Remote access of VM with GPU Passthrough


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Does anyone here remotely access their VM that is configured for GPU passthrough?  I have a Windows 8.1 Pro VM successfully running with an AMD R9 270 GPU...thank you IronicBadger.  I want to access it remotely for various reasons: light gaming, image processing (using the GPU to speed up operations), and other various things.  I need help tracking down a client that will connect to the VM without creating its own video driver.  Anyone have an idea of where to start?  I have tried Kainy and TightVNC...neither will do what I need it to do.  I know it's working, but it always throws the GPU on the secondary and I don't know of any tools that will let me switch to the secondary display.  Thank you in advance for any assistance offered.

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Does anyone here remotely access their VM that is configured for GPU passthrough?  I have a Windows 8.1 Pro VM successfully running with an AMD R9 270 GPU...thank you IronicBadger.  I want to access it remotely for various reasons: light gaming, image processing (using the GPU to speed up operations), and other various things.  I need help tracking down a client that will connect to the VM without creating its own video driver.  Anyone have an idea of where to start?  I have tried Kainy and TightVNC...neither will do what I need it to do.  I know it's working, but it always throws the GPU on the secondary and I don't know of any tools that will let me switch to the secondary display.  Thank you in advance for any assistance offered.

Use microsoft remote desktop.

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Played around a bit more.  I've used RDP plenty of times to know it doesn't work well...or there's a trick to configure it I don't know about.  Guac is just a multi-client for various protocols.  TightVNC doesn't work.  Teamviewer was promising.  I plugged the passed through video card into a TV so it detected a display (could use an EDID emulator later or a null connector to fake a display later), and with Teamviewer I just made the video card desktop the primary.  It allowed the video card to be detectable through the Teamviewer session.  For applications it would work...though Photoshop or Lightroom might not be the best due to color reproduction loss in the compression of the video stream.  For gaming it was like watching a slideshow...on something simple like Minecraft with the settings ramped down.

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FWIW, I use windows Remote Desktop with my VM that has GPU passthrough almost daily and it works flawlessly.

 

I just noticed pfsense 2.2 in your sig as a kvm vm.

 

My motherboard has two nics and i have a pci-e card with another in it that's currently in one of my microservers running pfsense.

 

i also have a spare sata2 slot that i can put the 250gb drive that was originally in the microserver on, to host the qcow for pfsense and possibly a.n.other VM that i'd like to be able to run if the array was offline.

 

i'm at the interested stage at the moment of moving the pfsense into a KVM VM hosted on my unraid.

 

could you offer any advice on setting something like that up ?

 

 

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Played around a bit more.  I've used RDP plenty of times to know it doesn't work well

 

When was the last time you played with it and on what Windows version?  RDP has come a long way.  Let me put things this way:

 

I use a VPN connection from my home office to connect to my office.  The connection between is about 5mbps (given the upload speed from the office).  This is all consumer grade Internet service on both sides (no crazy T1/T3 connections, just basic AT&T Uverse / Charter Internet).  Over this VPN I use RDP to connect to my localized Windows 8.1 virtual desktop running on unRAID at the office.  Over this connection, I can browse the web, create documents, and even edit video.

 

Gaming over a remote graphics connection is just not a solid idea.  If you're going to do it, I can only speak from experience in using both NVIDIA for shield-based streaming as well as Steam in-home streaming.  In both scenarios, over the internet is pretty much just asking for a bad experience.  The one thing that compression / encoding can't solve for is latency, but if you're playing games that aren't latency-sensitive, it might not be a big deal.  That said, for editing still photos or creating digital art, I feel that remote graphics is just not the right solution, regardless of what tool.  It goes back to latency and draw speed.

 

I'm curious if you find a better solution and if so, please share, but in my experiences, RDP is the best tool for the job when we're talking about connecting to a Windows desktop over a remote connection.

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jonp:

I absolutely agree with RDP for non-latency application use and such...I've used it on everything up to Windows 8.1 Pro to Windows 2012  servers.  i have resigned to the fact that remote photo editing and such just isn't going to be possible...like you said latency.  General everyday use I will probably lean on RDP with NLA.

 

2stroke:

I had just come across Splashtop.  it won't work for image editing due to compression, but will work for general access (though RDP seems to handle this cleaner due to it not being a "streamer")  Is there some trick to configuring mouse use within games?  I play WarThunder so I understand controlling tanks between the two would be similar.  WASD for tank driving and mouse for aiming...or joystick...does the aiming with the mouse "float"?  In FPS gaming or something like Skyrim, Minecraft, etc., I would aim, and then have to float back.  Keep in mind this is going from a hardwired gigabit workhorse to my test VM with 4 vCPUs and 8GB of RAM and a passthrough AMD r9 270.

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jonp:

I absolutely agree with RDP for non-latency application use and such...I've used it on everything up to Windows 8.1 Pro to Windows 2012  servers.  i have resigned to the fact that remote photo editing and such just isn't going to be possible...like you said latency.  General everyday use I will probably lean on RDP with NLA.

 

2stroke:

I had just come across Splashtop.  it won't work for image editing due to compression, but will work for general access (though RDP seems to handle this cleaner due to it not being a "streamer")  Is there some trick to configuring mouse use within games?  I play WarThunder so I understand controlling tanks between the two would be similar.  WASD for tank driving and mouse for aiming...or joystick...does the aiming with the mouse "float"?  In FPS gaming or something like Skyrim, Minecraft, etc., I would aim, and then have to float back.  Keep in mind this is going from a hardwired gigabit workhorse to my test VM with 4 vCPUs and 8GB of RAM and a passthrough AMD r9 270.

Can you explain what you mean by "float"?  I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

 

I ask because I actually installed and tried out splashtop after reading this thread. So I might be able to answer your question.

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  • 1 year later...
  • 9 months later...
5 hours ago, stormense said:

can't connect with RDP if a check the integrated graphic card in settings, only vnc works. Mus I have the screen hock up to my server?

To be able to connect via RDP you have to satisfy the following requirements:

1) the VM must be visible on the network.  This means using a bridged network adapter (typically br0)

2) Bridged networking must be enabled at the unRAID Level under Settings->Network

3) RDP must be enabled inside the VM.

if all the above are satisfied then you should be able to connect via RDP to the VM.   Note that you use the VM’s IP address or name and not that of the unRAID server.

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