this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
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Maybe if you're using type 2 virtualization bullshit like VirtualBox, but for type 1 like KVM? Performance is near identical to host CPU, the overhead is somewhere between 2~4%. Hardly something you'd ever notice.
https://forum.level1techs.com/t/how-fast-is-kvm-host-vs-virtual-machine-performance/110192
Wine is fine, but it comes with its lot of compatibility issues you'll never have to deal with with a VM with GFX passthrough.
Sure. I admit my experience running a VM is limited to "type 2 bullshit" like VirtualBox. But that also requires that OP have a spare GPU lying around they care enough to pop into their machine and set up passthrough for, which most people don't. Especially with these GPU prices lately, yikes. Chances are they have a decent GPU already in their system, and buying an equivalent GPU just for passthrough is... 😬
So while baremetal-like performance is certainly possible with a VM, it's still not an ideal solution for most people.
Use the iGPU for your main OS, and discreet for gaming in a VM. Works wonders and you don't need to deal with NVIDIA drivers in your main OS. And save some energy to boot.
Hmm that's a neat solution. What if you do video or photo editing in your main OS, though, or any other kind of work that would benefit from discreet graphics? Is your only option then essentially two GPUs, or can you switch between passthrough neatly, or...?
You can switch between the two, but it does require a reboot. So in that case two discreet would be more convenient. But for encoding and what not you probably can get away with a rather cheap discreet that works well on nouveau (or go Radeon) and keep the 4090 for gaming.
Interesting.
My system is all AMD, I prefer not to wrestle with Nvidia's drivers on Linux, lol.
It's been years since I ran Windows on my machine, but I still miss my photo editing software. Nice as DarkTable is, it's no replacement for CaptureOne. And it's pretty much not possible to get CaptureOne running in a productive manner under Wine. I looked into doing passthrough to a VM a while back, but it just seemed a hassle and I didn't have a spare GPU. I game on my Linux install, so iGPU isn't sufficient for my needs there. My photography hobby just has to suffer. 😂
I haven't adopted this kind of setup, mainly because Proton just does such a good job I have almost zero need for Windows, but my plan for eventually doing something like this was to also maintain a passthrough Linux VM for any GPU-intensive work on that side.
When I realized that the practical end-state of my system would mean I'd just be running things from within the Linux VM 98% of the time (games that can run on Linux) I kind of dropped the idea.