Hi all! Is it likly that xen/windows/supported hardware will ever support full 3d acceleration of the guest os? I expect that this would be hard to achieve and I would love to help if I were capable! Just a thought anyway.. Thanks, Alan _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
On Friday 24 February 2006 09:14, variant integrity wrote:> Hi all! > > Is it likly that xen/windows/supported hardware will ever support full 3d > acceleration of the guest os? I expect that this would be hard to achieve > and I would love to help if I were capable! Just a thought anyway..If the guest os outputs on a window on dom0, I''d guess its more or less impossible. (You''d have to emulate some 3D capable VGA for the domU, like an NVIDIA/ATI, have to reverse engineer the proprietary / trade secret / patented protocols their drivers use to talk to the card. Then extrapolate the vertex/texture/... data from the command stream, generate openGL from that, emulate the functions used but not avail in openGL, and then finally pass it to the dom0 OpenGL driver) However, if you install a secondary VGA, Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse and use PCI passthrough to make them all visible to the guest OS, it could be doable. /Ernst _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
There''s been more than one discussion thread on this subject, and the summary answer is: - It''s possible to do with a para-virtualized driver in the guest - that is, a driver that takes the calls for graphics commands and passes them to Dom0, where a "real" graphics driver executes the actual intention of the call. It is not trivial to write such a driver, but it''s nowhere near as hard as it would be to try to get a very advanced native driver to work in a guest environment. Of course, if you have two different graphics cards in the machine, Dom0 can be given one card, and one of the guest domains can be given the other card, thus you can use the native driver straight off (at least in fully virtualized mode). -- Mats ________________________________ From: xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com [mailto:xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com] On Behalf Of variant integrity Sent: 24 February 2006 08:15 To: xen-users@lists.xensource.com Subject: [Xen-users] 3D acceleration Hi all! Is it likly that xen/windows/supported hardware will ever support full 3d acceleration of the guest os? I expect that this would be hard to achieve and I would love to help if I were capable! Just a thought anyway.. Thanks, Alan _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
On Feb 24, 2006, at 4:46 AM, Petersson, Mats wrote:> There''s been more than one discussion thread on this subject, and > the summary answer is: > - It''s possible to do with a para-virtualized driver in the guest - > that is, a driver that takes the calls for graphics commands and > passes them to Dom0, where a "real" graphics driver executes the > actual intention of the call. > > It is not trivial to write such a driver, but it''s nowhere near as > hard as it would be to try to get a very advanced native driver to > work in a guest environment. > > Of course, if you have two different graphics cards in the machine, > Dom0 can be given one card, and one of the guest domains can be > given the other card, thus you can use the native driver straight > off (at least in fully virtualized mode).Can you do this one card? Just have dom0 not have a video card, and pass the only video card to domU? That''s how I run all my servers anyway, and it''d be awesome to use hardware acceleration on a "desktop domU"... -- Luke _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
________________________________ From: xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com [mailto:xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com] On Behalf Of Luke Sent: 24 February 2006 14:34 To: xen-users@lists.xensource.com Subject: Re: [Xen-users] 3D acceleration On Feb 24, 2006, at 4:46 AM, Petersson, Mats wrote: There''s been more than one discussion thread on this subject, and the summary answer is: - It''s possible to do with a para-virtualized driver in the guest - that is, a driver that takes the calls for graphics commands and passes them to Dom0, where a "real" graphics driver executes the actual intention of the call. It is not trivial to write such a driver, but it''s nowhere near as hard as it would be to try to get a very advanced native driver to work in a guest environment. Of course, if you have two different graphics cards in the machine, Dom0 can be given one card, and one of the guest domains can be given the other card, thus you can use the native driver straight off (at least in fully virtualized mode). Can you do this one card? Just have dom0 not have a video card, and pass the only video card to domU? That''s how I run all my servers anyway, and it''d be awesome to use hardware acceleration on a "desktop domU"... I guess in theory, you could. You do have to make sure that Dom0 doesn''t recognise and/or grab the video card at any time, which is probably not very difficult - but I don''t know for sure. Of course, you then also need to have a serial console or something along those lines to be able to get to the console and do admin stuff once in a while - hopefully not very often... ;-) -- Mats -- Luke _______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users
On a recent Channel 9 video about virtualization, some Microsoft reps said they were working with 3d card makers to develop virtualizable graphics cards specifically to enable 3d effects in guest machines. There are some practical sharing issues to have more than 1 guest be 3d accelerated (transparently). It''s entirely possible that we''ll see a single guest have 3d support but if virtualization-friendly cards are in the works, I''d imagine we wouldn''t see much until then. Regards, Anthony Liguori Petersson, Mats wrote:> There''s been more than one discussion thread on this subject, and the > summary answer is: > - It''s possible to do with a para-virtualized driver in the guest - > that is, a driver that takes the calls for graphics commands and > passes them to Dom0, where a "real" graphics driver executes the > actual intention of the call. > > It is not trivial to write such a driver, but it''s nowhere near as > hard as it would be to try to get a very advanced native driver to > work in a guest environment. > > Of course, if you have two different graphics cards in the machine, > Dom0 can be given one card, and one of the guest domains can be given > the other card, thus you can use the native driver straight off (at > least in fully virtualized mode). > > -- > Mats > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > *From:* xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com > [mailto:xen-users-bounces@lists.xensource.com] *On Behalf Of > *variant integrity > *Sent:* 24 February 2006 08:15 > *To:* xen-users@lists.xensource.com > *Subject:* [Xen-users] 3D acceleration > > Hi all! > > Is it likly that xen/windows/supported hardware will ever support > full 3d acceleration of the guest os? I expect that this would be > hard to achieve and I would love to help if I were capable! Just a > thought anyway.. > > Thanks, > > Alan > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > Xen-users mailing list > Xen-users@lists.xensource.com > http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users_______________________________________________ Xen-users mailing list Xen-users@lists.xensource.com http://lists.xensource.com/xen-users