ESX 6.7 with HDMI pass through - partly working.

[dastrix80]

Hi All,

Using an Intel i7 4770 which has the Intel onboard HD 4600 graphics. I've passed this through to the Win10 VM and as a result I now have QuickSync/Hardware acceleration working for a CCTV tool I'm using.

What is not working is the HDMI onboard of the motherboard and part of the HD4600 - if I cable this to an external display, I get no output at all.

Any thoughts as to what I can check?

Im using latest Intel drivers, Win10 updates and ESX

Thank you

[dastrix80]

No one from VMware?

[ivanerben]

Hi,

I spent 3 days with same thing. HDMI output on IGD is just not working and everything in guest os seems to be fine. I have found this qemu/igd-assign.txt at master · qemu/qemu · GitHub

According to it, IGD has two different modes for assignment using vfio-pci: Universal Pass-Through (UPT) mode and Legacy mode.

Configuring passthrough in ESXi we are probably in UPT mode, where it just don't work "Those guest drivers only support this mode for Broadwell and newer IGD, according to Intel.Additionally, this mode by default, and as officially supported by Intel, does not support direct video output."

Question is, how to get Legacy mode work on ESXi, when it is possible on linux kvm. That requirements states about specific address 02.0 of IGD in virtual machine (it is same position like IGD have on host)

Event with VMware Knowledge Base I did not figure it out how to address it. Should value be 2? When I set advanced setting pciPassthru0.pciSlotNumber = "2" it is alway changed back during vm startup.

Next requirement IGD device must have a VGA ROM, either provided via the romfile option or loaded automatically through vfio (standard). In ESXi that should probably be setting

pciPassthru0.opromEnabled=TRUE  and booting ESXi with pcipSaveOPROM (VMware Knowledge Base)

1. Setting the ESX boot option ‘pcipSaveOPROM=TRUE’.
2. Configuring the VM’s .vmx file with parameter “%s.opromEnabled=TRUE” (e.g., pciPassthru0.opromEnabled=TRUE).

But I still don't know how to set that address.

[jayklx]

I have a asrock j4105(Gemini Lake) running esxi 6.7 u1, and I succeed passthrough IGD to a LibreELEC vm(will try Windows10 later)

as qemu document, it may running in UPT mode , which won't get video output , but my HDMI output works!

settings I changed is:

1. set bios mode to EFI

2. set svga.present to FALSE in vmx

It's magically works! hope this is helpful for you guys.

[ivanerben]

Interesting, but my setup was different. I have board with IPMI and this IPMI graphics (AST2500) is primary and I have tried to passtrought Intel graphics, which is set as secondary in (efi) bios. Maybe this was reason that intel HD graphics bios was not initialized as expected.

[ivanerben]

Just have to add, I can use this intel graphics in linux vm to encode videos. This part works.

[mihp123]

@Jayklx

Would you please be so kind to share the vmx file for you kodi VM?

I have an Asrock J4105 myself, I passed through the GPU. Kodi starts but the image is garbled and is driving me crazy.

Thanks