high performance with xen, vmware or virtualbox

Question

I was wondering which is the best method to go about if I want to play win based games.

I do not want to go with the dual boot method as this will cost me time to restart, login and run a os to do my work or pass the time, and some of my apps rely on win and my graphics to run. for example Daz3d, Photoshop, Flash etc.

Now I read about HVM(hardware virtual machines) and then I know about the 3D virtualisation of VMware and VirtualBox. How ever the 2 later virtualise the 3D not using the full power of the GPU. So this option wont perform perfect for latest games like D3.

I was wondering if anyone have experience in HVM(like xen if i am not mistaken) and tried something similar to access the full power of the GPU and successfully run newer games and other products relying on the GPU?

Will be the first time setting up a HVM, no experience in this so don't know what to expect.

This will help a lot as I do not want to revert back to win or as mentioned do dual boot.

Answer 1

• Xen HVM is...exactly the same virtualization as VMware and Virtualbox; there's no difference. It's only called that because there's another kind called Xen PVM (para-virtualized), which can only run Linux VMs and is more efficient in some cases.

• To be honest, while both VMWare and Vbox have rudimentary 3D support (Xen HVM has none -- it's mostly meant for servers), it will 99.9% be insufficient to run modern 3D games, no matter how powerful your CPU or GPU. You will have to dual-boot, unless your favorite games are Wolfenstein, Doom and Quake 1 :p

Answer 2

With PCI/VGA Passthrough on Xen (and afaik kvm, too), people is playing on vm with direct hardware access passed to vm. With little to none decrese in performance. Vmware and Virtualbox are tools to toy.

Answer 3

Xen hypervisor allows you to run a Windows VM with direct access to your graphics card (hardware). This is called VGA passthrough. You can also directly access other PC hardware using PCI passthrough, for example USB host controllers, SATA controllers, etc., all of which will then be available under Windows, with Windows-native drivers.

BUT, as mentioned before, you need to carefully select your hardware. Here some basic guidelines to check if your hardware is compatible:

1. Your CPU must support VT-d (Intel) or AMD-Vi / IOMMU (AMD) !!! Don't confuse it with VT-x - these are two different things. For Intel, see ark.intel.com. Note: The 3930K with C2 stepping also supports VT-d, but it's not listed when using the VT-d filter.

2. Your motherboard (and motherboard BIOS) must have an option to enable VT-d (sometimes called IOMMU). Some BIOS implementations have been reported buggy, though. Still, if the option shows up, chances are good.

3. A VGA-passthrough compatible graphics adapter. Many (most?) AMD graphics cards are supported, and some Nvidia cards, namely the professional "multi-OS" Quadro series (starting from the Quadro 2000 upwards). The Intel onboard graphics is supposedly also compatible. Search for "Xen VGA passthrough tested adapters". Note: It's best to have a another GPU (Intel onboard or separate graphics card) for your Linux, and pass-through the secondary GPU (the one NOT used by Linux).

If you got compatible hardware, it's definitely worth the effort. Search for "VGA passthrough" or "virtual gaming" to find tutorials, or try this here HOW-TO make dual-boot obsolete which is based on Linux Mint 13 (should be similar for Ubuntu).