Windows XP SP3 w/GPU Passthrough

[slipstreamboy]

Hi all,

So I've been experimenting with UnRaid and Proxmox for a little while now. I'm in no terms and expert at either but have worked in hardware for many years so do have a good understanding of the theory of passthrough and virtualisation.

I did unfortunately give up on spending more time with this build but wanted to share the main issue I faced in hopes that someone found a solution, or knows not to waste their time trying to do what I have. Hopefully the latter.

I successfully installed Windows XP, had a VNC, RDP and spice client all work great. Functionally the machine ran perfect.

My biggest issue was the GPU. I have an ASUS 730GT GDDR5 2Gb variant, at first I thought this was a blessing in disguise thinking that it would work with XP.

TLR, it does not.

After passing through the card successfully, at least I think it was because Proxmox said the kernel driver was listed as vfio-pci, it failed to show up at all. Not in device manager or anywhere, and yes I checked the HardwareIDs of each device that didn't have drivers.

I'm at a loss but hopefully someone out there has solved this and can tell me what I'm doing wrong!

My main GPU is a 5070ti which is being used as the terminal display, so the 730 is completely disconnected from the host machine.

 

[complexplaster27]

I thought the Minimum requirements for PCIe passthrough is host for CPU and Q35 for machine type, I don't even know if you can set up Windows XP with a Q35 machine type so no idea if this would ever work.

 

[leesteken]

I thought the Minimum requirements for PCIe passthrough is host for CPU and Q35 for machine type

q35 is needed for PCIe but i440fx can do PCI passthrough just fine (and there is usually no performance difference). The virtual CPU type does not matter for PCI(e) passthrough.

That said, some drivers inside the VM might require or assume PCIe instead of PCI or requires or assume some recent CPU type that actually exists. Linux drivers usually don't have such issues.

 

[slipstreamboy]

q35 is needed for PCIe but i440fx can do PCI passthrough just fine (and there is usually no performance difference). The virtual CPU type does not matter for PCI(e) passthrough.

That said, some drivers inside the VM might require or assume PCIe instead of PCI or requires or assume some recent CPU type that actually exists. Linux drivers usually don't have such issues.

Likely this, didn't consider that. It's odd not to show up at all though, I would have expected it to just throw an error but still be visible.

Might try the same setup with Windows Vista (yes, Vista) using as close to same settings as possible and see how that behaves.

Thank you!

 

[leesteken]

Likely this, didn't consider that. It's odd not to show up at all though, I would have expected it to just throw an error but still be visible.

I did not really respond to your actual issue. I would also expect that. I can't really remember Windows XP but I assuumes that it shows as unknown PCI device? In my memory NVidia drivers and passthrough were a difficult combination.