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IT-Larf

Member

Registered: 2017-09-17

Posts: 6

PCI Passthrough with OEM Boards without UEFI

Hello,

i have a Dell T5500, X5675(yeah, it boosts), 24GB RAM, 8GB RX 480, FX 1800.

Some time ago i tried to use PCI Passthrough because this machine should still be my main gaming machine. The FX 1800 is way enough for Arch and Deepin. It is based on Westmere, so no UEFI. Every guide i followed told me to use a UEFI. I only got around 20-40% CPU performance, IO performance was horrible. Upon further googleing i found out that emulating a UEFI without having a UEFI does hinder the performance a lot. I could only assign 2GB of RAM, which i ignored at first. I tried out Debian 9 as well, similiar performance but with more than 2 GB of RAM. So i am back to using Windows.

Has anyone else tried this on old Hardware? Has anyone gotten this to work?

Upgrading isn't really an option. I have this machine because the performance/price is so damn good. And it really is capable. But i am OK with BIOS mods.

Thanks for talking to me

Cheers

Lone_Wolf

Member

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 11,919

Re: PCI Passthrough with OEM Boards without UEFI

For clarity :
your videocards are an AMD RX 480 and a Nvidia Quadro FX-1800 ?
you want to passthrough the AMD card to a windows VM ?

It's supposed to be possible to use SeaBios to passthrough to a bios/MBR client.
This might help you get started :
http://vfio.blogspot.nl/2015/05/vfio-gp … -mode.html

Last edited by Lone_Wolf (2017-09-17 12:13:54)

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Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.

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IT-Larf

Member

Registered: 2017-09-17

Posts: 6

Re: PCI Passthrough with OEM Boards without UEFI

For clarity :
your videocards are an AMD RX 480 and a Nvidia Quadro FX-1800 ?
you want to passthrough the AMD card to a windows VM ?

Of course. The only reason i bought the AMD Card is to have less troubles passing through.

It's supposed to be possible to use SeaBios to passthrough to a bios/MBR client.
This might help you get started :
http://vfio.blogspot.nl/2015/05/vfio-gp … -mode.html

Thank you. I will have a look at that.

sl1pkn07

Member

From: Spanishtán

Registered: 2010-03-30

Posts: 371

Re: PCI Passthrough with OEM Boards without UEFI

i have EVGA SR-2 (bios) with pair of x5650 and 48Gb of ram, Titan Black for host and Titan X (maxwell) for VM. zero problems with pastrougth with OVMF (uefi) assign 6 cores (cpupining) and 10Gb of ram

yep. the disk I/O (in own SSD (only for the VM) connected to Asus U3S6 card) is a little bit dissaster, but is playable

Last edited by sl1pkn07 (2017-09-17 19:17:41)