[HN Gopher] Looking Glass: Run a Windows VM on Linux in a window...
___________________________________________________________________
Looking Glass: Run a Windows VM on Linux in a window with native
performance
Author : tambourine_man
Score : 756 points
Date : 2021-07-18 02:32 UTC (20 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (looking-glass.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (looking-glass.io)
| xaduha wrote:
| I used it for a bit a while back and would only use it again if I
| absolutely had to. Cases like that are very limited though, using
| an external GPU enclosure without a monitor attached to it is
| one. Being dumb enough to try to use a gimped mining GPU that
| doesn't have any video outputs is another.
| Xenograph wrote:
| I think you forgot to mention why you didn't like it.
| xaduha wrote:
| It's too limiting, if you're doing the whole VFIO thing in
| the first place you don't really want to limit yourself to
| just Windows in a specific configuration. You want to have an
| ability to run any OS you can and pass your hardware to it.
|
| I wouldn't recommend VFIO just for gaming, there are better
| options.
| TheFreim wrote:
| > I wouldn't recommend VFIO just for gaming, there are
| better options.
|
| What options? I'm interested.
| xaduha wrote:
| Keeping work separate from entertainment is one better
| option. But if you have to have Linux and some casual
| gaming in one place, then I would stick to Lutris or
| Proton or some other easy to use wrapper.
|
| Or install less annoying edition of Windows like LTSC,
| configure Unified Write Filter or similar feature to keep
| it under control and try to live with latest WSL as your
| Linux. And just buying a console is another option, if
| not for a general chip shortage it would be a very good
| time to do it.
| Xenograph wrote:
| What exactly is limiting about it? I use it on a daily
| basis in order to flip between high performance Linux and
| high performance Windows instantly with the flick of a
| hotkey.
|
| I use it for gaming, software dev, and just in general it's
| nice to be able to switch OSs for any reason instantly.
| What better options are there?
| mathfailure wrote:
| I'm not familiar with VFIO and Looking glass and last
| time I used a VM was years ago. Could you explain how
| exactly did the 'flip between high performance Linux and
| high performance Windows instantly with the flick of a
| hotkey' actually work? What GPU setup did you have? Was
| the 'high performance Linux' in your case the host OS, or
| was it rather just another VM?
| xaduha wrote:
| Flipping between OS wasn't how I used VFIO. I had two
| different OS running on two monitors and both having
| access to underlying Linux shell.
|
| Basically it's not worth setting up VFIO just for gaming,
| but if you already on top of that mountain, then use
| whatever. I stopped using VFIO a while back and just
| bought a laptop that runs Linux without any issues.
|
| I don't really have time for games now, but if I wanted
| to play I would probably wait until next LTSC and install
| it + latest WSL on my PC. Or would buy a console, maybe
| that Steam Deck.
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| I would argue it's very much worth it just for gaming,
| now I get to everyday run an os I like and spin the
| windows vm up whenever I wanna play overwatch. Now that
| I'm on NixOS it was literally just a couple Nix lines and
| it's configured forever. (if on NixOS stable it doesn't
| break all the time, but you also have 6m+ old packages)
| JustStoppinIn89 wrote:
| Not him but I'll echo the same thing. Unless I absolutely
| have no other choice, I'm not going back to this setup.
|
| It's how I "gamed on Linux" for a couple years. Support is
| basically you and you alone. The dev for Looking Glass is
| active but the man isn't your personal tech assistant so
| often you're just doing A/B testing to make something work.
|
| For me, I just didn't want to fiddle with my home desktop
| that much. I went back to Windows.
| geocrasher wrote:
| The fiddle factor is why I'm using W10 as well. Linux is
| great, but on the desktop I just need things to work as-is.
| Linux on the desktop still doesn't have that. Maybe next
| year ;-)
| 411111111111111 wrote:
| > _Linux on the desktop still doesn 't have that_
|
| It does have it if all you want to do is develop, browse
| the web and similar things.
|
| Including windows games into the things it needs to run
| without hassle is kinda unfair in my opinion, as that's
| pretty far from what this DE is used for regularly.
|
| I went back to windows on my home pc because off games
| too, but my work environment with Ubuntu/regolith was
| significantly less painful to setup then the WSL hassles
| I had to jump through on windows before.
| unholythree wrote:
| Sort of. I bought a HP Probook laptop in 2018 and install
| Ubuntu 18.04 LTS which works perfectly except something
| minor fixed with a kernel update; however when I update
| to 20.04, sleep is just broken. Every time the machine
| sleeps it forgets that the keyboard exists. As much as I
| dislike Microsoft, stuff like that just doesn't happen
| with Windows.
|
| I'm still suffering with Linux for largely philosophical
| reasons at this point, but quite frankly if I wasn't such
| an opinionated nerd I'd just go to a normal Windows
| machine at this point.
| bennyp101 wrote:
| So, I don't think I'm understanding this correctly, does it have
| to be a separate machine? Seems to mention VM and VNC so I'm not
| entirely sure what it is!
|
| Like, currently I dual boot into Windows for games, but I can
| also get into it from Virtualbox if I need to quickly use
| something on there.
|
| Would I be able to use this with that? So I can use the internal
| GPU for my local Linux install, and then use the nvidia for the
| windows?
| shock wrote:
| Yes, it would work for your setup perfectly. Linux on the iGPU
| and windows on the nvidia.
| bennyp101 wrote:
| Oh ok awesome! Looks like I need to do some proper research
| on this then - can it really be, the best of both worlds?!
| shock wrote:
| I certainly think so.
| COGlory wrote:
| If anyone is interested, the main developer, who goes by 'gnif'
| spends a decent amount of time on the dedicated Looking Glass
| sub-forum on the Level1Techs forum, here:
|
| https://forum.level1techs.com/c/software/lookingglass/142
|
| Level1Techs also has a ton of information and help both on the
| forum, and their YouTube channel, about setting up Looking Glass
| and VFIO. The main host of the YouTube channel, Wendell, has
| forgotten more about nitty-gritty system administration than I
| will likely ever know in my lifetime. He also just seems like a
| genuinely good human being.
| Xenograph wrote:
| Just want to say that gnif is amazing. He is always happy to
| help out people on the looking glass support discord. Plus he's
| absolutely dedicated to continuing to improve the software he
| writes and the ecosystem around it. Top notch guy.
| gnif wrote:
| Thanks mate, your support is appreciated.
| glglwty wrote:
| I looked into this project (and related GPU pass through
| projects) a few years ago. Putting the discussion and even some
| issue tracking into a "support thread" in this forum makes
| getting information really difficult. It's the same experience
| when you want to install LinageOS and realize you have to go
| through a long thread on XDA and sometimes reddit to solve any
| issue you may have.
| gnif wrote:
| We have tried very hard to rectify this with the B4 release
| by adding a documentation project to the repository, which is
| available in HTML form here:
|
| https://looking-glass.io/docs/stable/
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Is that the gnif from EEVBlog?
| gnif wrote:
| Yes, I am :)
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Cool. Thanks for all your hard work on _that_ too!
| gnif wrote:
| You're most welcome :)
| egeozcan wrote:
| Also thanks for opening an account outside your community
| (here) just to help people.
|
| Also, didn't know that any 4 letter usernames were
| available here on HN anymore :)
| gnif wrote:
| Haha, yeah, it's why I like this handle, it's very rarely
| used anywhere.
|
| As for support, I do encourage people to join the Discord
| or head on over to the L1Techs forums as I won't really
| be monitoring this very closely.
|
| Edit: I mean I am at the moment because I am super stoked
| to make #1 on HN :D
| gnif wrote:
| Note we also have a very active Discord where I try to be very
| active where most of the support and discussions happen.
|
| https://discord.gg/52SMupxkvt
| nicolas_t wrote:
| Gnif also has a patreon to support his work
| https://www.patreon.com/gnif (mentioning this because I only
| discovered it a long time after using looking glass)
| villgax wrote:
| What's with the name being the same as the holo display maker?
| gnif wrote:
| You mean what's with the Holo display maker having the same
| name as us?
|
| We were using and had the name before they announced their
| product. If you want to get really finicky, you can ask why we
| are using the same name as Sun's Looking Glass desktop
| environment.
| mongol wrote:
| What does this do that regular KVM + Qemu does not?
| JustStoppinIn89 wrote:
| It provides bare metal access to the entire hardware stack. So
| for instance you could run Linux via your integrated GPU (the
| one on many consumer CPUs) while passing through your dedicated
| GPU to the Windows VM.
|
| This is how I "gamed on Linux" from 2018~2020 when I ran Ubuntu
| as my primary OS. It's incredibly finicky to set up (shocker, I
| know!) but if you're able to get it working it's truly amazing.
| Talking like 1% performance loss in AAA games in that virtual
| machine on the GPU.
|
| As for me, I abandoned Ubuntu (and Linux, I did try other
| distros!) in early 2020. I was tired of juggling my home setup
| just to relax. In a move unpopular with the Slashdot crowd from
| 1996, I went back to Windows as my host OS.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Just use Proton. Install games from Steam directly.
| JustStoppinIn89 wrote:
| This is a non-answer. Steam is not and should not be the
| sole source of video games on PC. This is a _workaround_
| that doesn 't even work as well as you imply.
|
| > Just use Windows. Install games from developers directly.
|
| See how silly that sounds to _you_ ?
| shmerl wrote:
| I'm mostly buying games from GOG, not Steam. You can
| perfectly use Wine, Wine staging and Proton without Steam
| for them.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Proton (a fork of Wine) can be used outside Steam. It's
| open source and hosted on github. There are also forks of
| Proton that are community maintained (e.g.: Glorious
| eggroll).
|
| If you want to have the convenience of Steam, without
| Steam, you have projects like Lutris, which have
| community maintained scripts for each game. Those scripts
| are responsible for installing all the necessary
| dependencies and workarounds necessary for getting a game
| to work.
|
| You can check https://www.protondb.com/ to see which
| games work well under Proton. If you don't want to use
| Proton, you can search the Wine application database for
| compatibility information: https://appdb.winehq.org/
|
| I recommend Steam + Proton because it's the most
| frictionless way of getting games to work. The #1
| complaint about Linux is how hard it is to do some things
| (like the guy I initially replied to), but it doesn't
| have to be that way.
| Anunayj wrote:
| Atleast right now, most anticheat software aren't available
| for Linux, You need a Windows kernel for them to run.
|
| This can however change as Steam plans to use SteamOS
| (based on Arch) as their primary OS on the SteamDeck.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| And only a minority of games do require anticheat.
| [deleted]
| Rd6n6 wrote:
| I hope they make it opt in. I don't really want an anti
| cheat snooping around my Linux system without my knowing
| Anunayj wrote:
| yup, though since they will require administrative
| permissions, I don't think valve will go around making
| you install it unless you play the specific game. Also I
| don't really understand how GPLv2 and kernel modules
| work, but I wonder if AntiCheats would be forced to open
| source themselves? Probably not honestly.
|
| Edit: If anyone wanna read Linus's thoughts on it [1].
| TL;DR It's a legal gray area.
|
| [1]. https://yarchive.net/comp/linux/gpl_modules.html
| throwawayswede wrote:
| Can you elaborate on the finickiness of it? What kind of
| "fixes" you needed to do, and how often really, and with a
| cause or just random with no precursors?
| JustStoppinIn89 wrote:
| Everything about it is fickle. Motherboards and USB
| controllers present themselves different from maker to
| maker, and SKU to SKU. Any change in your hardware --
| including plugging in something like a USB device -- sets
| off a chain of fighting the host OS and virtual machines
| for who gets to use that device, who gets to see that
| device at all, and the drivers needed for the hardware.
|
| No one is making user software with VFIO in mind. You will
| get random apps that do not launch in your virtual machine
| despite everything else running smoothly.
|
| You're screwing with it near daily, certainly weekly. Need
| to update a driver, such as your GPU on the virtual
| machine? May god have mercy on your soul that everything
| works after, or that you can even get the host OS to deal
| with the GPU correctly at all.
|
| I can sort of tell you haven't really read up on one of
| these setups because you seem incredulous that running
| Windows inside Linux is somehow finicky.
|
| It's not ready for prime time, period.
| throwawayswede wrote:
| Thanks for the detailed response.
|
| I personally don't mind the semi-daily tinkering with my
| config, but if even plugging in a USB might break things
| then it does sound petty unreliable.
|
| > I can sort of tell you haven't really read up on one of
| these setups because you seem incredulous that running
| Windows inside Linux is somehow finicky.
|
| Ouf. You have a great imagination, but I think you'd do
| better to put it into writing fiction or something like
| that. I asked you to provide details on your comment,
| didn't make any statements on whether it is indeed
| finicky or not, I run many Windows vms on linux but never
| with VFIO. Your snide remarks reflect nothing more than
| your lack of self-esteem.
| x3sphere wrote:
| Apart from some initial issues it's mostly been set it
| and forget it for me? I've been running a VFIO setup
| since 2017.
|
| GPU driver updates haven't broken anything in years.
| Nvidia actually made their drivers more passthrough
| friendly not too long ago (No longer need to spoof the
| vendor ID).
|
| I have not had any compatibility issues with software
| either. I know there are some multiplayer games that
| specifically check if you are running in a VM and refuse
| to run. It's a handful of games though and I don't play
| those.
| Xenograph wrote:
| It's in the title of the post. You can run your VM in a regular
| window but at high performance (think gaming and professional
| stuff that's GPU heavy). You otherwise can't do this without a
| hardware KVM switch (or tossing the VM and just dual booting).
| Hardware KVM switches are expensive and often don't work very
| well. And still, with a KVM switch it wouldn't be running
| inside a window. It would consume your whole screen.
| mongol wrote:
| Is it possible to run Windows in KVM, without the extra GPU
| or KVM switch, but with degraded performance? Not for gaming,
| but for example for Office use?
| tbr1 wrote:
| Yes, QXL can do that and has built-in support in e.g. virt-
| manager. It's not going to be fast, but it does work, and
| is how installation of Looking Glass can be bootstrapped
| without a physical monitor attached.
| Anunayj wrote:
| yes you can, (Atleast if you can handle the extra CPU and
| Disk I/O). I think you should checkout winapps [1] which
| RDP's into the vm to give you a pretty seamless experiance.
|
| P.S. Disk I/O can be a severe bottleneck on HDDs, so try
| this with a SSD.
|
| [1]. https://github.com/Fmstrat/winapps
| jokoon wrote:
| Sorry to ask, but I'm still using win10 as I could switch to
| linux if I wanted.
|
| Except gaming I personally don't see what prevents me from being
| "linux first". I'm just using windows 10 by habit and laziness.
|
| What is your experience? What makes you still need windows? It's
| weird because there are so many software alternatives that run on
| linux and also many initiatives that allow one to be run on linux
| via emulators and whatnots.
| veilrap wrote:
| I use Windows as my prior OS for work, even though much of work
| ends up happening through a Linux command line (WSL/ssh)
|
| For both work and casual use, there's a lot of small things
| that add up to it being very productive, and despite regularly
| giving the linux desktop a chance, I always gravitate back to
| Windows (and recently MacOS as well).
|
| I feel like most of the QoL features I enjoy are mostly
| invisible so its hard to remember them unless I'm actually
| experimenting with the Linux desktop. Here's some that do come
| to mind though.
|
| - Windows supports right-click and drag with context menus. For
| multi directory file manipulation, this shortcut is shockingly
| useful. While much file manipulation can be faster on the CLI,
| certain operations like this are incredibly efficient.
|
| - Binary blobs are really convenient compared to package
| managers/source building for my daily driver stuff. I have
| decade old games that just work, and I've never had to deal
| with version incompatibilities for my tooling, unlike in my
| Linux environments.
|
| - Common actions like sleep/wake just seem to work better.
|
| - Microsoft Office is really nice.
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| I run a VFIO setup with a single GPU - the linux host is
| headless, and Windows runs on top with the GPU. Its pretty
| awesome. Windows runs at native performance - no problem gaming
| or running other heavy workloads. The linux host acts as a devbox
| and runs a few other homeserver style services.
|
| It's difficult to set up right but it taught me a lot about VMs
| and hardware. Once you get it setup well enough, its relatively
| painless. Like I haven't messed with my VM settings in over a
| year, everything just continues to work smoothly. Including
| windows updates, driver upgrades, most online games with anti-
| cheat etc. If i upgrade my hardware, it might take a day or two
| of tinkering to get it back up. Based on my benchmarking it runs
| within ~5% of native perf.
|
| This is still the best guide IMO if you want to set it up -
| https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PCI_passthrough_via_OVMF. Single
| GPU is basically the same as dual GPU, except you have to ensure
| the linux host does not take over the GPU or load any drivers for
| it during boot.
| chevill wrote:
| > most online games with anti-cheat etc.
|
| Any notable exceptions?
|
| What's the performance like compared to the same games in a
| native Windows install. I tried proton several months ago and I
| had to go back to Windows because it wasn't even close to good
| enough as far as compatability goes.
|
| I'd really love to abandon Windows as a desktop OS and just
| game in a VM though.
| Fabricio20 wrote:
| A pretty notable example is probably BattlEye, which is used
| by several major FPS games [1] like Tarkov, Rainbow Six and
| PUBG.
|
| They banned the use of virtual machines [2] back in 2020 and
| their AC solution does not work on Linux.
|
| Valve seems to be working on it [3], though their solution
| might be tailored to their SteamDeck hardware instead of a
| generic proton fix.
|
| [1]: https://www.battleye.com/ [2]: https://twitter.com/TheBa
| ttlEye/status/1289027672186720263?s... [3]:
| https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/steamdeck/faq
| Nullabillity wrote:
| PUBG uses EasyAntiCheat these days, rather than BattlEye.
| [deleted]
| rbanffy wrote:
| If you have more than one GPU (even as in one on-board and one
| discrete) you can, with some effort, dedicate one of them to a
| VM and let the host use the other. Low-yield crypto mining is a
| common usage for that kind of arrangement, but I suppose VMs
| would work just fine too.
|
| Or go full Unix and attach a serial terminal to the console
| port and happy linuxing from there while you ignore the built-
| in gaming console running off a VM. This is more or less what
| every modern console does anyway - a hypervisor under
| everything. ;-)
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Which GPU do you have? I tried using a Mac Pro 5.1 as host,
| Debian Testing as OS and various Windows varieties as well as
| Linux (again Debian Testing) as guest - but I always, _always_
| run into that nasty PCI reset bug
| (https://www.nicksherlock.com/2020/11/working-around-the-
| amd-...) :(
| MegaDeKay wrote:
| Are you saying that that workaround doesn't help you? You
| could drop into their Discord on the vendor-reset channel and
| see if they can help you out.
|
| https://discord.gg/FJs9ufyu
| isatty wrote:
| I use a vfio setup as well but with two GPUs (one integrated,
| one dedicated) and hotswap the dedicated GPU between the two
| whenever I'm playing games (I play on both Linux and Windows).
| keyb0ardninja wrote:
| Is it possible to switch the GPU while the host is running,
| that is without rebooting?
| isatty wrote:
| It is, see: https://stty.io/2018/07/27/running-windows-
| with-pci-passthro... (Relevant scripts sub-heading)
| moondev wrote:
| I run the same setup but with esxi as the host OS. It's quite a
| bit easier to setup since esxi already runs headless by design,
| as well as easy PCI passthrough configuration via the host
| client html5 UI
| porker wrote:
| This has been my dream setup for years, so that rather than a
| Windows host with Linux VMs I can run the other way round,
| enable ZFS and continually snapshot the Windows VM, and avoid
| the usual Windows failure as bits flip or sectors go bad.
| cdata wrote:
| Which games do you play that require anti-cheat schemes?
|
| The last time I checked, many such games explicitly do not
| support running in VMs and you risk being banned by obfuscating
| that you are running the game in a guest OS.
| Google234 wrote:
| For EAC, they require a variety of signals to ban someone
| (unless it's a obvious thing like detecting a known cheat.)
| An honest VM setup that doesn't obfuscate probably counts as
| one potential signal that you are cheating, an obfuscated one
| that they are able detect might be a stronger signal.
| gnif wrote:
| Most games work just fine, just a few odd ones that decided
| to block VMs don't such as Tarkov.
|
| Known to work without issue are titles such as
| * PUBG * Battlefield 1/3/4/5 * Titanfall 1&2
| * Arma 3 * 7 Days to Die * Ark * Fortnite
| * Apex * Halo: The Master Chief Collection * Star
| Wars Squadrons
|
| And many many more.
| gigatexal wrote:
| The only games I play are Doom Eternal and Starcraft 2 --
| by chance do you know if those work or if there's a list
| somewhere?
| himinlomax wrote:
| SC2 works almost perfectly under Wine/Proton.
|
| Only issue is that a few custom maps crash, and there's a
| weird, minor performance issue at some point in the LOTV
| campaign menus (but not the game itself). Haven't had an
| issue in a ladder game in years. And I play SC2 a lot
| (too much).
| gnif wrote:
| "Almost" is the key word here, under a VFIO VM, it's 100%
| flawless.
| gnif wrote:
| No idea about doom, but Starcraft 2 works for me fine.
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| I recently finished the single player campaign on Doom
| Eternal - that worked perfect, though i havent tried
| multiplayer.
| unholythree wrote:
| Really, is that why Tarkov drops me when I try to start a
| match? At least CS:GO told me their anti-cheat hated my
| setup (Windows 10 in a Xenserver VM) and I was able to get
| a refund.
| PUSH_AX wrote:
| Likely. There were some hacks in the last year or so that
| required looking glass.
| isatty wrote:
| Doesn't CS:GO run on Linux? I exclusively play dota 2 on
| Linux and it performs better than in Windows imo.
| lbotos wrote:
| it does, but you can only play matchmaking AFAIK, ESEA
| and FaceIT don't support linux for their anti-cheats.
| isatty wrote:
| Interesting, I didn't even know you had external parties
| providing league based (I'm guessing) match making. All
| matches in Dota 2 run through the official valve
| coordinator or are pre-made lobbies. There is a LAN only
| build iirc, but not widely available to the public.
| gnif wrote:
| CS:GO works fine in a libvirt/KVM VM last I checked. As
| for Tarkov, see: https://mobile.twitter.com/TheBattlEye/s
| tatus/12890276721867...
|
| Note that the game vendor selects what features they want
| to apply to their titles that are available. BattlEye
| allows you to stop people using VMs, if the game vendor
| opts in to this stupid feature.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Does running CS:GO in a VM impact trust factor? Trust and
| prime are pretty much the only thing to reduce cheaters
| encountered in your matches since CS:GO does not have a
| working anti-cheat.
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| Add Overwatch and Trackmania 2020 to this list too, they
| both work flawlessly.
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| Ive played PUBG, COD Warzone, Apex Legends, Quake Champions,
| maybe a few others. Of course it depends on the game but i
| think the perception of how many games don't work under VMs
| is a bit skewed.
|
| TBH every thread like this has the "but what about anti-
| cheat?" post which makes it seem like a big problem but i
| think only a tiny minority of games don't work under VMs.
| cdata wrote:
| Thanks! That is more than I expected.
|
| FWIW I tried to install Valorant in a VM recently (because
| I'm tired of installing the root-kit anti-cheat on my main
| PC in order to play it). It simply fails to launch the
| anti-cheat, and so doesn't launch the game.
| gnif wrote:
| Yes, unfortunately Valorant is one that blocks VM
| usage... not that it has helped them any.
| egeozcan wrote:
| Anti-cheat measures end up blocking mostly the well-
| meaning players.
|
| I know it's sometimes too costly, but game studios should
| invest more on server-side security measures and mostly
| distrust the clients.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| But distrusting the client doesn't solve the problem. If
| a user can see through a wall locally how can
| 'distrusting' anything fix that? What is there to
| distrust? All inputs are genuine.
| weberer wrote:
| Then the server should never send them information on
| what's behind the wall.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| You want to render all graphics on the server? I'm not
| sure that's really a tractable suggestion.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| Why would that be necessary? You realize the server
| already has to do a line of sight calculation to
| determine if a shot hits right?
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Think about many times a second you have to trace a shot.
|
| Now think about how many times a second you'd need to
| trace from every pixel on the screen to every part of the
| geometry on every opponent in order to check if it was
| visible or not to see if a player was legitimately able
| to view any part of their opponent.
|
| For example read this article someone else linked
| https://technology.riotgames.com/news/demolishing-
| wallhacks-... and look at the last animation.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| If you actually understood your own link you would see
| that there is no reason to trace every pixel on the
| screen when you can make a bounding box that covers
| motion and trace the vertices.
|
| Anyone familiar with game engine programming would never
| consider what you are saying. That link is a more in
| depth version of what I just said, ray casts are being
| done on the server for visibility and have nothing to do
| with rendering the game to do it. It is literally
| demonstrating that they are already doing what people
| were wondering about.
| lbotos wrote:
| In Counter-strike there are footstep sounds with spatial
| audio. How can the server not send that info to me in a
| way that won't reveal the player's direction? hearing
| players coming before you see them is a huge part of the
| game.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| > If a user can see through a wall locally how can
| 'distrusting' anything fix that?
|
| The fact that the client can remove the wall and see
| something behind it is due to the fact that the client is
| trusted to do the hiding. An untrusted client would not
| receive the enemy position until the enemy is visible.
| This, however, comes with the drawback that the server
| needs to do the culling - That's why pretty much nobody
| does it right now.
|
| Aimhacks would still be possible, of course, but client-
| side anti-cheat can't prevent those either.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Right it's not a realistic suggestion as not even the
| client does it in software!
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| Why do you think that? The server needs to at the very
| least trace a line for a shot. There is nothing difficult
| or slow about that. Before you say that it is done with a
| z-buffer or something similar, think about third person
| camera angles or how older games did the same thing. You
| might want to pull back on being so certain if you don't
| have experience with game engines or graphics.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Why do you think that? The server needs to at the very
| least trace a line for a shot. There is nothing difficult
| or slow about that. Before you say that it is done with a
| z-buffer or something similar, think about third person
| camera angles or how older games did the same thing. You
| might want to pull back on being so certain if you don't
| have experience with game engines or graphics.
|
| But... it is done with a z-buffer.
|
| If an opponent is obscured behind a nearby pillar or
| something, that's not going to be culled in software -
| that's done by the hardware z-buffer as part of the
| render process.
|
| You can see this for yourself if you look at a game being
| run with wireframe rendering. You'll see it's in the same
| render node so it's still rendered - it's just obscured
| by closer geometry. And it's how some cheats actually
| work - they basically turn the wireframe back on!
|
| 'Tracing a shot' is casting one single ray.
|
| For example read this article someone else linked
| https://technology.riotgames.com/news/demolishing-
| wallhacks-... and look at the last animation.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| You are conflating needing information about player
| position with visibility of individual polygons.
|
| Also you are forgetting that you just said that line of
| sight was done in hardware and you didn't explain how
| that would work for a server testing if shots actually
| hit.
|
| > You can see this for yourself if you look at a game
| being run with wireframe rendering. You'll see it's in
| the same render node so it's still rendered
|
| What does this even mean? What is "it" here and what is a
| "render node" ? There are hierarchies of transforms and
| players are going to be separate from the environment.
| This doesn't actually mean anything.
|
| > it's just obscured by closer geometry. And it's how
| some cheats actually work - they basically turn the
| wireframe back on!
|
| Yes, you are restating the context of what people are
| talking about, not what is actually being talked about,
| which is the timing of when the server should send
| visibility information, which is what your link is
| actually about.
|
| Your link is actually directly contradicts what you are
| saying since it uses both an expanded bounding box based
| motion extrapolation and precomputed visibility, neither
| of which has anything to do with a z-buffer.
| wildbook wrote:
| Valorant specifically actually does this to a degree, and
| there was a quick article written by one of their anti-
| cheat developers that roughly explains their approach.
|
| https://technology.riotgames.com/news/demolishing-
| wallhacks-...
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Question, why can users see through walls locally, seems
| like there should be some sort of occlusion? I guess it's
| too slow to calculate and causes too much server-side
| processing?
| wolrah wrote:
| > I guess it's too slow to calculate and causes too much
| server-side processing?
|
| Bingo, game servers need to be as lightweight as possible
| because whatever calculations they have to run need to
| run per player per tick. Detailed occlusion calculations
| would be impractical, so at best it's very rough. And of
| course you don't want a situation where an opposing
| player isn't even seen until they've already shot you, so
| it needs to err on the side of visibility.
|
| Every latency-sensitive online game has to make a bunch
| of tradeoffs between performance and security, and
| performance is generally more important.
| Cloudef wrote:
| The anti-cheat systems end up really just being more
| menance than use. Tons of money burned on something that
| cheaters will get around anyways.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| It's one of those 'keeping honest people honest' things,
| of it were even easier I think even more people would do
| it?
| ShinyRice wrote:
| If you enable nested virtualization in your host and
| shove Valorant in a VM with Hyper-V (through what I
| believe is a feature in Windows, but forgot the name)
| Valorant should actually run. Or at least it did a few
| months ago, not sure if it does work now. Worth a try.
| nottorp wrote:
| Only online multiplayer shooters (or whatever they call
| them these days) come with anti cheat, I think.
|
| So... 5% of the available titles?
|
| Most are financed by IAPs so I just stay away from them
| anyway.
| Google234 wrote:
| Better anti cheats won't allow setups like this.
| lostlogin wrote:
| 'Better'?
|
| Why are VMs being blocked?
| gnif wrote:
| Because some cheats use a VM environment to hide from
| detection as they can act on the VM from outside of it.
|
| The solution though is not to ban VMs, but to push vendors
| like AMD and Intel to enable access to, and enforce usage
| of technologies like SEV if running inside a VM.
|
| https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v5.6/virt/kvm/amd-memory-
| enc...
| egeozcan wrote:
| I wrote this another comment, but instead of getting too
| much into an arms race, studios should invest more on
| server-side anti-cheat mechanisms.
|
| You could correlate community feedback and some machine
| learning, while also picking easy-to-catch impossible
| actions.
| Terretta wrote:
| > _instead of getting too much into an arms race, studios
| should invest more on server-side anti-cheat mechanisms_
|
| End offline AAA gaming?
| hackernudes wrote:
| Offline games do not use or need "anti cheat".
| atanasi wrote:
| Server-side solutions don't catch all cheats. They can
| block actions that are impossible according to the game
| rules but they cannot prevent clients from disclosing too
| much information to the player about other players, or
| automating actions that are technically possible, like
| using aimbots.
| Thaxll wrote:
| This is what Valorant does and just does not work. People
| saying "yeah game dev are lazy, why not everything is
| done server side" this is really a naive view of game
| dev.
|
| The short version is that you can't have a great
| experience for online games if you try to create a client
| as a dumb terminal.
| egeozcan wrote:
| I didn't mean to say they're lazy. I generally dislike
| the studios but developers there are brillant, usually.
|
| I was thinking that studios were being cheap. Why invest
| in a proper server infrastructure if you can make clients
| install abusive software... Maybe I'm wrong but it always
| looked to me that way.
| KronisLV wrote:
| You can definitely handle some of those situations server
| side (the key word being "some") with enough engineering
| effort.
|
| In regards to player positions: check which player
| locations are occluded and wouldn't be visible through
| the geometry, then only send the valid ones for each
| player. Of course, doing this on high tick servers could
| prove to be computationally intensive.
|
| In regards to aimbots: the clients already send you
| information about where they're looking so that it can be
| displayed to other players. Attach some mouse movement
| metrics and from that you'll sometimes be able to infer
| the most naive aimbots instantly.
| [deleted]
| Macha wrote:
| > In regards to player positions: check which player
| locations are occluded and wouldn't be visible through
| the geometry, then only send the valid ones for each
| player. Of course, doing this on high tick servers could
| prove to be computationally intensive.
|
| What's your tolerance on this? Too low and players will
| complain that other players pop into view and kill them
| in the event of latency. Too high and cheaters still have
| access to the most valuable cases of information, when
| there's a chance for one player to get the drop on the
| other.
|
| What about strategy games which rely on their lockstep
| simulation for performance? How would an RTS work if it's
| sending the locations of 100s of units in real time
| versus just player actions. Do you want to have to
| implement prediction and deal with warping in such a
| game?
| KronisLV wrote:
| A few approaches to consider: 1) be fair
| and decide upon some value that should cover most cases,
| make the outliers suck it up, like some games kick those
| with higher pings 2) don't be fair and base the
| threshold of visibility on some predictions about the
| movement of the entities in the following ticks, based on
| their probable movement speeds, as well as the ping times
| of the each player; the player with the higher ping value
| might receive the position of the other about 10 frames
| earlier before they round a corner - imperfect, but
| should still avoid ESP across the map 3) don't be
| fair, base this tolerance on hidden metrics about how
| trustworthy each of the players is considered, based on
| whatever data about them you can get, a bit like hidden
| ELO - you can probably game or abuse this system with
| enough effort, but it shouldn't make a difference in the
| lives of most legit players, since it shouldn't matter
| whether a model that you're about to see was rendered 5
| or 10 frames before you actually did 4) enforce
| regional matchmaking by default and only show servers
| with acceptable ping times for your system (if any at
| all)
|
| As for RTS games, that should be even simpler - most have
| some sort of a fog of war mechanic. Given that, you could
| probably come up with some data structure to represent
| everything that's visible to your side (like an octree)
| and send all of the models within it, without worrying
| about checking individual positions.
|
| As for warping: the exact same way as in any online game,
| probably by some interpolation. If you receive a position
| from the server, the entity should be visible at a
| certain position, if you do not, then it shouldn't be
| visible (or maybe send the position in which it should
| disappear, with an additional flag). If you don't get the
| data for a while, handle it however you would stale data
| - like ARMA 3 does with entities just standing around or
| other games with them running in place, which is pretty
| funny.
| tester756 wrote:
| >Attach some mouse movement metrics and from that you'll
| sometimes be able to infer the most naive aimbots
| instantly.
|
| see? even you do not believe that this will work
| KronisLV wrote:
| Of course I don't believe that it'll work 100% of time
| time, since nothing will.
|
| Fighting against cheating in online games is going to be
| a constant arms race.
|
| That's not to say that detecting most of the naive
| implementations isn't worthy of the effort.
|
| It won't always work consistently but it should be pretty
| obvious when someone is lerping between two quaternions.
| Then, you can build upon that and attempt to detect small
| bits of random noise that'd be applied upon said
| interpolation and go from there.
| egeozcan wrote:
| Don't disclose to the client anything not in their view.
|
| I know this is sometimes impossible and/or too costly to
| implement but it should be possible to find a compromise
| that prevents most of the blatant cheaters, eventually.
|
| Also helpers like: In any score event, for randomly
| selected players, analyze the last actions taken.
|
| You just cannot trust the clients. People will find
| creative ways of reading the memory of their own
| hardware, whatever you do.
| Deathmax wrote:
| > Don't disclose to the client anything not in their
| view.
|
| Either full of edges cases (how do you efficiently
| compute visibility, and can you prevent models from
| popping in as a result of latency) or computationally
| expensive[0]. Valorant, CSGO, League of Legends, Dota 2
| are some of the games that I know about that implement
| server-side occluding to minimise the impact of
| wallhacks, but eventually a client will still need
| information like the position of an audio cue such as
| footsteps that cheats can make use of.
|
| [0]: https://technology.riotgames.com/news/demolishing-
| wallhacks-...
| Sebb767 wrote:
| > can you prevent models from popping in as a result of
| latency
|
| Can you do that well enough on the client? The client can
| add some prediction on where someone is moving, but so
| can the server. And enemies killing you due to lag is
| happening already with current architectures.
| genewitch wrote:
| I do the vfio thing as well, do you happen to remember the
| registry editing you had to do to stop stuttering in games?
| There's a program that can set and unset all the stuff you need
| but evidently I deleted it.
|
| It's the only thing I am missing to build another one or
| rebuild the one I have. I wish I had believed it was going to
| work perfectly when I started and wrote everything down.
| panda-giddiness wrote:
| I fixed my stuttering by enabling cpu tuning and setting the
| correct cpu topology [1].
|
| [1] https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PCI_passthrough_via_OVMF
| #CP...
| pizza234 wrote:
| I have a VFIO setup as well, and I'm not aware of any
| register setting correcting stuttering.
|
| There was an issue with AMD systems a few years ago, which
| caused microstuttering.
| gnif wrote:
| Likely setting the NVidia drivers to use MSI (Message
| Signalled Interrupts)
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| I don't recall doing any registry edits. Most of the perf
| work i remember doing was on the VM side - getting the little
| tweaks in libvirt settings, matching vCPU topology to
| physical, keeping VM cores from running linux system
| processes with GRUB flags, using a dedicated USB controller
| and sound card. i think i set the MSI stuff gnif mentioned as
| well though it wasn't critical for me. Generally stuttering
| will be resolved by making sure time critical events (like
| interrupts) are delivered quickly to the guest.
|
| +1 on the writing stuff down :D I did it twice and documented
| pretty thoroughly the second time around, notes before each
| change, testing performance delta, notes about if it worked.
| It really helps.
| [deleted]
| ghostly_s wrote:
| The host is headless? So you're streaming the display via VNC
| or something to another system, or do you mean the host has a
| head but it's just being passed thru directly to the guest?
| Cyph0n wrote:
| Headless host means you can only access the host system via
| SSH or web interface (e.g., if you're running Proxmox). The
| guest VM "owns" the single GPU.
| gnif wrote:
| The GPU is given to the guest, so the guest is driving the
| GPU directly making it a headless host.
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| The host PC has 1 graphics card, the host OS is running
| headless, and the windows OS is using the graphics card.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Does it boot the windows UI by default then? Or you just
| boot into a plain shell?
|
| Kind of defeats the point if your UI becomes windows again
| in my opinion.
| Cyph0n wrote:
| Same setup here! I am running Proxmox on the host to streamline
| managing VMs and storage. Proxmox comes with a nice web GUI,
| which makes it very east to monitor system state.
|
| I have a Windows VM for gaming that owns the single Nvidia GPU.
| I also have a few Linux VMs for development (via VS Code
| remote) and media management.
|
| As far as storage goes, I don't have anything too fancy.
| Proxmox is installed on an SSD. I have a second SSD for VM
| images. For all other storage (media, photos, VM image backups,
| etc.), I have a 3 disk ZFS pool consisting of a single RAID-Z1
| vdev - yea, it's risky, but losing the pool wouldn't be the end
| of the world.
|
| One of the cool things about this kind of setup is being able
| to easily restore VMs from backup. Some time back, I
| accidentally screwed up my Windows install by enabling Hyper-V
| (nested virt). I panicked at first, but then remembered that I
| have daily snapshots of the VM. I had it back up and running
| within 10 minutes :)
|
| All in all, it was fun to setup and has been running very
| smoothly.
| j1elo wrote:
| Would you mind talking a bit about the small decisions you
| took for a Proxmox setup? I am slowly learning and planning
| my (very)small server setup. Things like:
|
| * Are the _VM image backups_ you mentioned, done to your pool
| by means of the ZFS snapshots? Or done at the file-level with
| rsync or similar.
|
| * Do you make backups of the Proxmox installation? Similar as
| before: is Proxmox itself on a ZFS volume, so backups can be
| done just by doing ZFS snapshots? The installer lets me
| choose between an LVM-Thin + ext4, or a ZFS filesystem, and I
| was wondering whether to choose one or the other, for maximum
| convenience.
|
| * " _Proxmox is installed on an SSD_ ": isn't that a bit
| wasteful? I mean, doesn't the Proxmox system just take like 1
| or 2 GB at most?
|
| I have a Lenovo ThinkCentre m910q which brings a 160GB M.2
| NVMe disk, and another 320GB SSD disk... so I an in the
| process of deciding where to put each thing. Although for
| bigger storage I'm also considering if adding a 1 or 2 TB
| USB3 external disk would make sense (to store user backups
| like photos, documents, and also for the server's system
| backups)
| Cyph0n wrote:
| 1. In my case, VM image SSDs are formatted using LVM-Thin.
| Based on this, Proxmox automatically takes care of
| snapshotting the VM images for backups. It would work the
| same if you used ZFS for image storage.
|
| 2. No, I do not currently backup the Proxmox config. There
| is a good script here:
| https://github.com/DerDanilo/proxmox-stuff
|
| 3. If you install Proxmox on a "thin" filesystem (ZFS or
| LVM-Thin), then yes, you will get snapshot functionality
| for free. Note that you would have to configure this
| yourself - Proxmox does not expose a backup feature for its
| own config.
|
| 4. I have two NVMe SSDs. The first is 500GB and is split
| into two partitions: 100GB for the Proxmox install (LVM +
| ext4), and 400GB for VM images and containers (LVM-Thin).
| The second is 900GB and is fully used for VM images. Both
| are using LVM.
| j1elo wrote:
| Seeing how others have organized their systems helps me
| with doing my own thing. Thanks a lot for sharing!
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| Yes I love that an entire VM is basically 2 files - one disk
| image, one libvirt config. Makes backup and restore so easy
| :)
| MegaDeKay wrote:
| I have a VFIO setup as well but with dual GPUs. As you say, it
| is pretty awesome. I keep setting up other OS's for fun. I have
| an old nVidia NVS300 card that is supported natively under
| macOS, and also fired up a WindowsXP setup for grins. There
| were some interesting snags in getting each one going, and I
| learned a lot along the way.
|
| The Arch wiki is indeed spectacular.
| [deleted]
| wydfre wrote:
| You can't mention VFIO without mentioning the amazing
| subreddit, r/VFIO[0].
|
| [0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/VFIO/
| aninteger wrote:
| Even more amazing on the old interface:
|
| https://old.reddit.com/r/VFIO/
| Crontab wrote:
| Indeed. The new Reddit interest is horrid.
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| Or you can just go into your reddit settings and change
| back to the old interface permanently. I have that enabled
| and both these links are the same to me.
| [deleted]
| EchoReflection wrote:
| @zaptheimpaler thank you for sharing this.
| darkwater wrote:
| why don't you go the other way round, Windows native ane WSL2?
| Beside wanting to hack and learn things, obviouvsly.
| pizza234 wrote:
| This is an interesting question, since it's actually the
| underlying strategy of Microsoft (I don't imply it's a wrong
| thing).
|
| My personal motivation is that Linux power users will miss
| the control, or at least, customizability, of the operating
| system, which is something Linux does, and Windows doesn't
| (as they have different targets).
|
| Also, not to be underestimated, security (although for me
| it's only a very small factor).
| namibj wrote:
| WSL2 doesn't support hardware perf counters, which means
| `perf` and `rr` won't work.
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| Tried WSL, was buggy and had some issues with filesystem
| performance i think. I prefer having a 100% real linux &
| windows OSes that just work over slightly buggy workarounds.
| Plus i also host a lot of homeserver services (media server,
| SMB server, postgres db etc) on the linux host and its
| cleaner having those run on the host. If i want to do
| something very demanding on the host for example I can
| shutdown the VM.
| hutrdvnj wrote:
| Wouldn't it be easier to have 2 devices, one specifically
| designed for gaming and one running 24/7 for home server
| services. A cheap used Thinkpad could be used as linux
| device so it doesn't have to be expensive. Plus if you
| value your own time and effort you have to put in for your
| current setup, then it might actually be cheaper.
| z3t4 wrote:
| You basically just need an extra gfx card (or even
| headless host). And why would you not want a fast Linux
| OS? Many SSD's and lots of RAM to make the IDE fast.
| Powerful CPU for compiling. Good GFX for better
| latency/hz.
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| It might, but I am cheap :) and i like to run heavy
| workloads on the home server/devbox as well which would
| take a well specced $700-800 PC.
| pizza234 wrote:
| It depends on what do you mean with "easier".
|
| Technically speaking, for machines where VFIO works,
| there is no maintenance, and the setup can be easy
| (excluding one significant issue due to a specific linux
| kernel upgrade, my VFIO setup procedure has been
| essentially the same for years, on multiple machines).
|
| So, assuming that VFIO setup setup/maintenance is very
| easy, having a second machine is just redundant.
|
| One convenience not to forget is safety. If a Windows VM
| gets infected for whatever reasons, rolling back the
| system is performed by literally deleting one file.
| kohlerm wrote:
| WSL2 is using a real Linux kernel with almost no
| limitations. But it doesn't pass through the GPU. Therefore
| graphical applications are relatively slow.
| fsflover wrote:
| One can also have a similar setup on Qubes OS.
| beermonster wrote:
| I used to run a Windows Server 2016 box on KVM and used all the
| virt-io drivers from RedHat(?) to have paravirtualisation for
| better performance. Ran fine. Bet it wouldn't have been so great
| for, say, Windows 10 on a desktop and for anything GPU intensive.
| So my Q is, is this GPU pass-through and is it novel/new ? Trying
| to see how it's different to what I was running 5 years ago.
| therealmarv wrote:
| Does anyone know if you can do color accurate work with this
| setup (non HDR) ?
|
| To go into detail: are monitor color calibration from Linux (is
| that even existing) and Windows conflicting here?
| Royi wrote:
| What would be the best solution (Performance wise) if one is only
| after running Photoshop + Office? Looking for a solution which is
| easy to install and configure.
| gnif wrote:
| If you want easy, this is not for you. Setting up LG first
| requires setting up a VFIO Virtual Machine.
|
| As for how viable it is, very... we have many members in our
| community that are using LG for productivity applications. For
| performance, very close to bare metal. In applications like
| Photoshop and Office you wouldn't be able to tell the
| difference.
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| I used to use looking glass (still sponsoring the project)
| but since my hardware is ancient I tried running the windows
| VM of a DVI to my monitor instead, and it's been so
| incredibly smooth along with Barrier ever since, with more
| horsepower I would probably go back to LG because of the
| convenience of being a regular window I can manage however I
| want.
| zbrozek wrote:
| This? https://github.com/debauchee/barrier
|
| Is the key feature clipboard sharing? Otherwise I don't
| know why I wouldn't redirect events with zero additional
| software. As-is, I press both ctrl keys and my keyboard and
| mouse switch to the virtual machine. The big nuisance is
| that I need to switch monitor inputs. That appears to be
| something I can automate, but simply haven't yet.
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| Yes that, I don't know how you manage the kb and mouse
| without it, but I only use it for that.
| josteink wrote:
| > If you want easy, this is not for you. Setting up LG first
| requires setting up a VFIO Virtual Machine.
|
| Any quick links to how that differs from a regular QEMU/KVM
| setup?
| gnif wrote:
| https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PCI_passthrough_via_OVMF
| josteink wrote:
| Thanks.
|
| So if I'm already UEFI booting my VMs with dedicated
| volumes, the key difference is how GPU pass-through is
| done?
| gnif wrote:
| Pretty much, lots of factors that are hardware dependent,
| such as how your motherboard assigns IOMMU groups come
| into play.
| zbrozek wrote:
| You can also pass through more than just a GPU. I pass
| through an NVMe disk and a USB controller, effectively
| giving me a full second computer within my workstation.
| It's honestly fantastic.
| josteink wrote:
| Ok. And I assume that'll all work at PCI speeds making it
| much more performant than using virtio-based forwarding.
| Sounds neat.
|
| Do I need to do anything besides UEFI boot my virt-
| manager (QEMU) VM to make use of things like this?
| adamnew123456 wrote:
| Not PS/Office (more of a dev workflow - VS, Intellij, DB admin
| tools), but I've personally found that straight KVM with the
| default virtual hardware is good enough. The last big
| adjustment I made was getting a dedicated SSD for the Windows
| VM and using it instead of the native file images.
|
| Totally stable - 8hrs per day over the last 16 months with 1
| hiccup - and no performance complaints. I'm not doing anything
| graphically intensive though so virtual display hardware isn't
| a bottleneck.
|
| Most of my gaming is just Proton on the host system these days.
| aetherspawn wrote:
| I'm an engineering software contractor and every client has a
| whole bucket load of outdated IDEs and random USB interface
| drivers they want me to install on my machine. Often this stuff
| has weird specific version dependencies, kernel level drivers
| that cause weird things to happen (like the computer to BSOD if
| you boot it up with other USB devices attached), random system
| level crashes, and when you go to the driver download page there
| are always an unsettling list of simple security vulns noted.
|
| The #1 thing that I've ever wanted is a Linux that lives between
| the bootloader and Windows that lets me achieve native
| performance on the Windows VM, but gives me an environment where
| I can easily do all the things that you can usually do in HyperV
| like create snapshots, clone installs, share Sharepoint drives
| between images, etc. But I do need something that is perfectly
| stable and just works. This is the right technology (thank you so
| much for working on it), but just not yet at a maturity that
| makes me feel comfortable about putting livelihood on the line.
|
| Edit: actually, please, if anyone knows something that suits this
| use-case, even if it costs decent money, please leave a comment.
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| I would probably run proxmox if I was you and kit your device
| with extra peripheral cards that you pass through to the VM,
| with ZFS you can snapshot your vm volumes and proxmox has
| builtin support to do full backups and either store on your
| local machine or ship them off to a remote location. If you
| pass the GPU through to Windows you're going to be essentially
| native speed along with great security and flexibility. If you
| want to have multiple windows machines you could just rdp them
| unless you need GPU acceleration in them too.
|
| If you're working on a laptop I would not recommend ZFS, ZOL
| doesn't implement freeze and thaw.
| BuildTheRobots wrote:
| I could be remembering this wrong, but I'm pretty sure
| proxmox + zfs doesn't let you roll back to a snapshot that
| has child snapshots. If you're coming from vmware (or
| probably virtual box, I honestly can't remember), then the
| ability to be able to jump back and forth between any
| snapshot and branch off form there easily is really
| convenient and a bit jarring to loose.
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| The thing with proxmox is that it's quite open, you could
| manage ZFS snapshots outside of the proxmox system if you
| want, I haven't tried this specific with proxmox, I run
| NixOS with ZFS root and libvirt for managing the guests
| (vit-manager and virsh).
| aetherspawn wrote:
| Would you still recommend this if it was a mobile workstation
| [1], doing a mix of at-desk work and mobile work, utilizing
| peripherals like docking stations, and I was running nearly
| constant compute intensive workloads (Matlab)?
|
| 1: https://www.dell.com/en-au/work/shop/workstations-isv-
| certif...
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| I honestly have no idea, I would get another SSD and give
| it a shot, if it works its really quite great. Not with ZFS
| on mobile though, go btrfs.
| alisonkisk wrote:
| why don't you require clients to provide a lab machine for all
| their requirements?
| mpfundstein wrote:
| hi. i have the same problem. because those lab machines
| usually SUCK!
|
| i have my own custom build servers at home now and virtualize
| everything. every client has own VM and I usually RDP/ssh
| into them for work.
| pizza234 wrote:
| The specification you present is a bit unclear.
|
| Any modern virtualization has very fast CPU virtualization
| (it's hard to say near-native, as there are always corner
| cases), and snapshotting tools. I don't know about Sharepoint;
| the "clone installs" is a bit fuzzy too, but one can clone
| installed systems by just copying the underlying image file and
| ensuring that it has a unique identifier (and updating the
| guest O/S license, if required).
|
| If GPU matters, VFIO definitely is part of the solution.
|
| However, if you're trying to achieve a sort-of full system
| passthrough (eg. because of drivers that have bugs related to
| certain hardware components, which it seems to be your
| situation), this will never happen, because certain parts of
| the guest need to be necessarily emulated (e.g. chipset). Even
| passing a USB port is not easy - one actually needs to pass the
| whole hubs (AFAIK a port may belong to two hubs - USB 2 and USB
| 3).
| matja wrote:
| For the USB part, would adding a extra USB adaptor card
| (assuming it's a desktop machine) and using PCI-
| passthrough/VFIO on that adaptor make it easier? From my
| knowledge of QEMU, then no USB emulation is involved - the
| guest OS sees the entire USB adaptor (and the host doesn't) -
| so one can have all the special USB hardware connected to
| that.
| wheybags wrote:
| You could netboot off an iscsi target on another machine, which
| is backed by an image file on a zfs volume. That way you get
| all the nice zfs features of snapshotting, and windows just
| thinks it's using a hard drive.
|
| You could even skip zfs and just use a qemu image file, with
| qemu-nbd you can have it present as a block device, and you can
| then export that block device as an iscsi target. Then you can
| use qemu-img for snapshotting etc.
|
| The machine running the storage could be pretty low spec too, a
| nuc would do it for sure, maybe even an rpi or similar (if you
| go the qemu-img route, zfs on rpi is not feasible, ask me how I
| know :D)
| compsciphd wrote:
| I was actually wondering about this a while ago, one can
| netboot windows? i.e. no "local" storage, all accessed over
| the network? or does it depend on the hypervisor, i.e. the
| hypervisor access the storage over the network, but to
| windows, its a local disk?
| wheybags wrote:
| You can, with no hypervisor at all, just running on bare
| metal, so long as your mobo / nic supports it (which I
| believe most do). I haven't ever personally done it though,
| so ymmv.
| jeffbee wrote:
| You don't even have to let the guest know it is netbooting. I
| use ESXi with one Solaris (Illumos) guest, which runs ZFS
| over everything and exports iSCSI back to ESXi. The other
| guests all think they have native storage and I can do
| whatever I want with the underlying ZFS filesystem.
| xiaodai wrote:
| Reminds me of a Stephen Chow movie where a nutty inventor
| invented a solar-powered torch that only works if you shine a
| torch at it.
| robbedpeter wrote:
| So a solar flashlight with no batteries?
| rhdxmr wrote:
| Amazing. Without dual boot, windows in VM can run at almost
| native performance? wow. I used LILO or GRUB to make my PC dual
| boot many years ago. But now I think I am not gonna need dual
| boot any more.
| marwis wrote:
| Does it work with desktops with two PCIe GPUs or is it only for
| laptops? Do I need HDMI dummy plug in "Windows" card?
| quantum5 wrote:
| Yes, desktops with two PCIe GPUs is actually the more common
| use case. As for dummy plug, it's most likely need to convince
| windows to turn on the GPU when you are not plugging a monitor.
| thejosh wrote:
| It performs really well.
|
| I love qemu/libvirt - the crazy thing is if you have two disks
| and use one to boot Windows, you can mount the disk then boot
| into that when using Linux and have that running off another
| video card (I have two in my PC, one AMD and and nVidia).
| b9a2cab5 wrote:
| How is the IO (particularly random IO) performance in Windows?
| In my experience that's been where VMs still have a long ways
| to go. Even kvm2 Linux on Linux VMs have severe IO performance
| deficits compared to native.
| vbarrielle wrote:
| That sounds very interesting. Does that mean I should be able
| to load a VM containing my windows partition fron linux, even
| without a dedicated GPU? Do you have a pointer to a tutorial
| explaining the setup ?
| stableviper wrote:
| Yes, I can confirm that this works. I have one windows
| installation and can either directly boot windows on the host
| or start it within Linux with VFIO.
| TheFreim wrote:
| Do you know where this is documented? This would be very
| useful to me.
| sfink wrote:
| I wrote a `viewsetup` tool for setting up a /dev/mapper
| device (and VMDK file pointing to it) that I use for
| exposing a set of native Windows partitions while masking
| off the active Linux partitions. It's enough to allow
| booting Windows natively or in a VirtualBox VM using the
| same partition. But the steps to create backing files,
| run dm-setup to create the /dev/mapper device, and create
| the VMDK are all separate, so you ought to be able to use
| this with any virtualization tool.
|
| I sort of have it documented at
| https://github.com/hotsphink/sfink-
| tools/blob/master/doc/Vir... though that's really a set
| of instructions intended for a new PC that a bunch of us
| at my employer recently received. You just want the
| `viewsetup` stuff. You probably want to leave off the
| `--auto` flag, so that it'll prompt you per-partition.
|
| The tool goes to some effort to only expose the specific
| partitions needed. It also makes the virtual disk exactly
| match the native disk, copying small partitions (and gaps
| between them) to files and exposing those over loopback
| interfaces, so that Windows can go crazy and write over
| everything and it won't break your Linux setup. (The
| Linux partitions themselves are exposed as loopback
| devices to empty sparse files of the right size.)
|
| Get the single script file at
| https://hg.sr.ht/~sfink/sfink-
| tools/raw/bin/viewsetup?rev=ti... or check out the full
| repo at either https://hg.sr.ht/~sfink/sfink-tools/
| (mercurial) or https://github.com/hotsphink/sfink-tools
| (git). I keep both up to date.
| TheFreim wrote:
| Thanks! I will test this out later.
| josteink wrote:
| > That sounds very interesting. Does that mean I should be
| able to load a VM containing my windows partition fron linux,
| even without a dedicated GPU?
|
| That works fine.
|
| I do that at work to avoid nuking/tampering with the Windows
| installation provided to me by IT, while running Linux as my
| main OS from a second volume.
| qalmakka wrote:
| It's QEMU and the kernel that do the magic - libvirt is
| actually kinda annoying and ill suited for these things, you
| have to edit lots of unnecessary XML just to change launch
| options for QEMU.
| gspr wrote:
| Very very impressive!
|
| Is there anything similar in the works for a Linux-on-Linux
| scenario? My usecase is gaming without the host needing the
| proprietary nvidia crap (pass-through of the nvidia card for
| doing CUDA stuff in the guest already works great, but that
| doesn't help for e.g. Steam games).
| trishume wrote:
| This is awesome. In theory you could absolutely minimize the
| latency penalty to just the overhead of the gpu1->memory->gpu2
| copy, if the display sync signals from the display the
| passthrough window was on were passed through to the GPU driver
| on Windows, and that was combined with fullscreen compositor
| bypass (available on many Linux WMs) or low-latency compositing
| (available on sway and now mutter
| https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/merge_requests/1762 on
| Wayland).
| Mathnerd314 wrote:
| One thing that isn't clear from the website is that it requires
| two GPUs, one for the host and one for the VM.
| imhoguy wrote:
| Wouldn't be it possible to let Linux/Xorg give up GPU for a
| time Windows is used? Which could still let me access it via
| VNC from Windows. My native platform is Xubuntu on AMD Renoir
| laptop.
| pizza234 wrote:
| It's technically possible, but not stable. On my system, it's
| not stable, so I prefer to have two cards, but YMMV.
| genewitch wrote:
| If this uses vfio then no, the host never sees the GPU, it's
| blind to it from boot.
| throwaway2048 wrote:
| Not really a problem, you can unbind the VFIO driver
| genewitch wrote:
| > linux /vmlinuz-5.10.27-gentoo root=/dev/nvme0n1p2 ro
| amd_iommu=on iommu=pt
| pcie_acs_override=downstream,multifunction pci-
| stub.ids=10de:1b82,10de:10f0
|
| the host never sees the card.
| fulafel wrote:
| What is stopping GPU hot plugging from working?
|
| There was this recent improvement at least: https://phoroni
| x.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-5.14-A...
|
| edit: seems there are some howtos - eg
| https://github.com/joeknock90/Single-GPU-Passthrough
| pizza234 wrote:
| Two reasons (in the context of a standard desktop user,
| not headless server):
|
| 1. Desktop environment, which uses the video card; this
| is not a big deal, since one can terminate the session
|
| 2. video drivers correctly and fully releasing the card;
| this is possible, but in my opinion, not stable.
| guilhas wrote:
| That is already possible without the Looking Glass. Just
| regular libvirt GPU passthrough.
|
| I would say the use case here would be a machine that does
| not have a monitor connected, for example some Bitcoin mining
| server in the attic. With Looking Glass the game screen can
| get streamed to a ultrabook in your living room, with the
| server GPU performance
| 77pt77 wrote:
| What about machines with dual graphics cards, like one intel on
| board and another nvidia?
|
| Would that be OK?
|
| I ask because many laptops used to have similar setups.
| solarkraft wrote:
| In theory yes, but I concluded my attempts on a Dell 9570
| with "forget it".
| gnif wrote:
| Yes, this works for many laptops but it depends on how the
| laptop is internally wired. We have many members that use
| their iGPU for Linux, and the dGPU for the VM.
| fragileone wrote:
| I haven't tried in about 6 months but I had issues with
| reusing that same dGPU if I wanted to use it for Linux
| gaming when the VM is offline. I thought it would be easy
| to bind and unbind it as needed but had issues with doing
| so. Is this a possible/recommended setup, is there another
| alternative or I shouldn't bother trying?
| reilly3000 wrote:
| The host can use a $15 5450, doesn't have to be fancy.
| AlphaSite wrote:
| Does an iGPU fill the same criteria?
| LASR wrote:
| Yes it does. Intel usually is the host adapter.
| Mathnerd314 wrote:
| Previously on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22907306
| ddalex wrote:
| The problem is that you have to have a monitor plugged in the
| windows card otherwise it goes all wonky. At that point you could
| just use a KVM....
| quantum5 wrote:
| You can always use a dummy plug to fool windows into believing
| there is a monitor attached. Then it's much more convenient
| than using a KVM switch.
| Xenograph wrote:
| KVM switches are often slow and/or buggy and/or expensive.
| Plus, looking glass is more flexible since you can display both
| OSs at the same time.
|
| As a sibling comment stated, you can get a dummy monitor plug
| on Amazon for like $5 which fools your GPU into thinking
| there's a monitor attached.
| zbrozek wrote:
| Not only are there dummy plugs, but some cards (e.g., Quadro)
| let you spoof the EDID without one at all.
| eat_veggies wrote:
| The blurb at the top says "allows the use of a KVM [...]
| without an attached physical monitor, keyboard or mouse." Is
| that not correct?
| oefrha wrote:
| The abbreviation KVM can mean two things: Kernel-based
| Virtual Machine, and keyboard/video/mouse (switch). Gp was
| talking about the latter.
| ddalex wrote:
| I mean it behaves like a software KVM, at which point you can
| use a hardware KVM without the added latency penalty due to
| memory copy....
| schmorptron wrote:
| Malwarebytes blocks this domain as a trojan, that's a false
| positive though, isn't it?
| gnif wrote:
| Indeed, AV vendors flag LG because the windows executable we
| host: 1) It's not a signed executable (FOSS
| project, signing is a PITA without corporate sponsorship)
| 2) Microsoft Defender flagged the exe for wanting admin privs
| 3) Google were dumb and flagged us because MS did 4) All
| other AV vendors flagged us because google flagged our website.
|
| We had to put the exe into a password protected zip to stop
| Google flagging us as we couldn't convince the idiots (robots)
| there that it was a FOSS project with all sources available for
| review.
|
| Feel free to help us out and report the false positive to your
| AV vendors! :)
| schmorptron wrote:
| Alright, good to know! Will send a report :)
| tmzt wrote:
| I've wanted to build this forever on top of coreboot. A kvm host
| (like firecracker), VFIO, and keyboard shortcut to send commands
| to the VM instead of underlying system.
|
| This would include snapshot, switch systems, and something like
| snapshot and fork the running system.
| wdroz wrote:
| Can you use this to play netflix at 4k on GNU/Linux?
| idonotknowwhy wrote:
| Can rpcs3 do this for you?
| ac29 wrote:
| The PS3 never supported 4K, so I dont see how its Netflix
| client would.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| I feel very behind the times. I've only used virtualbox for VMs
| and performance and capability wise, I don't think you could
| reasonably expect to play a game requiring 3d graphics in it.
| chayleaf wrote:
| Guess this is the "Linux Subsystem for Windows" some people have
| been missing... Too bad it requires 2 GPUs
| [deleted]
| JustStoppinIn89 wrote:
| No, it's nothing like that at all.
|
| It's only that if you wear a fedora unironically and have a
| Slashdot account with a four digit user ID.
| monocasa wrote:
| I see the comparison. WSL2 is running a full Linux kernel on
| top of a hypervisor with an eye towards reducing the overhead
| of running both kernels (see the recentish discussion on lkml
| about Microsoft trying to upstream para virtualized directx).
| When you combine that with the fact that Windows's interface
| is both more GUI forward and closed to interesting
| modifications, then the same user model "I want to run both
| kernels and their user code with as low of overhead as
| possible in both ux and compute power" this is what you'd
| come up with for Windows on Linux compared with modern WSL's
| Linux on Windows.
| Rd6n6 wrote:
| The question everyone is wondering: is this ready for serious use
| for gaming and productivity (Eg, photoshop or game development)?
| Or is it very hard to get a smooth workflow going? If the
| workflow is not great, is there a clear path to solving that?
| tbr1 wrote:
| It's quite easy to get it set up once you have a VM with GPU
| passthrough running (for which there are plenty of guides
| available online) -- just a double-click installation of a
| service on the Windows side, compiling a cmake project on the
| Linux side, and (optionally, for some extra performance)
| compiling a Linux kernel module.
|
| After that it kind of just works, and continues working. I use
| it to play games and run Office apps, and have not had it break
| on me in a ~year of use. (Disclaimer: I occasionally contribute
| to the project now, but remember being impressed at how easy it
| was to get going when I first tried it out. Getting the VM
| working at all was the hardest part of the endeavor, but only
| took a few hours.)
| AYoung010 wrote:
| Just to tack on, I set up windows with GPU pass-through and
| looking glass on my new laptop over the course of about 3
| hours of on-and-off work using the excellent guide over at
| https://asus-linux.org/wiki/vfio-guide/
| Nullabillity wrote:
| You don't need this for general productivity software, only
| stuff where QEMU's emulated GPU is too slow or otherwise
| insufficient (so games, video editing, etc).
|
| The caveats are basically:
|
| 1. Setup is a bit annoying
|
| LG can feed input into any VM but requires guest support for
| capture, so you need to do the setup with a direct monitor.
|
| 2. The passed-through card must have a monitor connected.
|
| IIRC, this is an API issue since it just captures what would go
| to that monitor.
|
| 3. Some things are only visible on the real monitor.
|
| They need different capture strategies for the regular desktop,
| system desktops (such as lock screens), and secure desktops
| (UAC prompts). Sometimes the transition fails, sometimes there
| is no strategy implemented for what you're trying to show.
|
| 4. Your CPU and motherboard must support IOMMU passthrough.
|
| For Intel this means using Skylake+ and ensuring that it
| supports VT-d. For AMD this means using Ryzen with an X-series
| motherboard.
|
| 5. You need separate GPUs for the host and guest.
|
| Blame GPU vendors for making VT-g an enterprise-only feature.
| sm_ts wrote:
| > 2. The passed-through card must have a monitor connected.
|
| Regarding this, I don't know about LG, but with a standard
| QEMU VFIO setup, one use a single monitor connected to the
| two cards, and switch the input when required.
| gnif wrote:
| Yup, this is a good option too, makes it easy to
| debug/diagnose when things go wrong with the guest VM too.
|
| Just note that not all multi-input monitors are equal
| though, a small minority appear to the GPU as unplugged
| when the input selection is changed.
| gnif wrote:
| 1. We are working on it 2. Not if it's a vGPU or a
| Quadro where EDID spoofing is allowed 3. No, we
| capture everything now, even the windows Login screen and
| windows updates, etc. 4. Yes 5. Very yes!
| Nullabillity wrote:
| > 3. No, we capture everything now, even the windows Login
| screen and windows updates, etc.
|
| B3 and B4 both have pretty huge improvements here, but
| there are still a few rough corners. For example, when
| logging out the host shuts down immediately upon request,
| so you can't see the "program X is blocking shutdown"
| dialog.
|
| But ultimately this is a very minor papercut for a very
| impressive and useful project.
| gnif wrote:
| Really? I see this all the time with my VM when I
| shutdown via LG.
| Nullabillity wrote:
| Huh, so this is a bit more involved than I thought. I
| just tried again to confirm (still on B4).
|
| The first time I tried I just got the Looking Glass
| splash as soon as I clicked shut down. When I cancelled
| that and tried again I was able to see both the throbber
| and the prompt. When I let the VM sit idle for a while
| before trying again, the LG splash was back. Rebooting
| the VM also seems to bring back the splash reliably.
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| Create a desktop shortcut to "shutdown -s -t 1" it'll
| keep shutting down even if an application might try to
| keep the system running.
| sm_ts wrote:
| (I haven't used LG, so these are general VFIO considerations).
|
| I mantain a guide for setting up VFIO
| (https://github.com/saveriomiroddi/vga-passthrough), which I
| frequently use.
|
| My conclusion is: for machines that are compatible with it,
| VFIO works very well. The technology itself is stable, so
| working on photoshop/game development etc. (from a
| technological perspective, there's no distinction between the
| two tasks) is not distinguishable from working on native.
|
| I had VFIO on 4 machines I think, and one had problems which I
| couldn't solve, while the others worked well.
|
| When used with QEMU, it requires some system settings and QEMU
| flags etc., so it's a bit annoying, but it's straightforward
| and documented process.
|
| To put it in another way: if one wants to use VFIO seriously,
| it's best using hardware known to work well, rather trying to
| cram VFIO on a not very compatible system.
|
| And also: one needs to be pratical. A USB soundcard solves
| countless hours of attempts to use the host's Pulseaudio system
| (meh).
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| When gaming, as long as I don't have a lot of software
| running on the host, pipewire works great with pulse
| passthough, starts crackling if I run FF on the host, I guess
| something to do with nice levels
| mmcgr wrote:
| Isn't this whole stack very close to being a Windows Subsystem
| for Linux?
| afranchuk wrote:
| FWIW, I got native windows performance on a Linux host just using
| virtualbox and (the key part) a virtual disk file that I manually
| edited to point directly to a windows partition on disk. This
| made it obvious that file IO was the bottleneck...
| TheFreim wrote:
| Is it really native performance? I find it hard to believe but
| now I'm curious and will have to try this out...
| sfink wrote:
| Close to native disk performance, but graphics performance
| (and capability/compatibility) are not at all native.
| ksec wrote:
| I thought it was Project Looking Glass [1] from Java era. It was
| really cool back then.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Looking_Glass
| sgt wrote:
| Ah yes, I still remember little Jonathan Schwartz presenting
| project Looking Glass! Those felt like good days, even though
| it was clearly the end of Sun Microsystems.
| pantulis wrote:
| There is also the Looking Glass server software that ISPs
| provide to debug routing issues.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking_Glass_server
| c7DJTLrn wrote:
| I have a lot of respect for the VFIO crowd but speaking as an
| administrator of Linux systems myself, I didn't ever find the
| effort or pain worth it. I run a native Windows 10 system for
| games because the last thing I want after a workday of fixing
| corporate systems is having to fix my own system just so I can
| chill out and play a game.
| Naracion wrote:
| I was confused for quite some time--I thought this was the same
| company that creates the holographic display, and this software
| is used to display content on the device. Which didn't make sense
| to me since it simply acts as an external monitor. The more I
| read, the more I got confused.
|
| Just a warning to readers that it's not the same company :)
|
| https://lookingglassfactory.com/
| protoman3000 wrote:
| Does anybody here have a tip how I can run virtualized OSX like
| this using the internal GPU of a notebook?
| luzeal wrote:
| It depends on your internal GPU. If it's an Intel GPU, you
| could use vfio-mdev, which allows you to split your physical
| GPU into smaller counterparts. It will only work with the macOS
| version that are compatible with Intel GPUs (probably most of
| them).
|
| Have a look here for a guide on Archlinux :
| https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Intel_GVT-g. And here for a
| script to deploy macOS on KVM : https://github.com/kholia/OSX-
| KVM.
|
| Side-note : vfio-mdev can now be unlocked on consumer-grades
| Nvidia cards too : https://github.com/DualCoder/vgpu_unlock.
| Sadly, it is not possible for AMD-cards.
|
| By the way, I am working on Phyllome OS (https://phyllo.me/),
| which is an attempt to make it easier to do such things. But
| please don't tell anyone :)
| carlsborg wrote:
| Had anyone tried this with ReactOS?
| Kiboneu wrote:
| Reminds me of the time I'd use a patched ACPI table on my gaming
| VM to mock a battery for the NVIDIA driver (similar to [0]). The
| drivers checked and deliberately failed when a battery wasn't
| present in conjunction with a mobile GPU.
|
| Setting up looking glass itself wasn't much of a problem though.
| I got some AAA games cutting on my gentoo laptop like butter,
| though the mouse movement was more jelly unless I VFIOd my
| mouse/kb as well. Sound went through Scream over a socket.
|
| Nowadays I play on my Xbox. I ditched gentoo. I've gotten old. Do
| you, reader, assume that I've also checked out and gone full
| windows?
|
| If you do, then guess again. I'm about to port my whole gentoo
| gaming setup to NixOS and it will probably take me about 15
| minutes, and ~ 5 - 10 minutes a year just to maintain. How much
| time do you spend fiddling with your windows and driver updates?
| _Oh, wait_...
|
| 0:
| https://old.reddit.com/r/VFIO/comments/ebo2uk/nvidia_geforce...
| dmos62 wrote:
| My windows boot is generally low maintenance, but a Windows
| update did introduce a stutter in all games once, so had to do
| a clean install (no restore point). Was annoying to
| troubleshoot. Windows is a mess. If only anti cheats worked on
| Linux.
| fragileone wrote:
| In the Steam Deck announcement this week Valve mentioned they
| were going to work with vendors to get anti-cheat finally
| working, so fingers crossed.
| dmos62 wrote:
| I guess it's inevitable. It makes no sense for Windows to
| be the PC gaming platform; it's only inertia.
| effie wrote:
| It makes sense for almost every user and developer, due
| to better graphics support from GPU vendors and from
| Microsoft for Windows.
| dmos62 wrote:
| Well of course, but that's only popularity and inertia.
| There's no technical reason to prefer Windows over Linux
| as a gaming platform.
|
| Edit: oh, I just rephrased grandparent comment, sorry.
| effie wrote:
| Better technical support of GPU vendors for games isn't a
| technical reason?
| dmos62 wrote:
| No, that's logistics. Logistics is relatively easy to
| change.
| Jach wrote:
| These days many AAA games work well in Gentoo thanks to Proton,
| though I still dual boot (to Windows 7...) for a lot of games.
| Looking Glass is pretty cool, though perhaps it's a bit too
| late. My next Windows on a new computer will be either 10
| Enterprise LTSC or 11 if 11 doesn't suck, but I still plan to
| run Gentoo as my primary. If your NixOS experience matches your
| expectations over the next year, it'd be neat to hear about it
| later -- I looked at Nix a _long_ time ago but I 've been a
| happy Gentoo user since 2007 and I still see no reason to move.
| I've gotten a bit old, but the maintenance is low, every time I
| use another distro it inevitably annoys me for not being like
| Gentoo, and anyway the upkeep sort of feels like gardening, not
| like a pain in the butt.
| gnif wrote:
| Just FYI, Looking Glass has been in development for over
| three years now, so it's not actually as late as you think
| :).
|
| Also proton doesn't address the myriad of productivity
| applications that people still need windows for, such as
| Adobe products, or Autocad, etc.
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| I'm doing this with NixOS and too, it was really simple. NixOS
| unstable hasn't been problem free though, it breaks quite often
| in the unstable channel, most usually though I just roll the
| channel back and wait it out. Right now I'm stuck with kernel
| 5.12 because nvidias shit Linux driver support.
| 3np wrote:
| I don't suppose you have a nix file to share? :)
| [deleted]
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