Making a cheap virtualization server

[Eastman51]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

VM's like this really aren't made for a arcade box. Get a mini pc or a pi for that. 

Who says I can't try?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Eastman51 said:

Who says I can't try?

due to how the video is outputted you need anouther system to connect to the pc anyways. 

 

Also the vm doesn't have any gpu power, like none. dragging windows is laggy. You can try if you want, but you probably won't go far.

[KarathKasun]

7 minutes ago, Eastman51 said:

I'd potentially use Linux for a remote arcade box. idk if I'd actually use XP, just a thought as I found some XP x64 Professional disks and keys

I am all for playing around with VM's and whatnot, but I'm wondering how a VM would help make an arcade/emulation box?

[Eastman51]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

due to how the video is outputted you need anouther system to connect to the pc anyways. 

 

Also the vm doesn't have any gpu power, like none. dragging windows is laggy. You can try if you want, but you probably won't go far.

Does proxmox not support PCI pass-through?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Eastman51 said:

Does proxmox not support PCI pass-through?

it does, but does your system? Whats the layout of the iommu groups on your board? This is kinda a pain to setup. 

 

If you want a arcade box, id just install a gui on the host and use that.

[KarathKasun]

1 minute ago, Eastman51 said:

Does proxmox not support PCI pass-through?

PCI pass-through requires much newer hardware AFAIK.  It also requires a fairly specialized software setup.

[Eastman51]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

it does, but does your system? Whats the layout of the iommu groups on your board? This is kinda a pain to setup. 

 

If you want a arcade box, id just install a gui on the host and use that.

idk what you mean exactly. iommu groups?

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, KarathKasun said:

PCI pass-through requires much newer hardware AFAIK.  It also requires a fairly specialized software setup.

that gen supports it, but that chip has vt-d disabled.

 

3 minutes ago, Eastman51 said:

Does proxmox not support PCI pass-through?

Your cpu doesn't support pcie passthough.

[Eastman51]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

that gen supports it, but that chip has vt-d disabled.

 

Your cpu doesn't support pcie passthough.

ah, i see. Thats fine, I'll still set up freeNAS. Any other useful things I could do?

[KarathKasun]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

that gen supports it, but that chip has vt-d disabled.

 

Your cpu doesn't support pcie passthough.

Dont you have to go up to something like a Xeon or locked i7 to get vt-d on older Intel chips?  I remember it being disabled on K SKU's.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Eastman51 said:

ah, i see. Thats fine, I'll still set up freeNAS. Any other useful things I could do?

What do you want to do on your network?

 

Proxmox also supports ZFS, so it has the same storage system as proxmox, but also has good vm support if you want that in the future.

[KarathKasun]

2 minutes ago, Eastman51 said:

ah, i see. Thats fine, I'll still set up freeNAS. Any other useful things I could do?

Hmmm... perhaps set up a router VM on it as well?  I believe you can get multi-port GbE network cards for fairly cheap.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, KarathKasun said:

Dont you have to go up to something like a Xeon or locked i7 to get vt-d on older Intel chips?  I remember it being disabled on K SKU's.

Yea old k sku's did't have vt-d, but chips like the 2400 had it. i3's and k chips didn't have it till like haswell. amd fx also has pcie passthough on all chips.

 

But even then pcie passthough support isn't great.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, KarathKasun said:

Hmmm... perhaps set up a router VM on it as well?  I believe you can get multi-port GbE network cards for fairly cheap.

I wouldn't do that, thats a great way to have a network outage, esp if you don't need the advanced features.

[Eastman51]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What do you want to do on your network?

 

Proxmox also supports ZFS, so it has the same storage system as proxmox, but also has good vm support if you want that in the future.

I'd maybe try to set up some kind of media/streaming server. I don't know much about home server utilities, was hoping to fish for these and see if I got any lightbulbs

1 minute ago, KarathKasun said:

Hmmm... perhaps set up a router VM on it as well?  I believe you can get multi-port GbE network cards for fairly cheap.

I already have a dedicated router that works well. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Eastman51 said:

I'd maybe try to set up some kind of media/streaming server. I don't know much about home server utilities, was hoping to fish for these and see if I got any lightbulbs

Id might look at unraid then, easy to use and lots of home server plugins.

[Eastman51]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id might look at unraid then, easy to use and lots of home server plugins.

Ok, I'll check it out

[KarathKasun]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Yea old k sku's did't have vt-d, but chips like the 2400 had it. i3's and k chips didn't have it till like haswell. amd fx also has pcie passthough on all chips.

 

But even then pcie passthough support isn't great.

I have an FX-8300 system with a Gigabyte GA-990FX A-UD7 (6x physical PCIe x16 slots) that is going to be a VM toy.  I look forward to hours of debugging PCIe pass-through.  If I can get pass-through working on that thing, I figure that I will be able to make it work on pretty much any newer platform.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, KarathKasun said:

I have an FX-8300 system with a Gigabyte GA-990FX A-UD7 (6x physical PCIe x16 slots) that is going to be a VM toy.  I look forward to hours of debugging PCIe pass-through.  If I can get pass-through working on that thing, I figure that I will be able to make it work on pretty much any newer platform.

I got a ud5, pcie passthough worked well and never really had any issues other than the realtek nic. 

Stop using it due to power usage.

 

Lots of system just like to crash when using passthrough.

[KarathKasun]

6 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

I wouldn't do that, thats a great way to have a network outage, esp if you don't need the advanced features.

Haven't had any issues doing that personally, though I need fairly advanced traffic shaping because I live with six other internet junkies.

[Eastman51]

8 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

 i3's and k chips didn't have it till like haswell

I have a haswell i3... hmmmm

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, Eastman51 said:

I have a haswell i3... hmmmm

 

your chip doesn't have it, check ark.

 

https://ark.intel.com/products/77480/Intel-Core-i3-4130-Processor-3M-Cache-3_40-GHz

[Eastman51]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

your chip doesn't have it, check ark.

 

https://ark.intel.com/products/77480/Intel-Core-i3-4130-Processor-3M-Cache-3_40-GHz

thats the 4130, I have a 4170. Which doesn't have it either

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, Eastman51 said:

thats the 4130, I have a 4170

same thing on the 4170

[KarathKasun]

1 minute ago, Eastman51 said:

thats the 4130, I have a 4170

https://ark.intel.com/products/77490/Intel-Core-i3-4170-Processor-3M-Cache-3_70-GHz

 

Intel® Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d) ‡ No