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Looking Glass: Run a Windows VM on Linux in a window with native performance

looking-glass.io

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Re: Looking Glass: Run a Windows VM on Linux in a window with native performance

#221

Post by xaduha »

TheFreim wrote: post #182
xaduha wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I wouldn't recommend VFIO just for gaming, there are better options. What options? I'm interested.

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.

Re: Looking Glass: Run a Windows VM on Linux in a window with native performance

#222

Post by MegaDeKay »

mschuster91 wrote: post #149
zaptheimpaler wrote: post #57

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 relativel…

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-... ) :(

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

Re: Looking Glass: Run a Windows VM on Linux in a window with native performance

#223

Post by wolrah »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #197
chrisseaton wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?

> 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.

Re: Looking Glass: Run a Windows VM on Linux in a window with native performance

#224

Post by MegaDeKay »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #57

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 relativel…

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.

Re: Looking Glass: Run a Windows VM on Linux in a window with native performance

#225

Post by [deleted] »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #57

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 relativel…

[deleted]

Re: Looking Glass: Run a Windows VM on Linux in a window with native performance

#226

Post by [deleted] »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #57

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 relativel…

[deleted]

Re: Looking Glass: Run a Windows VM on Linux in a window with native performance

#227

Post by EchoReflection »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #57

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 relativel…

@zaptheimpaler thank you for sharing this.

Re: Looking Glass: Run a Windows VM on Linux in a window with native performance

#228

Post by jokoon »

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.

Re: Looking Glass: Run a Windows VM on Linux in a window with native performance

#229

Post by 3np »

lillecarl wrote: post #140
Kiboneu wrote: post #45

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…

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.

I don't suppose you have a nix file to share? :)

Re: Looking Glass: Run a Windows VM on Linux in a window with native performance

#230

Post by chrisseaton »

weberer wrote: post #218
chrisseaton wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then the server should never send them information on what's behind the wall.

You want to render all graphics on the server? I’m not sure that’s really a tractable suggestion.
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