Which virtual machine for linux is able to transfer direct control of the hardware to the guest system?

Question

linux

I would like to implement such a scenario on a gaming PC running Linux:
1. We start a virtual machine with Windows
2. We launch Steam / game / demo / something-in-3d - an application demanding on resources
3. The application works as if Windows is installed directly on PC, bypassing
the virtual machine Slight performance losses are not terrible, because on a home PC with toys and other useful software, it takes up some of the resources. And the virtual machine is planned purely for the application.

Answer 1

At one time, I went for this solution because it was necessary to run both Windows and Linux on the same machine, which must have had access to some PCI devices. I tried the following options: xen, KVM, ESXi.
I settled on a system under ubuntu with a custom kernel and xen 4.2. The setup process is not simple, but it is described in detail, good guides Create a Gaming Virtual Machine , HOW-TO make dual-boot obsolete using XEN VGA passt... .
There is a high probability of encountering problems when "forwarding" equipment (Nvidia video cards) to the guest OS, and other glitches, for example, xm did not start windows 8, but xl did.
There are boxed XenServer solutions from Citrix and ESXi from VmWare. In my subjective opinion, a system based on them is more stable and easier to configure. But with them, working Linux will have to be run in the same way as Windows - as a guest OS (to be precise, in the ubuntu-based version, linux is not a host OS, but at least it was dom0, by the way, working on dom0 is not recommended).
But in each version, I lacked some little things or some kind of instability manifested itself. It made my eyes red. As a result, I got tired ... A separate server was assembled for Linux, and Windows is now hosting the gaming machine. Everything was fine, I had free time, and I finally launched a graphics-demanding application not for a graphics test, but to relax.
Xatory, good luck! I sincerely hope that there will be no problems with your hardware configuration and one of the options for "forwarding" the video card will do.

Answer 2

xen, There was even an article on Habré (maybe more than one). The main thing is to forward the vidyahu.

Answer 3

KVM allows you to throw devices into a virtual machine. I didn't try to stream the graphics, but most likely it will work, you may need to make a serial-console on the host system (which actually launches the virtual machine). I myself sometimes throw various ethernet and usb cards - it works fine!

Answer 4

Here the question is not only (not so much) in choosing a VM hypervisor, but primarily in the selection of equipment. To forward devices to the guest OS, the processor and chipset must support this forwarding (the names of technologies for AMD and Intel can be found through search engines).
There have been several articles about successfully forwarding AMD graphics cards to KVM. Again, you can find.