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mine_diver

Member

Registered: 2024-03-18

Posts: 62

[SOLVED] Single GPU passthrough on legacy BIOS

Hello!

I want to setup a Windows 10 VM with passthrough to my Nvidia RTX 4060 so I can take advantage of DLSS framegen that wasn't yet delivered to Linux proprietary Nvidia drivers.

Naturally, started reading about this on Arch Wiki, found this page - https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/QEMU/G … celeration
and this guide on it - https://gitlab.com/risingprismtv/single … eparations

However, in the requirements, it says that I have to install my system in UEFI mode.
Yet, my motherboard simply doesn't have any form of UEFI from what I can tell.
It's just the legacy BIOS I have to deal with.

Am I out of luck?

I do have a second GPU and I did manage to passthrough it to a Windows 7 plain-QEMU VM previously, but it's a GTX 970, so in my case it'd be useless since all I really need is DLSS framegen.

Thanks!

Last edited by mine_diver (2024-05-18 02:26:55)

Lone_Wolf

Administrator

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 14,971

Re: [SOLVED] Single GPU passthrough on legacy BIOS

Yet, my motherboard simply doesn't have any form of UEFI from what I can tell.
It's just the legacy BIOS I have to deal with.

Your motherboard would have to be over 10 years old and unlikely to work well a RTX 4060.

Let's verify whether you are booted in uefi mode or not .
Post the output of the command in https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Instal … _boot_mode .

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

clean chroot building not flexible enough ?
Try clean chroot manager by graysky

mine_diver

Member

Registered: 2024-03-18

Posts: 62

Re: [SOLVED] Single GPU passthrough on legacy BIOS

[mine_diver@ABLPHA ~]$ cat /sys/firmware/efi/fw_platform_size
cat: /sys/firmware/efi/fw_platform_size: No such file or directory

My motherboard is quite ancient and I am using quite an ancient CPU (Intel Xeon X5690)

The fact that I don't have UEFI came as a surprise to me when I tried installing Arch first time on the bare metal,
since I thought I'd just install systemd-boot and be done with it.
Tried searching for any mention of UEFI in my BIOS settings to no avail.

Ran Windows 10 before that so wasn't even bothering with such stuff, RTX 4060 worked quite nice on it.
Maybe not to full power, but good enough.

Lone_Wolf

Administrator

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 14,971

Re: [SOLVED] Single GPU passthrough on legacy BIOS

Understood, that does make things harder but may still be possible as the uefi requirement is for the guest

Your processor is  a server model launched in 2011. Intel was late with supporting IOMMU but their server versions got that much earlier then the consumer products.

Check https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PCI_pa … requisites .

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

clean chroot building not flexible enough ?
Try clean chroot manager by graysky

mine_diver

Member

Registered: 2024-03-18

Posts: 62

Re: [SOLVED] Single GPU passthrough on legacy BIOS

Oh, thank you!

Just went through the whole installation process and it works!

However, I can't seem to figure out how to passthrough my audio.
HDMI audio through the GPU works fine, but I'm usually using my 3.5mm headphones plugged into the motherboard.

Lone_Wolf

Administrator

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 14,971

Re: [SOLVED] Single GPU passthrough on legacy BIOS

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PCI_pa … er_devices describes methods to passthrough other devices including audio .

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

clean chroot building not flexible enough ?
Try clean chroot manager by graysky

mine_diver

Member

Registered: 2024-03-18

Posts: 62

Re: [SOLVED] Single GPU passthrough on legacy BIOS

Thanks, but I did try those, yet it seems like PulseAudio (pipewire-pulse) for example is getting killed when starting the VM.

I've managed to get sound working through PulseAudio by running the VM through TTY3,
but I can't seem to properly get back into host afterwards.

Posted an issue on the guide's gitlab repo: https://gitlab.com/risingprismtv/single … /issues/54

Lone_Wolf

Administrator

From: Netherlands, Europe

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 14,971

Re: [SOLVED] Single GPU passthrough on legacy BIOS

Maybe https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Libvir … m_instance is relevant for you ?

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

clean chroot building not flexible enough ?
Try clean chroot manager by graysky

mine_diver

Member

Registered: 2024-03-18

Posts: 62

Re: [SOLVED] Single GPU passthrough on legacy BIOS

Not really. I'm not running it under root.

At least I think so? Never in the process of starting up the VM,
either through the console or virt-manager, do I have to enter any password.

I tried SSH'ing from my guest to host to see if pipewire and pipewire-pulse are running,
and they do, which confuses me even more.

mine_diver

Member

Registered: 2024-03-18

Posts: 62

Re: [SOLVED] Single GPU passthrough on legacy BIOS

Dug up an old soundcard of mine, passes through to VM and back just fine by just adding it to the list of hardware and installing the drivers into the VM!

Gonna mark as solved since I’ve gotten everything I needed from the VM.