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rmb54
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vDGA on VMWARE workstation 12

I would like to have some help. I am having some trouble finding information on how to do it properly. I need to do a PCI pass-through for a GPU card to a given virtual machine. I need the pass-through from my GPUs to my VM to run CUDA, Tensorflow, speed up Gazebo, and many other software for my robot.

I just saw many forums on Gazebo, ROS, Nvidia and other places of people struggling on the same problem. When having a dual boot is not an option it becomes a challenge.

My Host machine is:

MSI Aegis Ti3:

  • Windows 10 Home
  • 7th Gen Intel® Core™ i7 -7700K processor
  • 32GB DDR4
  • MSI GeForce® GTX 1070 GAMING 8GB GDDR5X graphics in SLI

My guest machine:

Ubuntu (Xenial) 16.04.4

I made a downgrade to qt5 due problems with ROS and Gazebo.

The confusion comes also because there is a lot of notes on VMware ESXI and hypervisor that has a focus on different application than mine, and was develop for very different hardware.

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wila
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Hi,

VMware Workstation does not support PCIe passthrough, so it will be hard to provide steps for something that does not exist.

FWIW, for VMware products only VMware vSphere supports PCIe passthrough, but as vSphere is installed on the metal, you'd be loosing your Windows 10 host OS and would need another PC in order to access the VM. So I doubt that vSphere would work for you.

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva

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wila
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Hi,

VMware Workstation does not support PCIe passthrough, so it will be hard to provide steps for something that does not exist.

FWIW, for VMware products only VMware vSphere supports PCIe passthrough, but as vSphere is installed on the metal, you'd be loosing your Windows 10 host OS and would need another PC in order to access the VM. So I doubt that vSphere would work for you.

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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rmb54
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Thanks for the answer,

I kinda realized that it is being a pain. I saw even material explaining how to install vsphere into a VM so I could use it as a VMWare lab. I don`t know if it should work. It would be complex as well.

I am trying to find information on how to do a work around. It would be nice if there were a way I could see my hardware through my VM. If the VM can see the USB I might be able to see the PCIe. It might just be a matter of personallyse my VM and computer on the low level.

If I had to install on the metal would be easier to do the dual boot.

I might need to apply for research funds and buy a new machine.

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wila
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Hi,

Installing vSphere in a VM is generally only done to have a vSphere lab. It won't get you access to your host PCI cards.

You can get access to USB devices, but that still won't help you.

Dual booting with vSphere is painful and I can't really recommend it. If you do want to go down that path then the tips I can give are:

- install vSphere on a separate harddisk

- hide that harddisk from Windows (set it as inactive in disk manager) in order to prevent the FAT boot partitions to show up in windows.

--

Wil

| Author of Vimalin. The virtual machine Backup app for VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation and Player |
| More info at vimalin.com | Twitter @wilva
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rmb54
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Just a reflection now.

It is sad but it is fine. VMware is cool but cannot do magic sometimes.

Maybe in the future the find a way to add a PCIe passthrough it would make some engineering projects much more accessible.

It is kinda expensive having 2 or more machines. AWS helps but it is costly in time to set up the development environment and in money for using the service.

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