how to get 120hz refresh rate from a virtual machine?

[lillo9546]

Hi! I would like to install a virtual machine on my windows 10 pc.
How would it be possible to get 120hz refresh rate, the screen being 144hz, a 120hz would be fine too !?

[Robchil]

what client will you use.. it is usually what your screen is.. in windows

[Morgan MLGman]

I don't think that's possible - the VM interface is passed through your system to the monitor. The monitor still has the same refresh rate as on your desktop, it's the VM console that's not refreshing as fast. This is because nobody really needs high refresh rate VM output so the consoles are usually much lower FPS for performance reasons.

Since that depends on the console client alone, all I can think of is trying to use a thin client (like a Dell Wyse terminal) device or a zero client device, hook it up to a monitor and connect to your VM through that - however even with that I'm not sure if any of those support refresh rate beyond 60 anyway and without any specialized client server such as VMware Horizon you'd be using the RDP protocol anyway, which may be a bottleneck itself.

[Robchil]

1 minute ago, Morgan MLGman said:

I don't think that's possible - the VM interface is passed through your system to the monitor. The monitor still has the same refresh rate as on your desktop, it's the VM console that's not refreshing as fast. This is because nobody really needs high refresh rate VM output so the consoles are usually much lower FPS for performance reasons.

Since that depends on the console client alone, all I can think of is trying to use a thin client device or a zero client device, hook it up to a monitor and connect to your VM through that - however even with that I'm not sure if any of those support refresh rate beyond 60 anyway and without any specialized client server such as VMware Horizon you'd be using the RDP protocol anyway, which may be a bottleneck itself.

if you have multiple GPU's it could be possible for a separate output? . 

it's been a while since i tested vmware workstation, but i know vmware support GPU sharing. not sure if they do it in workstation tho. 

 

[Morgan MLGman]

Just now, Robchil said:

if you have multiple GPU's it could be possible for a separate output? . 

it's been a while since i tested vmware workstation, but i know vmware support GPU sharing. not sure if they do it in workstation tho.

I think that depends whether you can passthrough the GPU directly to the VM - I think I've read that the RTX 3000 series supports SR-IOV feature so that could be done, however what you display still would be via the VM console, because you can't output a separate VM display directly from another physical GPU, you can only assign it to the VM so it can use its compute power.

[gamagama69]

12 minutes ago, Morgan MLGman said:

I don't think that's possible - the VM interface is passed through your system to the monitor. The monitor still has the same refresh rate as on your desktop, it's the VM console that's not refreshing as fast. This is because nobody really needs high refresh rate VM output so the consoles are usually much lower FPS for performance reasons.

Since that depends on the console client alone, all I can think of is trying to use a thin client (like a Dell Wyse terminal) device or a zero client device, hook it up to a monitor and connect to your VM through that - however even with that I'm not sure if any of those support refresh rate beyond 60 anyway and without any specialized client server such as VMware Horizon you'd be using the RDP protocol anyway, which may be a bottleneck itself.

I think the point is for a gaming vm like sog uses

[Morgan MLGman]

5 minutes ago, gamagama69 said:

I think the point is for a gaming vm like sog uses

That is pointless, you add latency and you lose performance when you try gaming on a VM, not to mention the tons of issues you can run into. If you don't have Windows installed and want to game in a Windows environment, it's much better to have a dual-boot system or use cloud-based services like GeForce Now.