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#1 2011-06-13 20:14:37

mohjkrtoi
Member
Registered: 2011-06-13
Posts: 9

[SOLVED] Virtualization, win7 host and 3d acceleration?

Is it possible to get decent 3d acceleration in Arch linux out of the box (just by installing right packages)?
I tried both VMware Workstation 7.1 and VirtualBox 4.08, and i followed steps in the wiki. Glxinfo and logs show that right drivers are loaded, but glxgears run at 60fps both with 3d acceleration enabled and disabled. I know that glxgears are not a real benchmark but i don't see any real acceleration, I can't use kde 4 desktop effects or GNOME 3.
So just first tell me is it possible to get good 3d acceleration with Arch (probably is smile), and if you say yes ill post some logs and we will troubleshoot this problem.

P.S. I need 3d acceleration to test graphical applications (games) i develop under win. I need to test just basic functionality...
P.P.S Google revealed that Ubuntu offers easy and fast 3d acceleration, but i really like Arch so please help smile. I could use dual booting if everything else fails, but it's easier in vm, and it's gonna be necessary when I start testing networking parts.

Last edited by mohjkrtoi (2011-06-14 22:47:59)

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#2 2011-06-14 03:39:48

ConnorBehan
Package Maintainer (PM)
From: Long Island NY
Registered: 2007-07-05
Posts: 1,359
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Re: [SOLVED] Virtualization, win7 host and 3d acceleration?

1. Of course one can get decent 3d acceleration in Arch. The frame rates are about the same as http://free3d.org/. There are a few things to do other than installing the packages. You'll have to add the appropriate modules to the MODULES array of rc.conf and maybe create xorg.conf.d files.

2. I agree that you probably don't have acceleration working. To help us diagnose your problem you will have to post the output of "/var/log/Xorg.0.log" at the very least.

3. Even if you get great framerates with Arch, virtual machines are a whole different story. Last time I checked they were inevitably slower due to not having direct memory access.

4. That Ubuntu thing sounds subjective. One of the reasons I switched to Arch in the first place was to have an easier time setting up DRI and GLX!


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#3 2011-06-14 15:39:06

mohjkrtoi
Member
Registered: 2011-06-13
Posts: 9

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualization, win7 host and 3d acceleration?

Great!

Let's stick to my vmware setup because it's my primary. I use VMware Workstation 7.1.4. I set it up according to wiki, it stated that I should only add vmware deamon, no modules, to rc.conf. That also means I installed vmware-tools from community not by building them form vmware cd, but I already tried both ways.
Also host system is Win7 as I previously stated, my graphics card is nv9600gso, with latest drivers so I don't think this is the problem.

Here is my Xorg.log.
I just added this 10-monitor.conf to xorg.conf.d, to set resolution, but I don't get acceleration even without it.
And this is output of glxinfo.

On that third note, I said I need to test just basic functionalities, I don't expect real gaming framerates, but with software acceleration it's really impossible. On the other hand VMs are best for testing networking part, and I will need that to, so dual booting is my last choice for now.

As for number four, yeah I sounded really ridiculous. I just recently switched to Arch because I love Arch philosophy, I've been playing around with it for some time, it's perfect for me, but now it's time to get some work done!

Last edited by mohjkrtoi (2011-06-14 16:05:21)

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#4 2011-06-14 16:25:31

dodo3773
Member
Registered: 2011-03-17
Posts: 801

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualization, win7 host and 3d acceleration?

If you are using a "win7" as your host and Arch Linux in the virtual machine as your guest I doubt that you will be able to directly access your gpu. Unless this is a new thing that VmWare has figured out how to do it is not possible. It hasn't been for a long time as far as I know.

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#5 2011-06-14 16:30:09

mohjkrtoi
Member
Registered: 2011-06-13
Posts: 9

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualization, win7 host and 3d acceleration?

Well that was my first question is it possible... How about VirtualBox have they figured it out?

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#6 2011-06-14 16:37:18

dodo3773
Member
Registered: 2011-03-17
Posts: 801

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualization, win7 host and 3d acceleration?

mohjkrtoi wrote:

Well that was my first question is it possible... How about VirtualBox have they figured it out?

No, it's the same. All that stuff is done virtually. The guests can utilize your processor, hard drive, and ram. They can read from your cd-rom but cannot burn a disk. You can redirect usb devices to them. As far as I know that is it. Your internal wireless will not work either for your guest directly. This stuff is not application specific it is just where virtualization in general is at.

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#7 2011-06-14 16:49:14

mohjkrtoi
Member
Registered: 2011-06-13
Posts: 9

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualization, win7 host and 3d acceleration?

But wait man I also said that there are many Ubuntu users who reported perfect acceleration, also

VirtualBox wrote:

This works for all supported host platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris), provided that your host operating system can make use of your accelerated 3D hardware in the first place.

The 3D acceleration currently has the following preconditions:

    It is only available for certain Windows, Linux and Solaris guests. In particular:
    OpenGL on Linux requires kernel 2.6.27 and higher as well as X.org server version 1.5 and higher. Ubuntu 10.10 and Fedora 14 have been tested and confirmed as working.

Also GNOME site suggest that GNOME3 requires 3d acceleration because it is now finally possible in virtual machines.

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#8 2011-06-14 17:08:04

dodo3773
Member
Registered: 2011-03-17
Posts: 801

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualization, win7 host and 3d acceleration?

mohjkrtoi wrote:

But wait man I also said that there are many Ubuntu users who reported perfect acceleration, also

VirtualBox wrote:

This works for all supported host platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris), provided that your host operating system can make use of your accelerated 3D hardware in the first place.

The 3D acceleration currently has the following preconditions:

    It is only available for certain Windows, Linux and Solaris guests. In particular:
    OpenGL on Linux requires kernel 2.6.27 and higher as well as X.org server version 1.5 and higher. Ubuntu 10.10 and Fedora 14 have been tested and confirmed as working.

Also GNOME site suggest that GNOME3 requires 3d acceleration because it is now finally possible in virtual machines.

While 3D acceleration may work to some extent in your guest that part is all virtual. What I mean is that you will not be able to directly use your graphics chip. So, other than the drivers that come with your guest additions and loading the correct modules I do not see why there would be a problem. In VirtualBox there is a setting to change your 3d settings per each virtual machine. Is there an option like that in VmWare? Are you sure that you have the correct modules loaded? A quick "lsmod" should tell you that.

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#9 2011-06-14 17:22:28

dodo3773
Member
Registered: 2011-03-17
Posts: 801

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualization, win7 host and 3d acceleration?

Read through this thread. You may find the information you are looking for there.

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#10 2011-06-14 17:54:24

mohjkrtoi
Member
Registered: 2011-06-13
Posts: 9

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualization, win7 host and 3d acceleration?

Let's switch to virtualbox, because official documents say that 3d acceleration is supported.
I have modules loaded, and tools installed, 3d accel enabled. You say that it is possible to get virtual acceleration, that actually doesnt accelerate anythig? Are you 100% sure that windows host/linux guest will not work?

That topic you posted contains no relevant information, some people say that gnome 3 shell works, and some say that it doesn't in virtual environment.

edit:
Here is my virtualbox configuration.
xorg.conf.d/ all default
Xorg.0.log
glxinfo

Last edited by mohjkrtoi (2011-06-14 18:01:47)

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#11 2011-06-14 18:21:29

dodo3773
Member
Registered: 2011-03-17
Posts: 801

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualization, win7 host and 3d acceleration?

mohjkrtoi wrote:

Let's switch to virtualbox, because official documents say that 3d acceleration is supported.
I have modules loaded, and tools installed, 3d accel enabled. You say that it is possible to get virtual acceleration, that actually doesnt accelerate anythig? Are you 100% sure that windows host/linux guest will not work?

That topic you posted contains no relevant information, some people say that gnome 3 shell works, and some say that it doesn't in virtual environment.

edit:
Here is my virtualbox configuration.
xorg.conf.d/ all default
Xorg.0.log
glxinfo

If you are using the newest version of VirtualBox and the newest version of the guest additions the next experiment would be to test this out

"First you have to install new VirtualBox Guest Aditions, the check /etc/X11/xorg.conf, you must have <Driver "vboxvideo"> in Device section."

which was actually in the link I just posted. Make sure that your Arch system and VirtualBox is up to date and then try the above. Then if it still does not work you will have your answer.

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#12 2011-06-14 18:26:24

mohjkrtoi
Member
Registered: 2011-06-13
Posts: 9

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualization, win7 host and 3d acceleration?

I already tried all that, but what i haven't tried is to install virtualbox additions from cd (i just tried from arch repo), trying that now.

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#13 2011-06-14 19:28:20

mohjkrtoi
Member
Registered: 2011-06-13
Posts: 9

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualization, win7 host and 3d acceleration?

Still not working.

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#14 2011-06-14 21:40:43

ConnorBehan
Package Maintainer (PM)
From: Long Island NY
Registered: 2007-07-05
Posts: 1,359
Website

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualization, win7 host and 3d acceleration?

Technically you do have "acceleration" but it is all using your CPU so to a first approximation there is no change in performance. When people's GPUs were not in use glxinfo used to say "Direct rendering: No". Now it says "Direct rendering: Yes" but you have to look at the fine print that says Gallium on softpipe. The relevant message in your xorg log is:

[    34.883] (II) AIGLX: Screen 0 is not DRI2 capable
[    34.883] (II) AIGLX: Screen 0 is not DRI capable
[    34.984] (II) AIGLX: Loaded and initialized /usr/lib/xorg/modules/dri/swrast_dri.so
[    34.984] (II) GLX: Initialized DRISWRAST GL provider for screen 0

Now about VirtualBox and its supposed 3D acceleration capabilities... for some time it has been possible to use hardware directly with a low-level type of virtualization as long as the host and guest OS are the same. So maybe VirtualBox only claims that it works when you run Linux on Linux.

As for Linux on Windows, that only has a chance of working if you are using an IOMMU. AMD and Intel both have specifications for this called AMD-V and VT-d. So you need to make sure your chipset is recent enough to come with this feature (this might be helpful) and make sure it is enabled in the BIOS.

Last edited by ConnorBehan (2011-06-15 00:48:10)


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#15 2011-06-14 22:45:23

mohjkrtoi
Member
Registered: 2011-06-13
Posts: 9

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualization, win7 host and 3d acceleration?

Thank you you help me a lot by clearing it up for me. I have a p35 chipset which does not support VT-d (and q35 would). Linux to Linux or Win to Win would still work right?
So i guess I don't have any option but the dual boot. Which is a problem because i don't have a dvd rom. smile

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#16 2011-06-15 00:46:50

ConnorBehan
Package Maintainer (PM)
From: Long Island NY
Registered: 2007-07-05
Posts: 1,359
Website

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualization, win7 host and 3d acceleration?

mohjkrtoi wrote:

Linux to Linux or Win to Win would still work right?

For *some* virtualizers that I read about, but I can't remember which. My guess would be Vmware ESX.


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#17 2011-06-15 02:49:36

admiralspark
Member
From: Alaska, USA
Registered: 2011-01-07
Posts: 87

Re: [SOLVED] Virtualization, win7 host and 3d acceleration?

Not trying to threadjack, but the only way you could possibly get efficient, direct 3d graphics rendering is through hardware virtualization. That is the main problem with software virtualization--though it's much easier to set up (and certainly cheaper!) you're STILL running a virtual machine through what can be loosely called an emulator. In a Win-to-Linux virtualized environment, the virtual machine runs the linux kernel, through the VM's virtualization code, and then re-interprets the output to a format that the windows host can understand. So the graphics card gets slowed down, interpreted instructions from a VM, which in effect makes any 3d effects slow as all get out.

EDIT: In virtualbox, a linux distro can be shipped with the virtualbox guest additions which will enable 3d effects out of the box (see PinguyOS), so it's not impossible, just a hassle smile

EDIT2: unetbootin, use a usb to install a dual-boot big_smile

Last edited by admiralspark (2011-06-16 04:22:49)


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