As I’m about to refresh my desktop, I’ve decided to look into running Windows in a virtual machine for the purpose of playing games. Is there anything on the hardware side that I should be aware of?

I’m set on AMD and currently leaning towards Ryzen 7 3800X on motherboard with X570 chipset. From what I understand, that configuration supports AMD-V and AMD-Vi which is all I really need. Is that accurate? Is there something else I should be looking at?

Lastly, with graphic card passed through, how practical the setup would be without host Linux not having access to the graphics card? Should I look into APU or second GPU? Does anyone have experience with such setup?

And hints and pointers would be appreciated.

It depends on the games. Most probably far better to use native windows (instead of VM).

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You know that wine/steam/playonlinux etc. (all based on wine) are also options?

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Virtualized Windows may work for games but your hardware (video) is largely irrelevant because the video hardware will be virtualized. You are better off dual-booting or using the software ondoho suggested.

The point of AMD-Vi is that the video card will not be virtualised. Instead, the guest will have direct and exclusive access to it.

And yes, I am aware of other options but that’s not really the point. If I can run a game through compatibility layer I certainly will but it’s not given that every title will work correctly. For example, Wasteland 2 didn’t work for me at all even though Steam officially supports it on Linux. In those cases, it would be great if I could avoid having to reboot the machine but instead launch a virtual machine with Windows.

If someone had a fully supported VM as well as a fully supported hardware then they might be able to get very close integration.

VM's have slowly obtained more and more physical access to provide to the client.

However I'd think the correct answer was pan64's.

If it's listed as officially supported by Steam or ProtonDB it probably does work, but it may require figuring out some launch options or undertaking some configuration (e.g. you haven't said what distro you have, underlying configuration, etc - there's a lot of variables there, and afaik most of Valve's statements on linux support assume Ubuntu LTS or SteamOS (which is Debian-based), so getting things going on 'other' distros (like Slackware, PCLOS, Red Hat, etc) can sometimes take more effort). IOW, there is no universal 'linux' that they can 'gurantee' - and they're pretty up-front about that.


Agreed. I know various YouTubers have done a videos about Windows (and macOS) as VM clients for gaming and other applications, and usually arrive at the same conclusion: it may be doable, but usually has significant labor/time requirements to setup, and is still not as foolproof as just dual-booting into Windows or macOS and running them natively.

Here's some examples that discuss hardware a bit more:
https://invidio.us/watch?v=EozeSDeV3Vo
https://invidio.us/watch?v=3yhwJxWSqXI

Something to note: most (if not all) of these configurations assume you're setting up a secondary GPU for the passthru to the VM via IOMMU and use of AMD-V or Intel VT-x. From what I understand, 'partitioning' of GPUs is only officially supported by nVidia's SLI Mosaic features on Plex (which have multiple physical GPUs and other hardware for sync in them), and systems with GeForce will block functionailty in the driver (as in, the drivers won't let you run the card as a passthru client). This is why AMD cards are so commonly chosen for client cards. When you're saying things like 'direct and exclusive access' that does not speak to 'partitioning' - that's passthrough. You won't have a GPU for the 'host' system in that configuration - which can present a lot of problems. It would be possible, if your motherboard properly supports IOMMU (more server/workstation-oriented boards will be better candidates here) to have two graphics cards, and one passes through to the Windows VM (and is blacklisted for the Linux install), but that isn't going to be the kind of 'seamless' configuration I think you're imagining (it won't be like running the game in Wine - it will be more like the first video I linked (note that the way they get 'both systems' on the monitor, is because the monitor supports that side-by-side feature)). All of this will take a lot more time (and equipment) than setting up dual-boot with Windows 10 alongside *nix, or setting up whatever game in *nix. Really just depends on what your preference is as to which way to go - these are all 'corner case' configurations after all.

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That is, in fact, the exact level of seamless I imagine.

Ah, then you may find what you're looking for with the second link I provided. Just note that you will need two GPUs and separate audio/HID devices to do this as well. Perhaps using one of the Ryzen chips with built-in graphics can get you some of the way there. As far as control, once you have it all working you may be able to use barrier as a soft KVM (but I'd keep a second keyboard handy in case something goes awry). This will also rely on two monitors unless you have a monitor that can do side-by-side or similar.

Hi i have a somewhat similar question to the OP so i thought it could be useful for others in the same boat if AMD related current/incoming hardware and gaming via a Windows VM is consolidated? Anyway my question is

Suppose one gets on a Ryzen 4000 8 core/16 thread APU for desktop. Lets say pairing it with a A520/B550 chipset? If the chipset has the "pass through" feature working correctly one would only need 1 discrete GPU right? As in

Linux host = APU graphics
Windows Guest VM = some discrete gaming class GPU

Now i've seen some youtube videos speaking of SR-IOV where a single GPU can be subdivided like slices of cake! Would we be able to do this on a Ryzen 4000 APU like say for someone who wants to run a Windows VM guest but not for gaming purposes? Like maybe 30% APU for linux host and 70% for windows guest (a crude way of saying it, not sure about the technical terms haha) and no need for a discrete GPU...

In theory this should work, assuming all the hardware referenced supports it (and some of the stuff you've mentioned is unreleased, so except maybe some 'growing pains' if you buy it right at release).

Here's an example (of sorts) of what you're describing:
https://linustechtips.com/main/topic...ing-build-log/
I believe they used unraid for the 'base' hypervisor, and then installed Windows twice (as two separate VMs) - in theory you could instead have one VM running Linux and another running Windows.

If you aren't gaming/needing 3D acceleration why bother with SR-IOV or any other hardware passthrus? Just run Windows (or whatever other OS) in VirtualBox - it will just be 'in a window' on your system, and behave exactly as Windows (or whatever other OS). 3D Performance is usually what suffers in virtualization like that, because there is no direct hardware access to the GPU, but if you're wanting to start Windows to run Outlook/Internet Explorer/etc this is a very easy way to do it (and performance should be fine as long as you have enough resources on the host machine to spare). Also consider WINE if the application you want to run there is supported, as this would be 'more native' (and ideally therefore less resource intensive) than running a complete VM.

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