We're ready for One GPU -- Two OSs. Intel Xe, SR-IOV and thoughts on VMs

[@CraftComputing]

I'm just going to call you G-Man from now on :-D

[@bitcoredotorg]

I can't wait for this to become a reality in the consumer space.

[@Whipster-Old]

Same. Gaming laptops are trash. I'd be way happier with a VPN home and a SPICE terminal.

[@00Klingon]

@@Whipster-Old right now I’ve got my VM set up with an Nvidia card and use moonlight over VPN to access my personal network. GPU capable workstation and gaming rig (1080p 60fps) using a low end laptop anywhere I have a decent internet connection. This is the future.

[@Whipster-Old]

@@00Klingon if I could like your comment more than once, I would. Edit: I hope it's wireguard 😂

[@jannclaudebinoya]

I've been using something similar Aster v7 with my r7 2700x and rtx 3060ti. I can play doom while my brother plays PUBG. This has been happening for quite some time already

[@kwinzman]

We just had new GPU architectures released this quarter. So chance of SR-IOV happening near zero for the next 2 years until new GPU generation. Or can this be unlocked via driver update?

[@arkratos3727]

If intel supported SR-IOV on their Intel Xe cards, I would actually consider picking one up first gen when it comes out.

[@emazzikanbodo3014]

I'm going to wonder about it's cooling solutions. Hee hee 💞🤯👍

[@TarantulaFingers]

ditto. Take that first step!

[@AlxandreNotavo]

Me too, or maybe i will wait till second gen.

[@googIesux]

i don't even have the budget, but i'll consider breaking it

[@movax20h]

Same. AMD CPU and Intel dGPU would do a trick for me on Linux. But I expect Intel dGPU to really work well on Linux. Some parts of Mesa AMD support isn't developed by AMD, i.e. Vulkan driver. While Intel is more involved with Mesa Intel support, including extensive testing of hardware continusely. A high performing dGPU with good SR-IOV and Mesa support, that can be painlessly passthrough to Windows 10, would be amazing.

[@T19R0N]

Wendell, you are definitely responsible for me getting into VFIO and building a machine with it in mind :^)

[@BenThatOneGuy]

Same here, I never thought it was a possibility until discovering Wendell's videos!

[@DopePhizh]

Thank you for all that your doing for the community, and thanks for all the great content.

[@tkorkunckaya]

I cannot say it better, thanks.

[@emazzikanbodo3014]

He needs a booster, get him some Taiwan Chinese tea's. As those are great 🐱 Perks 💞

[@pm79080]

With proprietary software, we are not the users; we are the used!

[@alpoole2057]

Kinda. FOSS developers need to eat too though.

[@ezequiel5260]

@@alpoole2057 what does money have to do with that? there are several companies based on Open Source... Open source dev doesn't mean you work for free

[@alpoole2057]

No it doesn't but open source companies aren't social enterprises. A lot of passionate FOSS devs burn out at work, due to pressure or lack of meaning. To be free to write free software it generally means not being paid as you work on what you enjoy. However users can be very demanding for features in your own personal time. Most of the time adding worthwhile features is fun but sometimes it is reward less and people can sometimes be unreasonable.

[@ezequiel5260]

@@alpoole2057 Dude you sound like most of the folk that listens to linux podcasts and has never done a contribution. It's something you control, you give to it the time that you want, and it's just another task, another mail, another pull request, another documentation paper, just that. It's quite a high when you do your first contribution, but then it becomes a normal activity, just another proyect (which is better and easier to deal with). The point is, using propietary software just because many devs go open source as a hobbie is not a valid argument, most open source code nowadays is from companies submitting their work and indie guys scratching their itches. There is absolute no need to go propietary just to "feed developers". Devs arer not weak dependant creatures that need help from everyone, we are just normal people that work and code, and sometimes we publish the code and share it for free.

[@alpoole2057]

@@ezequiel5260 Am not sure what argument you are making. Thankfully have been able to contribute for a long time. Not all devs are normal people x

[@jafizzle95]

This video was a beacon of hope and optimism that I didn't know I needed.

[@majorgnu]

Cool! Can't wait for DRM and anti-cheat vendors to blacklist virtualized configurations and ruin everything for no good reason!

[@zamundaaa776]

no need to wait, there are AFAIK already games doing that

[@chillerprofi]

They allready do in Rainbow Six, Valorant... And guess what. It got cracked in one week. To a point where running your games in a vm and using host injection became the norm.

[@chillerprofi]

Im really pissed about this. Because the ONLY way to play RB6 in a VM is to use a hacked VM. This is insane.

[@Mallchad]

would it be too much to ask to have host anti-cheat.... for wine as well...

[@j.p.7845]

@@Mallchad I know enough about battleye anti-cheat that tells me they aren't moving past windows, and it acts wonky on windows still.

[@GobblesPlays]

Level1 Linux fans engage!

[@emazzikanbodo3014]

Engaged and enraged. 💞🤯 Let's me get my hands on a thelio , system 76.😜👍😂

[@vinny5915]

I think you’re at least 5 years ahead of time my friend.

[@Level1Linux]

possibly :)

[@jeschinstad]

Nobody's ever ahead of their time, it's always the others who are behind. It's a very important distinction.

[@emazzikanbodo3014]

@@jeschinstad a robot 🤖 spot. Lurks outside The level 1 HQ

[@DrussNL]

Wendell, you're honestly one of the coolest dudes I know. Knowledgeable, passionate and working hard to improve your slice of the world. I hope to be more like you one day.

[@garethsutcliffe5680]

Most of your content goes over my head, this video is no different. But I keep watching because while I don't get all of it, I get more than enough to grasp the topic. That's down to how you present it, thank you. This idea would be the answer to several use cases I'm currently looking at.

[@emazzikanbodo3014]

Computer science is a thing, fix up a Linux box. Or grab a pii4.

[@emilysix1653]

Thank you! The current state of things where I've opted to dual boot is not optimal and neither is having two graphics cards in one system.

[@Quarky_]

Two graphics cards in a system is quite possible if you are willing to use an IGP for the host OS. Unfortunately that means no GPU-heavy tasks on the host. I wonder if a reboot is required to "free up" the discreet GPU (for compute tasks) when the guest is not running (I guess this is where PCIe reset becomes relevant). I would happily accept that compromise.

[@markkeilys]

@@Quarky_ from my (extremely limited) experience with vfio you can bind/unbind the gpu to/from the OS at any time it's not being used... i should really do that test of running linux headless with windows in a vm with the gpu..

[@3lH4ck3rC0mf0r7]

There is another usecase that causes friction as well... Many OSes and software (among them Windows and macOS) can use virtualization features of the host processor to protect parts of themselves. As testing, I tried to enable those features in a Windows KVM machine, but the result either crashed, Windows refused to enable virtualization-based security, or was extremely slow. Intel and AMD should extend their virtualization extensions to allow proper hardware-accelerated nested virtualization (a VM within a VM) instead of forcing it to be emulated in software at the host hypervisor level. That, and GPU sharing are key hardware improvements to VM acceleration.

[@3lH4ck3rC0mf0r7]

@@markkeilysIf an NVIDIA GPU is attempted to be unbound while anything is using it, the attempt will hang and nothing will happen. Getting a zombie bash process stuck on that I/O operation that won't leave the process list until a host reboot is not cool though. And yes, once you can get the GPU to go completely unused, you can just bind/unbind VFIO to it and it'll work. As long as it's not a buggy AMD card. I have two xorg.confs and a script to switch between them, to quickly log and relog into an iGPU or NVIDIA for passthrough into Windows or macOS, respectively. When I relog into using one GPU on Linux, I have set the other to go unused due to not being defined in that xorg.conf

[@Quarky_]

@@markkeilys Cool, exciting times :)

[@teknixtek]

Found you through GN and you have quickly become a favorite channel. You are a good compliment to their primarily desktop gaming and overclocking content, with the more enterprise side of hardware and software tech as well. Loving what you are saying here about not being tied to the cloud. I appreciate the usefulness in certain circumstances but I am always saddened and frustrated to see good software and tools move away from local control to cloud services. I want complete control over what I have and do on my computers. Thanks for the great content.

[@Ultrajamz]

We will have it with WSL2 additions probably end of 2021. Already in developer edition (but of course its not ideal with windows as host os)

[@markhaus]

Microsoft really does have it backwards, windows should be the subsystem to linux

[@Mallchad]

I believe they are making the transition possible.. Push people use linux side by side. Blur the line bewteen the OSs. Then drop legacy tech. They said Windows 10 would be the last windows, update forever. i now interpret that as, were making something thats not windows. And it may be linux.

[@kwinzman]

What will the API be like?

[@Mallchad]

@@kwinzman There's not much API to speak of. They want Linux/Windows to run in tandem almost transparently, with minimal modification.

[@Mallchad]

@intrlocutr Last I checked microsoft makes minimal money on their software apart from maybe enterprise visual studio and office liscenes. Which isn't most people. They make most of their money on Azure services I'm informed. So why would they hold onto Windows forever if its costing them money to develop and even that has slower to a crawl?

[@PlanetFrosty]

Fascinating. This prepares the way for discrete compute inflight services which we implement in our network.

[@Boushin]

Unraid + SR-IOV that supports both dockers and VMs at the same time = Dream come true

[@danjones4002]

Every time i see a title like this i get excited! Then let down that its still not here

[@livedreamsg]

Can't wait to try out Looking Glass!!!

[@TechnoTim]

Can't wait. We'll look back at this video saying "this is the spark that lit the fire"

[@RCTestKid]

I've been waiting for this for so long!

[@burkjavel]

Thank you! Wicked video loads of good info!

[@joshuamaserow]

Who would have thought that it would be Intel who would disrupt AMD and Nvidia, enabling us to use VFIO :=D

[@MrMolchester]

Loving the increase of Linux content lately W.

[@YoloMonstaaa]

Thank you for this video.

[@SilkySmooth976]

Rally the troops! We need this!!!

[@cooky842]

I wanna say thank you Wendell. You made me discover the world of Vfio passthrough and Linux. Now i run a 780 for my host and a 1080ti for my VMs. I just received my lvl2tech switch, I can't wait to try it,,! My only problem i have is some latency in cpu heavy games, but I'll work through it ;)

[@hblaub]

The SPICE must flow

[@RicoCantrell]

Guess where I work and what I work on brother. Good to see this video. You will be happy to see where things have gone in the last 8 months.

[@GabrielMamuttee]

this channel is truly unique.

[@jack.h99]

Whovever is the first to support vGPU/SR-IOV technology in the consumer space is going to be my next choice for a graphics card. I just wasn't expecting it to possibly be Intel

[@bitlinkchai]

I hope this kind of tech takes off as well. I use Intel GVT-g tech (thanks ArchLinux wiki) in VMs. Gives me two iGPUs (1024x768) or one (1920x1200) iGPU to pass through to VMs. And thats just the integrated Graphics on the CPU! Amazing stuff!

[@RamkrishanYT]

Mutahar is looking different today

[@gugolple]

I want to support you, Im a student finishing computer engineering, as soon as I can I want to be build a system with pass-through virtualization because you opened my eyes. I would love to support you too, just wait a bit I get a job :D

[@simoneverett12]

Updated office tour? Eppic content! W: a leged!

[@emazzikanbodo3014]

It's a secret 😉 survival Bunker too

[@simoneverett12]

@@emazzikanbodo3014 HAHAH!! cribs Level 1 nuclear bunker edition.

[@emazzikanbodo3014]

@@simoneverett12 where are you at? Staying safes from the invisible enemy? Yet

[@simoneverett12]

@@emazzikanbodo3014 uk, our advaice is "stay alert", We've taken this advice to that we all need to train as Ninjas, we also have to sing happy birthday twice when ever washing hands by law.

[@emazzikanbodo3014]

@@simoneverett12 lols, don't go to demotivation website, memes. N have u seen those keep calm, n perseverance posters?

[@dreamcat4]

Awesome video!! Thanks Wendell.

[@markhaus]

SR-IOV... That would be a considerably large nudge... Too large, given the interests of my employers

[@Level1Techs]

We can diy it, if we have to....

[@LamdaComplex]

@@Level1Techs I detect a missed Half-Life Alyx reference here.

[@Jgs92692]

"Too large, given the interests of my shareholders" you mean. :D

[@markhaus]

@@Level1Techs I'm sure people can, I'm mostly meme'ing your G-man reference. Just don't look up videos of that reference unless you want MAJOR half life alyx spoilers

[@mycosys]

@@Level1Techs youre probably going to need to im guessing., privacy isnt really in the interest of big tech or of governments as things stand currently

[@algorithman2129]

Way to go Sir! Reminds me of my first steps for HWPassthrough on XEN. What a hassle :) But my board was able to completely decouple my single! gfx card and attach it to my vm. Sadly, the other way around didn't work as well.

[@h77-n3l]

many thanks for this, I really wish this to become a reality as I really want to play games in VM from linux with minimal performance hit. I just became a supporter at patreon

[@iPondR]

your're strong with the force Wendel :D

[@j.p.7845]

I'm lost on some points but great vid! Love the enthusiasm!

[@Powerman293]

I have no use for any of the things Wendell is talking about, but ever since I heard of SR IOV as a way to slice up up GPUs, I have been fully on board.

[@JoaoSilva-gs5jb]

love you Wendell! big Thanks!!! keep drive this evil forces away!

[@LumocolorARTnr1319]

I like this kind of content!

[@michaelandrews4783]

This is awesome , I'm doing this

[@lego4402]

Really like the Linux content. Hope you continue to keep up this channel in the future.

[@benmick7437]

Amazing that this just popped up... Looool!! i was JUST planning something similar like this but more however investing in a Dell Precision Workstation, and running HW passthrough coupled with KVM's for multi monitor support.... Will be checking your software out!! - Hope FreeBSD support as both host and client is something in the future!! :)

[@WesSites]

This goes over my head a bit at the technical level, I’m just a lowly Business Analyst... but the theory is super interesting and something I can get behind. This would be huge for general security, it’s an effective way to keep important files segmented and separate and could potentially prevent those less technologically literate individuals from causing data breaches because they want to play games on their work computers. Looking forward to future development of this and all of the cool implementations that it could be useful for!

[@joshuamaserow]

My new battle station that I'm gathering parts for (no Ryzen CPU stock, and waiting for 5000 BIOS) uses a X470, because of you, Wendell! I'm exactly within the group that you described. Developer on Linux, run Linux and Windows VMs for work and experiments, used to play games... But these days I just get games running for my son. I've been intending to dabble in some ML and have been starting to use some software that is GPU accelerated. I don't have great expectations because I know Nvidia and AMD are failing abysmally in providing basic VFIO functionality. So I'm keeping my old workstation for Windows and whatever Linux GPU shenanigans that I might want to do *in addition* to whatever I end up doing on my new workstation. You're doing the lords work. God help you noble man! *Raises imaginary Earl Grey tea*

[@sandromoscati7380]

In the past I was "sharing" 1 GPU with multiple users using the virtualgl and the ltsp project. Can't wait for you to succeed.

[@jeschinstad]

VirGL works great, but only for OpenGL stuff, not DirectX.

[@gravypod]

I've been asking for SR-IOV for forever. This would be a huge boon for containerization too (docker / kube). Who do we complain at to make sure this happens?

[@T19R0N]

SR-IOV very exciting

[@filippovolpe746]

Intel architecture engineers: we are doing what we can, we'll do it better next time, hang tight Intel marketing department: look at how the competition is bad, they are really bad, here a list of things in which the competition is bad, don't buy from the bad competitor Intel programmers: here sweetheart, here's your drivers, here's your kernel patch. I heard you need this technology, I'll start working on it right now and will make sure it'll be ready for Christmas, this is my gift for you

[@EposVox]

pls

[@hariranormal5584]

?

[@danielyoung_]

@@hariranormal5584 pls

[@SiriusXification]

pls

[@programorprogrammed]

Oh I've been waiting

[@TacticalFluke09]

fantastic work. I want this, a lot. I'd use my computer completely differently if my 1080 had supported this from the get go

[@dreamof3d]

I'm excited :)

[@sikz26300]

I'm so excited for this. Hopefully unraid is paying attention, and thinking about adding support

[@shocka007]

Brilliant Sir .. I'm not really a gamers but that concept of shared hardware makes complete sense ! must check it out there is so much horse power in modern CPU's / core threads etc and GPU compute its a shame not to let it spread seamlessly in one PC. Hmm the 6900 is our tomorrow ! I wonder if I will get one of those next year + a Ryzen 5950 And run multiple SR-IOV ( or what you suggest ) to get that GPU goodness and AMD Compute doing anything I want.. 2021 is looking to Be GLORIOUS / Thanks Wendell Have a Great Xmas

[@toddhetrick615]

This is also critical to the small to mid size business server space. A pure open-source VDI stack would be a game changer, and gpu's are needed for anything other than basic office apps.

[@reto.]

Thanks Wendell!

[@G14N14RI12]

This sounds perfect for a small hypervisor setup.

[@TheOneAndOnlyTBash]

I'm calling it wendell creates Sky net trying to realize his dream.

[@Whipster-Old]

I for one welcome our new AI overlords. Roll on the Quiet War.

[@ashishpatel350]

Oopsie

[@emazzikanbodo3014]

@@Whipster-Old ohno Lordy 🙏. It's the end of times, once it's hacked into NASDAQ,or the DoW.😜👍😂

[@developerpranav]

Oh man Wendell is awesome

[@leviathanpriim3951]

thanks Wendell

[@andljoy]

We can built it , we have the technology!

[@dan_]

I've been running Qubes OS with GPU passthrough to my Win10 guest VM for 2+ years (6700k, Z170I, RX580 - for anyone hunting for known-working hardware), so it certainly works and is a viable option for heavy 3D tasks (like gaming), though you are correct that they don't officially support such a use case and it took quite a lot of hacking and Googling to get it working to (almost) native levels of performance. However, while Qubes is a wonderful project I'd highly recommend to anyone to try out, some of its quirks have been getting in my way recently and I've been looking for another solution. I'm currently running Proxmox which is looking like a promising long-term candidate, but I do miss the high-performace GUI of VMs run on Qubes, remoting into my guests with VNC/xRDP pales in comparison and is not at all fun to use. That's how I ended up here as I'm looking for a tool which will allow me to directly grab and interact with the framebuffer of the VM, which I believe is how Qubes is able to operarate so elegantly. Am I heading down the right path with technology like Intel GVT-g and Looking Glass? I've only just discovered these, but it appears that GVT-g will allow me to split my iGPU into portions to hand to each VM, and then with Looking Glass I could directly view/interact with the VM's physical framebuffer from the host? If anyone can point me in the right direction then please do!

[@cocoonthemoon77]

great vid

[@twobombs]

I've set up an accellerated x streaming session with fb enabled and resource sharing and/or slicing Docker image for just that. I've said goodbye to vms for years now because of the resource and licensing hell and the elegant methods of container systems. People should look at that imho. That has worked for me for years now. Now working on K8s style upgrades.

[@Gooberpatrol66]

per-process GPU scheduling would be wonderful.

[@lahma69]

I'm so ready for this type of tech to become a reality.

[@redsierra8631]

ooo engaging content

[@WorBlux]

All hail the VFIO subculture!!!

[@Newspaperman57]

Oh man, i have been wanting to get away with natively booting windows just for gaming for yeeears! I would love for this to be a reality! And the ideas just keep flowing. The 1-pc-for-the-household idea also suddenly becomes very possible, instead of having several high-power PC's for me, the wife, the homelab, a separate laptop, etc. and just buy 1 kick-ass "server" and a bunch of thin-clients/raspberry pi's to remote in to the server. I am already in love with streaming over steam, but i/we can still only play 1 game on each PC at a time

[@PRiMETECHAU]

sounds great, been waiting forever for a APU that could help me setup a VM SR-IOV, maybe won't need to compromise if this comes about. (Ryzen APU's have lower clocks and lower cache sizes, are slower)

[@jeschinstad]

Intel iGPUs can do this using GVT-g. Be adviced that consumer CPUs can really only do one host + one guest setups, but Xeons can do more.

[@PatrikKron]

Same here, I’ll build a PC as soon as AMD releases a APU without to much compromises. Or if this gets released earlier it might be interesting instead.

[@jordykroeze]

Hope we will get this 1 day.

[@skaltura]

awesome info! This is very interesting. Personally i'd like to run a windows VM on the same GPU as my base distro is, running on secondary display. Need the GPU acceleration for CAD and rare gaming

[@leebooth2500]

i hope we get this. it would beat having to deal with duel booting which isn't the best option

[@awesomearizona-dino]

Wendell sounds truly exited about this. I will keep my eyes peeled.

[@osgrov]

I could swear I've read that Big Navi would support SR-IOV. Did that not materialize? Great video btw, thanks for your continuing efforts. :) This is been a long-standing dream of mine.

[@esra_erimez]

IBM was doing this for decades with their mainframes. :-)

[@nikolausluhrs]

One api could be really awesome

[@seanbrisson7928]

10:11 Yes, it takes longer to post afterward. And my GTX 750 ti doesnt post with that Enabled X"D At least when i remove my GTX 750 it post at normal speed.

[@Ben333bacc]

Single slot card looked like it had one output port, but behind the PCI bracket??

[@Level1Linux]

ignore the hackery, sr-iov cards have no output :D

[@franzpleurmann2585]

I spotted that too.

[@alphaLONE]

@@Level1Linux you tried to solder an output port on?

[@Ben333bacc]

@@Level1Linux Thanks Wendell!!! Haha :)

[@makerstories4008]

@@alphaLONE I think he *DID* solder an output on

[@EpicHardware]

I watched 5 times and dream for a moment that it's going to become true

[@joejane9977]

the sad part is Pcie lanes on consumer chips is very limited but still love it

[@xDownSetx]

Wendell is so close now, so close to achieving his goal

[@remasteredretropcgames3312]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/mJ6Xe4Gojqdqjrc Imagine literally spending an entire 24 + hours glued to a screen like a total ass ho le.

[@samdeur]

sounds great! thats something i want to pay for as a consumer

[@onlyeyeno]

@00:47 ... I think You should consider loosening Your tie just a "wee bit" :)

[@ybergik]

I experimented with Qubes as well as PCI-passthrough with two graphics cards in late 2013 and I did get it working, but the user experience just wasn't quite good enough. With two gfx cards, I had double the cables going to my 4 monitors and it was a bloody nightmare switching them to a different input whenever I wanted to run a VM. I got excited watching a previous video of yours on this topic where this was solved in software instead (where it should be), but unfortunately I'm rather pessimistic in regards to the damn vendors actually turning the feature on for us regular consumers as it may affect their prime cash cow in the server market. Love the effort though.

[@emazzikanbodo3014]

Do a vm, n launch BeOs 🤯👍

[@alistairblaire6001]

Sandboxing everything is the holy grail isn't it. I dabbled in VM/GPU passthrough but ultimately I built another PC for gaming because it seemed simpler. I hope AMD and Nvidia supports this stuff in the future but I'm not holding my breath with Nvidia (I remember "code 43").

[@carlmasse6250]

This is what i'm waiting for to upgrade my existing systems - a high core count / powerful GPU system which can replace my unraid server, gaming rig, parsec stream gaming rig and my HTPC - all in one,

[@Clobercow1]

Wendel + Linux + Video = like

[@subz424]

0:29 Plays the role of G-man, but sounds like gta5's Lester saying it lol.

[@sl06bhytmar]

Now next job: Get AMD / Intel / Apple to fix their IOMMU, I want my USB host!

[@ItsGareth94]

This can't come fast enough. Having to have a tiny secondary gpu for the host really messes with the look of my pc (running ryzen so no on-board gpu).

[@TheBackyardChemist]

lmao, insert "first world problem" meme

[@JimmyZeng]

Usually I'm a pessimist on these, but IOMMU support is on almost every consumer CPU now despite only a few enthusiasts actually using them, kinda gives me hope.

[@LanceThumping]

My dream is for us to hit the point where we can run several virtualized OSes at once while allowing us to have windows natively shown within host with seamless hardware allocation. That way I could some sort of linux host at the base, do all my projects on a virtualized linux distro and while some script is running open a game or something all without having to create a virtualized desktop for each thing. It'd be so nice to be playing a game on a windows vm, while a linux vm is using the rest of your GPU resources training an AI (which maybe is being sent frame data from the windows vm for training data).

[@stephanematis]

Thumbs up Wendell.

[@urzaaaaa]

Do want!