMGT" for those wanting the officially blessed configuration for running Intel virtual GPU support with KVM virtual machines.

Intel KVMGT continues aiming for the right balance of performance, features, and sharing support. The 2018-Q1 KVMGT release consists of the Linux 4.14 kernel and a patched QEMU 2.10 release. They validate their guest operating system support with Windows 7 through Windows 10 as well as Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. The KVMGT stack should work with Broadwell Core/Xeon CPUs and newer.

With using the newer kernel and QEMU compared to their 2017-Q4 KVMGT release, there is improved stability, DMA-BUF-based frame-buffer sharing, improved GVT health on IOMMU platforms, and various bug fixes.

Of course, if you don't care about using an officially supported platform, the Linux 4.16 kernel is stable or Linux 4.17 is in development with the bleeding-edge bits and QEMU 2.12.0 should be officially out in the next week or so.

Otherwise for those interested there are more 2018-Q1 KVMGT details via the mailing list. Intel developers have also put out a similar XenGT update pairing Linux 4.14 with Xen 4.10.

Those unfamiliar with this Intel GPU virtualization solution can learn more via the 01.org documentation.