Re: [Qemu-discuss] Access hardware GPU from Qemu

[Daniel Kraft]

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Hi,

thanks for the fast reply -- I was out of town until now, though.

On 10/02/12 17:32, Mike Lovell wrote:
> On 02/10/2012 04:42 AM, Daniel Kraft wrote:
>> I have a Nvidia GeForce GT 520M in my notebook, but so far I was
>> not able to get the correct driver in my Debian system.  (I'm new
>> to Debian, though, so I probably just missed the correct
>> installation procedure yet.)
>> 
>> Since I only want to use it for special purposes (namely, running
>> CUDA calculations), I wonder whether I could install Windows in a
>> Qemu system and run the calculations there.  Is it possible to
>> make Qemu access the GPU for hardware acceleration even when the
>> host system does not have appropriate drivers?  Something like
>> giving the guest system full hardware access to the graphics
>> card?
>> 
>> Maybe that's a stupid idea, but I'm no expert in virtualization
>> stuff.
> 
> its not a stupid idea. there are several cases where using a gpu in
> a guest makes sense.
> 
> what are the rest of the hardware details of the laptop?

I don't know what you need to know, but for a starter, here's my lspci
output:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 2nd Generation Core Processor
Family DRAM Controller (rev 09)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200/2nd Generation Core
Processor Family PCI Express Root Port (rev 09)
00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200
Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1a.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset
Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 (rev 04)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset
Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 04)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset
Family PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev b4)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset
Family PCI Express Root Port 2 (rev b4)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset
Family PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev b4)
00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset
Family PCI Express Root Port 5 (rev b4)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset
Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 (rev 04)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation HM65 Express Chipset Family LPC
Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series
Chipset Family 6 port SATA AHCI Controller (rev 04)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 6 Series/C200 Series Chipset Family
SMBus Controller (rev 04)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation Device 0ded (rev a1)
01:00.1 Audio device: nVidia Corporation GF108 High Definition Audio
Controller (rev a1)
07:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 06)
08:00.0 Network controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
RTL8191SEvA Wireless LAN Controller (rev 10)
09:00.0 USB controller: NEC Corporation uPD720200 USB 3.0 Host
Controller (rev 04)

> it is possible assuming you have the correct hardware and system 
> support. passing access to a pci device to a guest requires vt-d
> on intel systems or iommu support on amd systems. also, just cause
> your cpu and/or chip set has support for these technologies, its
> possible the BIOS doesn't have support or has broken support. its
> still kind of hit or miss on support for these things. i have a
> system with a MSI z68 motherboard and a core i7-2600 and was able
> to pass through the usb3 controller to a windows guest properly.
> passing through a gpu for computation stuff should be about the
> same but it wont take over as the boot vga device. it will operate
> as a second video card in the guest.
> 
> http://www.linux-kvm.org/page/How_to_assign_devices_with_VT-d_in_KVM
> has some decent instructions on setting this up. 
> http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/lnxinfo/v3r0m0/index.jsp?topic=%2Fliaat%2Fliaatbppassthrougtask.htm
>
> 
is another link that has similar details.

Thanks!   It is not very urgent for me, so I probably won't try it
immediately -- but I'll come back to that later and will try to make
it work.

Yours,
Daniel


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