Is it possible to run 2 virtual computers off the same gpu with modest performance

[REAPER-Nam]

I've been wondering lately after watching the unRaid tutorial Linus did on running 2 gamers off of 1 pc, but it wasn't really the ultimate when it came to 2 gamers 1 pc... how about 2 gamers, 1 cpu and 1 gpu? Is it possible to split gpu usage in such a way that 2 fully functioning computers will be able to run games at decent speeds off a single gpu?

The CPU I have is an amd fx 8350 (oc'd) and the gpu is a R9 390 8Gb. The biggest reason for this post is with newer cards boasting double the vram of the highest end older cards and gpus like the K series from nvidia at 24Gb, is it possible to make full use of the vram (as currently even witcher 3 only uses 3Gb of Vram)?

[bgibbz]

nope, unfortunately splitting a gpu is not possible in Unraid atm. 

 

edit - the k series you refer to is for computing, not gaming. 

[Sauron]

No, unraid uses pcie passthrough, which means it will pass the whole card over to the vm - essentially it gives the vm control of the pcie slot, so you can't split it. It's not exclusive to unraid btw, you can do it on any linux os.

[REAPER-Nam]

regarding the K series cards, i know they are mainly intended for high workloads and number crunching, but with excess resources it seemed an applicable example for the forum.

Regarding unRaid, i know it uses PCI-e passthrough, but through other software (even virtual ware within windows) to split usage without sacrificing too much performance

[Electronics Wizardy]

14 minutes ago, REAPER-Nam said:

I've been wondering lately after watching the unRaid tutorial Linus did on running 2 gamers off of 1 pc, but it wasn't really the ultimate when it came to 2 gamers 1 pc... how about 2 gamers, 1 cpu and 1 gpu? Is it possible to split gpu usage in such a way that 2 fully functioning computers will be able to run games at decent speeds off a single gpu?

The CPU I have is an amd fx 8350 (oc'd) and the gpu is a R9 390 8Gb. The biggest reason for this post is with newer cards boasting double the vram of the highest end older cards and gpus like the K series from nvidia at 24Gb, is it possible to make full use of the vram (as currently even witcher 3 only uses 3Gb of Vram)?

If you want to split a gpu, there are 2 main ways to do it.

 

1. via hardware

 

You can split some nvidia and amd gpus(firepros, grid, and teslas only) into up to 32 vgpus. Each will have some of the performance and would still support features like cuda.

 

In order to do this you need a supported gpu(grid or tesla) and vmware esxi or citrix xen.

 

2. Via software

 

WIth hyper-v on windows you can have virtual gpu's with upto 1gb of vram, but the performance sucks and your limited to older standards(directx 9 if i recall right).

 

There is no way to do this on your current hardware.

[REAPER-Nam]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

If you want to split a gpu, there are 2 main ways to do it.

 

1. via hardware

 

You can split some nvidia and amd gpus(firepros, grid, and teslas only) into up to 32 vgpus. Each will have some of the performance and would still support features like cuda.

 

In order to do this you need a supported gpu(grid or tesla) and vmware esxi or citrix xen.

 

2. Via software

 

WIth hyper-v on windows you can have virtual gpu's with upto 1gb of vram, but the performance sucks and your limited to older standards(directx 9 if i recall right).

 

There is no way to do this on your current hardware.

Thanks for the update, I figured that the grid gpu's would have it as Nvidia uses it in their Cloud graphics servers. sucks though that desktop (consumer) graphics cards do not support it... even though in many cases they out perform (in low vram usage, high bandwidth applications) workstation grade cards. Hyper-V looks like a cool app, but the limitations do make it a bit suckish for gaming. ;.(

[REAPER-Nam]

I'll leave the post open in case someone knows of some no-name application we haven't heard of on the mainstream yet.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, REAPER-Nam said:

. even though in many cases they out perform (in low vram usage

You can get much more with the teslas and grids. 

 

You can get passive coolers for servers(normal cooler don't work well in 1u)

 

You can get quad gpu's on one card.

 

You can get cards with much more vram.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, REAPER-Nam said:

I'll leave the post open in case someone knows of some no-name application we haven't heard of on the mainstream yet.

Your best hope is hyper-v. There isn't any way to make a good solution.

 

You could try Microsoft multipoint server(you need windows server).

 

 

[REAPER-Nam]

I now saw that VM-Ware workstation supports up to 2gb of vram, which is decent, will do some benchmarks with it, but dont expect much. will post some benches as soon as i'm done with it. If anyone knows of a virtual machine application that can use more than 2gb vram, please post it and i will try and get to benching it