Crazy Idea for Virtualized Gaming

[wraptor]

Hey helping hands out there!

I've got the crazy idea to basically make a 2 Gamers 1 CPU thing.
My friend wants to add a GPU so his brother can play games aswell.
He's rocking these specs:
Z170A Gaming Pro
i7-6700K (4.6 Ghz)
Kingston HyperX Fury DDR4-2666 2x8GB, He will add another 2x8 sticks later on, 8GB is more than enough a.t.m though.

R9 390 8GB (We are going to sell this card and buy 2 RX 480s, now cut the crap there are driver updates for the power delivery issues comming out soon).
850 Pro 128GB (split in half, 64GB is more than enough for Windows, chrome and office for each.).
WD Blue 1TB  (500GB is also enough for the limited amount of games he owns).
Seasonic M12II-Evo 620Watt

Now what I'm going to do is this:
Virtualize the machine, I'm thinking of ESXi (vSphere Hypervisor).
Giving both VMs 4 Cores.
Every VM a dedicated RX 480.
64GB boot SSD

500 GB HDD space each.

 

Would this be powerfull enough for games like The Forest, GMod, GTA V etc at just 1080p?
I'm shure it is but I wan't some confirmation and advice :Þ

[VerticalDiscussions]

I supose so... but what about the actual machine supporting the virtualized machine!? Or is there something im missing! 

[wraptor]

1 minute ago, VerticalDiscussions said:

I supose so... but what about the actual machine supporting the virtualized machine!? Or is there something im missing! 

What do you mean?
The cpu has Virtualization technology so :Þ

[LizardsAreOP]

Its not worth sellign a R9 390 and buying a RX 480 since the R9 390 is faster and has better OC options and better cooling

[VerticalDiscussions]

2 minutes ago, tv15dsi said:

-snip-

Well yes, but... yah :D! Anyways, components alone the games will run great, so just virtualize that thing and get it running simultaneously like a boss!

[wraptor]

1 minute ago, LizardsAreOP said:

Its not worth sellign a R9 390 and buying a RX 480 since the R9 390 is faster and has better OC options and better cooling

But I cannot split the R9 390 for the VMs

And if I want to add a RX 480 I need to upgrade the PSU

+ We aren't going to buy a reference RX 480, we're waiting for MSI

[LizardsAreOP]

1 minute ago, tv15dsi said:

But I cannot split the R9 390 for the VMs

And if I want to add a RX 480 I need to upgrade the PSU

+ We aren't going to buy a reference RX 480, we're waiting for MSI

Ok

Ok

Ok

[VerticalDiscussions]

2 minutes ago, LizardsAreOP said:

-snip-

Aight, cant argue with triple combo Ok

[LizardsAreOP]

2 minutes ago, VerticalDiscussions said:

Aight, cant argue with triple combo Ok

Oktality

[wraptor]

Btw, why's my topic in Networking?
If a Mod/Admin sees this, please move this topic. thanks :Þ

[TriFlix Films]

I don't understand how you want to take a quad core and give 4 cores to each... 4-4-4=-4

you mean two cores? 4-2-2=0 so one person gaming on the actual computer and one on the vm... because you can't have have two vm up with 2 cores each... this would leave none for the OS.

[wraptor]

4 minutes ago, TriFlix Films said:

I don't understand how you want to take a quad core and give 4 cores to each... 4-4-4=-4

you mean two cores? 4-2-2=0 so one person gaming on the actual computer and one on the vm... because you can't have have two vm up with 2 cores each... this would leave none for the OS.

An I7 has 8 Cores with hyperthreading

Giving every machine 2 physical cores (4 logical cores) would be more than enough.
ESXi won't be using a full core at all so that doesn't matter.
And if it does it'll automatically use half a core from the 1st and half a core from the 2th VM

EDIT:
The games he will be playing won't be relying on the CPU, more on the GPU so the Host OS will have more than enough horse power to work with
Virtualization has grown a lot, and its pretty resource efficiënt

[TriFlix Films]

30 minutes ago, tv15dsi said:

My friend wants to add a GPU so his brother can play games aswell.
He's rocking these specs:
Z170A Gaming Pro
i7-6700K (4.6 Ghz)

You said 6700k.... thats a quad core

[wraptor]

1 minute ago, TriFlix Films said:

You said 6700k.... thats a quad core

-.- 6700K is a Quad core with HYPERTHREADING

Hyperthreading gives every core 2 hands instead of 1 if that makes sense to you
I know its a Quad core, but it'll be hyperthreaded making it a Eight (logical) core CPU.
Giving both VMs 4 Logical cores is more than enough

I'm sorry you don't take my words with a grain of salt

[wraptor]

@TriFlix Films Also, I'm going to use ESXi which is a Host OS that doesn't have any UI etc, so that Host OS will only be using 1/4th to none (at times) of a core.
I will make 2 VMs running both Windows 10 with 4 Logical cores each.
Since nobody will be using the Host OS and only the VMs that host will not be doing sh*t.

I think this is where you misunderstood me.
I'm not installing Windows on the base system and running 2 VMs on it as you thought I was planning on doing

[leadeater]

I think the only problem you will have is keyboard and mouse. Hopefully that motherboard has two different USB controllers that you can pass through to the VMs allowing you to actually be directly connected to the computer like normal, but two people.

 

Also even if you were going to use Windows Hyper-V also supports dynamic resource allocation and core sharing, just a case of people not knowing enough about virtualization .

[wraptor]

12 minutes ago, leadeater said:

I think the only problem you will have is keyboard and mouse. Hopefully that motherboard has two different USB controllers that you can pass through to the VMs allowing you to actually be directly connected to the computer like normal, but two people.

 

Also even if you were going to use Windows Hyper-V also supports dynamic resource allocation and core sharing, just a case of people not knowing enough about virtualization .

What do you mean by USB controllers?
Its a Z170A Gaming Pro.
Can't I just specify what device goes to what?
And could you explain a bit about that dynamic resource allocation and why I should use it/why not?

[Jarsky]

6 hours ago, TriFlix Films said:

You said 6700k.... thats a quad core

It's an 8 thread CPU. With VM's you assign threads.

You can also *overprovision* the CPU and assign 4 threads per VM, as the ESXi host essentially requires minimal CPU resource and it doesn't have dedicated threads.

As for Hyper-V if you wanted that, you will have to run Hyper-V Server 2016 as no previous iterations support PCIe passthrough (for GPU)

 

[leadeater]

11 minutes ago, tv15dsi said:

What do you mean by USB controllers?
Its a Z170A Gaming Pro.
Can't I just specify what device goes to what?
And could you explain a bit about that dynamic resource allocation and why I should use it/why not?

 

If you rewatch Linus's 2 gamers video he explains it, pictures/video helps a lot. Anyway the way ESXi works with device passthrough is you can't do a device connected to a USB controller, only the whole controller. So to get two VMs working which you want to directly connect to the system you need to pass through a GPU and also a USB controller, you then plug a monitor in to each GPU and a keyboard and mouse in to each USB controller.

[wraptor]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

 

If you rewatch Linus's 2 gamers video he explains it, pictures/video helps a lot. Anyway the way ESXi works with device passthrough is you can't do a device connected to a USB controller, only the whole controller. So to get two VMs working which you want to directly connect to the system you need to pass through a GPU and also a USB controller, you then plug a monitor in to each GPU and a keyboard and mouse in to each USB controller.

How can I detemine my board has 2 controllers :Þ

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, tv15dsi said:

How can I detemine my board has 2 controllers :Þ

Trial and error . Move the mouse. 'oh it's moving on that screen, guess this goes with that one'. 

[wraptor]

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

Trial and error . Move the mouse. 'oh it's moving on that screen, guess this goes with that one'. 

But how can I be shure it has 2 controllers :Þ
My friend is going to buy this hardware so it would be a waste if it only has 1 :Þ

[Jarsky]

Look under Device Manager under Universal Serial Bus controllers, you most likely have at least 4.

Generally USB 2.0 ports are grouped as 2 per controller - normally each controller provides 1A (500mA per port).

Not sure what the controller breakdown is for USB3.0 though.

[leadeater]

8 minutes ago, tv15dsi said:

But how can I be shure it has 2 controllers :Þ
My friend is going to buy this hardware so it would be a waste if it only has 1 :Þ

 

Quote

• ASMedia® ASM1142 Chipset
- 2 x USB 3.1 Gen2 (SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps) ports on the back panel

• Intel® Z170 Express Chipset
- 6 x USB 3.1 Gen1 (SuperSpeed USB) ports (4 ports on the back panel, 2 ports available through the internal USB 3.1 Gen1 connector)
- 6 x USB 2.0 (High-speed USB) ports (2 ports on the back panel, 4 ports available through the internal USB 2.0 connectors)

 

Looks like it does. What I would do first however is test this with an existing system using just 1 VM to make sure it actually works and performs properly. The positive thing about unRAID is it does GPU passthrough for direct connection better than most hypervisors do, would hate for you to spend money on something that isn't working to work. 

 

Edit: Fixed epic spelling/grammar fail.

Edited July 8, 2016 by leadeater

[wraptor]

2 minutes ago, Jarsky said:

Look under Device Manager under Universal Serial Bus controllers, you most likely have at least 4.

Generally USB 2.0 ports are grouped as 2 per controller - normally each controller provides 1A (500mA per port).

Not sure what the controller breakdown is for USB3.0 though.

Thanks, My friend is booting up his PC.
Didn't even know there where multiple USB controllers, I thought the North-Bridge or CPU handled those things :Þ