UnRaid Gaming VM Performance

[dilloneyer]

UnRaid Build (Version 6.5.3):

Ryzen Threadripper 1950x, OC @ 3.7 GHz on all cores, 1.248 V

Gigabyte Aorus X399 Gaming 7 Motherboard

32GB Ballistix 2400 MHz RAM

EVGA GTX 1080 SC

256 WD SSD for Cache

1TB for disk 1

500GB Samsung SSD passed straight through to my Windows VM

 

Windows VM Specs:

6 cores on NUMA node #1 (technically the second node) (see attached chart)

16384 MB RAM

Physical SSD passthrough

GTX 1080 passthrough with correct rom file (PCI 10de:1b80)

GPU audio

Some USB devices

 

 

Been testing using UnRaid as my daily driver gaming VM and, while I am aware the 1950x is NOT the best for gaming, I am getting 30 fps at best with dips at 1440p medium settings. This result is consistent among other games. I have done most every optimization I can think of to get the VM working at its best: high performance mode in windows, making sure all cores and graphics card are on the same NUMA node, enabled memory interleaving to separate the NUMA nodes on the processor, etc. Nothing seems to be improving the performance. I have a suspicion that (since my VM and GPU are run off the second NUMA node) maybe the 16GB of RAM I am using for the VM is being allocated from the first NUMA node and not the second one, thus introducing latency that causes the stuttering and low frame rate. This is just a theory and I can't currently move my GPU to a different slot to test this theory. Wondering if anyone has come across such an issue? Linus seems to have little performance degregation when running his gaming VM's, and considering I was achieving 90+ FPS @ 1440P in Battlefield V before running it as a VM I believe I must be missing something.

 

Another issue I am having with this VM is that both HW monitor and Task Manager only show 3.4 GHz and not the overclocked 3.7GHz that the BIOS shows. Not sure if this is a result of virtualization or maybe something I am missing? 

 

Thank you for any help you can offer :)

[Electronics Wizardy]

23 minutes ago, dilloneyer said:

I have a suspicion that (since my VM and GPU are run off the second NUMA node) maybe the 16GB of RAM I am using for the VM is being allocated from the first NUMA node and not the second one,

you can check this with numastat

 

 

 

23 minutes ago, dilloneyer said:

Another issue I am having with this VM is that both HW monitor and Task Manager only show 3.4 GHz and not the overclocked 3.7GHz that the BIOS shows. Not sure if this is a result of virtualization or maybe something I am missing? 

This just shows the value from the host, it doesn't matter at all

 

 

what does htop look like on the host when gaming on the vm?

 

[dilloneyer]

I seem to have solved some of the issues I was having with a bios update...maybe improved stability?

 

Also, thank you for letting me know about the value from the host not being accurate. They overclock is in effect just fine.  Thanks!

[GameKing505]

So how's the performance post-bios update? Do you have benchmarks?

 

I'm thinking of a similar build but want to hear from others who have completed it as to how performance is.

[dilloneyer]

On 2/5/2019 at 7:34 AM, GameKing505 said:

So how's the performance post-bios update? Do you have benchmarks?

I just got it migrated to a new case, so I will run some updated benchmarks once my drives preclear and let you know.  My single core score before migrating cases was about 148 in Cinebench.