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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

#121

Post by unholythree »

411111111111111 wrote: post #73
geocrasher wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ;-)

> 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 l…

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.

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

#122

Post by pizza234 »

genewitch wrote: post #91
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 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.

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.

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

#123

Post by pizza234 »

imhoguy wrote: post #81
Mathnerd314 wrote: post #6

One thing that isn't clear from the website is that it requires two GPUs, one for the host and one for the VM.

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.

It's technically possible, but not stable. On my system, it's not stable, so I prefer to have two cards, but YMMV.

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

#124

Post by hutrdvnj »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #103
darkwater wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why don't you go the other way round, Windows native ane WSL2? Beside wanting to hack and learn things, obviouvsly.

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.

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.

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

#125

Post by sm_ts »

Rd6n6 wrote: post #40

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?

(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).

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

#127

Post by sm_ts »

Nullabillity wrote: post #54
Rd6n6 wrote: post #40

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?

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 issu…

> 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.

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

#128

Post by porker »

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…

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.

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

#129

Post by pizza234 »

darkwater wrote: post #102
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…

why don't you go the other way round, Windows native ane WSL2? Beside wanting to hack and learn things, obviouvsly.

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).

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

#130

Post by ShinyRice »

cdata wrote: post #83
zaptheimpaler wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.
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