VMware Cloud Community
mikewse
Contributor
Contributor

isolating 3d games in guest vm

Is this at all  possible with the free ESXi?

I have a server PC  connected to a big screen in our living room, running a native installation of  Windows 7 Media Center for TV, photos, etc. My kids are growing up so there is  currently an increasing number of games being installed on this system,  threatening its stability.

I would like to  separate these installations into distinct virtual machines in a hypervisor,  let's call them the Media VM and Gaming VM, that both would display full-screen on the  monitor. I've understood that the 3D GPU requirements of the  Gaming VM might present problems. There would also be some  other VMs I use for development work, but these have no special  requirements.

The hardware setup  is one computer with one monitor, keyboard and mouse. I guess possible  configurations could include:
  • the hypervisor  somehow allows to switch display between Media VM or Gaming  VM
  • or, the Media VM  is always displayed on the monitor, and inside this a console or remote desktop  tool can be used to show the Gaming VM
  • or, two graphics  cards are used so each VM can own (by passthrough) its own GPU and the monitor  gets connected with one cable to each graphics card
  • or, other  setups?
Thanks
Mike
Reply
0 Kudos
3 Replies
zXi_Gamer
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

let's call them the Media VM and Gaming VM,

Now that is a cool dad Smiley Happy

The hardware setup  is one computer with one monitor, keyboard and mouse. I guess possible  configurations could include:
  • the hypervisor  somehow allows to switch display between Media VM or Gaming  VM
  • or,  the Media VM  is always displayed on the monitor, and inside this a  console or remote desktop  tool can be used to show the Gaming VM
  • or,  two graphics  cards are used so each VM can own (by passthrough) its  own GPU and the monitor  gets connected with one cable to each graphics  card

You will not be able to achieve this by installing ESXi. However, you can get this resolved by installing VMware Workstation in the server PC connected to your TV.

On installing the Workstation, you can create multiple VMs and since the display is already routed to the TV, you can switch between the VMs as on need.

AFAIK, workstation does not provide you a passthrough, but it uses the underlying hardware itself. If yuou have a GPU, the same will be used by the VMs.

Added to this, if you have a separate laptop or PC, you can have your work VM running in the Workstation and the console can be redirected to your laptop/PC via LAN while the mediaVM or the GamingVM still runs in the TV screen. check out WSX

Reply
0 Kudos
mikewse
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for the suggestion!

I'll direct some questions to the Workstation forum to see if it's a good fit :slightly_smiling_face:

Reply
0 Kudos
zXi_Gamer
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Roger That....

Reply
0 Kudos