Virtualbox GPU passthrough

[stefanmz]

Hey,so I have Virtualbox running Windows 11 and host running Windows 10 and I wanted to passthrough my GPU(Nvidia Geforce MX350) to my Vbox so it's faster but can I do this? Or I need a second GPU? If I can't passthrough can I then just use my Nvidia for my guest and my integrated graphics for the host while I am running my VM?

[RONOTHAN##]

20 minutes ago, stefanmz said:

Hey,so I have Virtualbox running Windows 11 and host running Windows 10 and I wanted to passthrough my GPU(Nvidia Geforce MX350) to my Vbox so it's faster but can I do this? Or I need a second GPU? If I can't passthrough can I then just use my Nvidia for my guest and my integrated graphics for the host while I am running my VM?

To my knowledge, there isn't a way to do that with Windows 10 as the host OS since they disabled RemoteFX. I think I remembered seeing something about being able to reenable it, but it also comes with security concerns which you wouldn't want to run, especially with a leaked ISO. You can do it on Linux (Arch I believe has the best native support out of the desktop distros, but don't quote me on that) pretty easily, and just have your iGPU for the host OS and the MX350 for the VM. In terms of sharing the GPU, while it might be technically possible, it's more work than it's worth in this situation since you can just use the iGPU for the host OS and the dGPU for the VM

[stefanmz]

5 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

To my knowledge, there isn't a way to do that with Windows 10 as the host OS since they disabled RemoteFX. I think I remembered seeing something about being able to reenable it, but it also comes with security concerns which you wouldn't want to run, especially with a leaked ISO. You can do it on Linux (Arch I believe has the best native support out of the desktop distros, but don't quote me on that) pretty easily, and just have your iGPU for the host OS and the MX350 for the VM. In terms of sharing the GPU, while it might be technically possible, it's more work than it's worth in this situation since you can just use the iGPU for the host OS and the dGPU for the VM

how do I use dGPU for VM and other one for host?

[RONOTHAN##]

12 minutes ago, stefanmz said:

how do I use dGPU for VM and other one for host?

First make sure that your laptop (I'm guessing you're using one since I don't believe there was a desktop version of the MX350) supports IOMMU, the feature that allows for GPU and other hardware passthrough to a virtual machine. Once that is done, download and install a linux distribution of your choosing (Pop!_OS works pretty well for laptops, but Manjaro or Arch would allow you to not have to install as many additional packages) and start setting up KVM (a more powerful version of Virtualbox). You can then follow this guide for how to set up KVM, virtual machine manager, and then pass the GPU through.

 

https://www.heiko-sieger.info/creating-a-windows-10-vm-on-the-amd-ryzen-9-3900x-using-qemu-4-0-and-vga-passthrough/

 

There are a ton of guides on how to do it, this isn't necessarily the best and if you're confused you can always just look up "GPU passthrough" followed by the distro that you decided to run. I'm more than willing to help out, but detailing all the steps from memory would take more effort than it's worth when there are a ton of guides online for how to do it. 

[stefanmz]

22 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

First make sure that your laptop (I'm guessing you're using one since I don't believe there was a desktop version of the MX350) supports IOMMU, the feature that allows for GPU and other hardware passthrough to a virtual machine. Once that is done, download and install a linux distribution of your choosing (Pop!_OS works pretty well for laptops, but Manjaro or Arch would allow you to not have to install as many additional packages) and start setting up KVM (a more powerful version of Virtualbox). You can then follow this guide for how to set up KVM, virtual machine manager, and then pass the GPU through.

 

https://www.heiko-sieger.info/creating-a-windows-10-vm-on-the-amd-ryzen-9-3900x-using-qemu-4-0-and-vga-passthrough/

 

There are a ton of guides on how to do it, this isn't necessarily the best and if you're confused you can always just look up "GPU passthrough" followed by the distro that you decided to run. I'm more than willing to help out, but detailing all the steps from memory would take more effort than it's worth when there are a ton of guides online for how to do it. 

wait can I do it from Windows 10? I don't want to install Linux as host.

[RONOTHAN##]

Just now, stefanmz said:

wait can I do it from Windows 10? I don't want to install Linux as host.

No, Windows 10 does not support it from what I remember since they disabled RemoteFX. 

[stefanmz]

1 minute ago, RONOTHAN## said:

No, Windows 10 does not support it from what I remember since they disabled RemoteFX. 

Oh ok so I am gonna run it like that then I mean after guest additions it's smooth enough,and Microsoft should drop an Insider build soon and I am going to update to that on my host then.

[RONOTHAN##]

2 hours ago, stefanmz said:

Oh ok so I am gonna run it like that then I mean after guest additions it's smooth enough,and Microsoft should drop an Insider build soon and I am going to update to that on my host then.

I was apparently wrong. Microsoft recently enabled something called GPU-P, which allows for GPU sharing amongst virtual machines as long as you're running Windows 10 Pro or better. 

 

https://forum.level1techs.com/t/2-gamers-1-gpu-with-hyper-v-gpu-p-gpu-partitioning-finally-made-possible-with-hyperv/172234

 

It's a bit higher level of instructions, but it should be followable. I'm gonna be trying it myself at the same time, so good luck.

[stefanmz]

5 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

I was apparently wrong. Microsoft recently enabled something called GPU-P, which allows for GPU sharing amongst virtual machines as long as you're running Windows 10 Pro or better. 

 

https://forum.level1techs.com/t/2-gamers-1-gpu-with-hyper-v-gpu-p-gpu-partitioning-finally-made-possible-with-hyperv/172234

 

It's a bit higher level of instructions, but it should be followable. I'm gonna be trying it myself at the same time, so good luck.

ok thanks! I am gonna try it out,good luck to you too!However I am gonna try it out tomorrow because it's late here but I am gonna update you once I do it to tell you if it worked,in the meantime you could tell me if it worked for you

[RONOTHAN##]

4 hours ago, stefanmz said:

ok thanks! I am gonna try it out,good luck to you too!However I am gonna try it out tomorrow because it's late here but I am gonna update you once I do it to tell you if it worked,in the meantime you could tell me if it worked for you

I got the GPU passed through and the drivers installed, yet for some reason if I install steam or run anything that requires GPU encoding (something like Parsec or Rainway as the tutorial recommends so you can actually take advantage of GPU acceleration) the VM or my entire computer crashes. It's gonna be a lot of trial and error trying to get this to work fully (and I'm doing this all with a Windows 10 VM before trying it with Windows 11 to make sure I know how to get it working). Wouldn't recommend so far, though it could just be that the support for 30 series with it is abominable and that's why it's not working. Heaven benchmark does run though (at a third of what it should be running at though)

[stefanmz]

7 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

I got the GPU passed through and the drivers installed, yet for some reason if I install steam or run anything that requires GPU encoding (something like Parsec or Rainway as the tutorial recommends so you can actually take advantage of GPU acceleration) the VM or my entire computer crashes. It's gonna be a lot of trial and error trying to get this to work fully (and I'm doing this all with a Windows 10 VM before trying it with Windows 11 to make sure I know how to get it working). Wouldn't recommend so far, though it could just be that the support for 30 series with it is abominable and that's why it's not working. Heaven benchmark does run though (at a third of what it should be running at though)

hmm ok,otherwise if you don't run games is the OS stable? And is it faster than without passthrough? Because if it's not it's not really worth it.

[RONOTHAN##]

2 hours ago, stefanmz said:

hmm ok,otherwise if you don't run games is the OS stable? And is it faster than without passthrough? Because if it's not it's not really worth it.

Through the default viewer, it's not faster because the default viewer does not use the GPU. If I were able to get it running with something like Parsec or Rainway, it would be able to use the GPU and actually be faster. I have seen a decent amount of people get those services running with no problems, but I am not one of them. It's worth a shot, I got the basic section of it up and running in about half an hour, but if you end up with a ton of issues that you can't figure out in an hour or two, it's probably not worth using.

[stefanmz]

36 minutes ago, RONOTHAN## said:

Through the default viewer, it's not faster because the default viewer does not use the GPU. If I were able to get it running with something like Parsec or Rainway, it would be able to use the GPU and actually be faster. I have seen a decent amount of people get those services running with no problems, but I am not one of them. It's worth a shot, I got the basic section of it up and running in about half an hour, but if you end up with a ton of issues that you can't figure out in an hour or two, it's probably not worth using.

ok so you are telling me it only uses the GPU for acceleration of games and highly demanding apps? Not for the general OS experience? And the general OS experience is as fast as on the virtual GPU? if that's the case I don't need it because I am not gonna play games or run highly demanding apps on the VM,just use it for browsing and documents maybe,I am gonna do everything else on the host OS.Also is it actually using the GPU for the OS or it's still using the virtual GPU?

[RONOTHAN##]

1 minute ago, stefanmz said:

ok so you are telling me it only uses the GPU for acceleration of games and highly demanding apps? Not for the general OS experience? And the general OS experience is as fast as on the virtual GPU? if that's the case I don't need it because I am not gonna play games or run highly demanding apps on the VM,just use it for browsing and documents maybe,I am gonna do everything else on the host OS.Also is it actually using the GPU for the OS or it's still using the virtual GPU?

It should be faster for general experiences, you just need to use one of those gaming utilities in order to see the benefit. That being said, Hyper-V is a bit faster than Virtualbox, so you might not even need it in general.

[stefanmz]

8 hours ago, RONOTHAN## said:

It should be faster for general experiences, you just need to use one of those gaming utilities in order to see the benefit. That being said, Hyper-V is a bit faster than Virtualbox, so you might not even need it in general.

ok thanks! I will try it out,also I didn't realize hyper-v was actually a standalone app for virtual machines I thought it's just a service or an engine or something,I am definitely gonna give it a try.