Dual GPU laptop for use with BHyve

nicolaecarabut

nicolaecarabut

Hi,

What laptops you recommend to be used with BHyve ?
Here is the use case:
- integrated (Intel ?) for daily tasks and work that is well supported by X, no proprietary binaries
- dedicated video (NVIDIA ?) for a windows (casual gaming BF3/4) VM managed by BHyve with direct access to the hardware

If there is a thread on this I would gladly delete this question. BTW is the Optimus working with release 10 ? will this work with BHyve ?

Thanks
 
Re: Dual GPU laptop for use with BHhyve

I know FreeBSD and most other non Windows systems (with the exception of a shim for Linux) do not support Optimus at all. Wayland might, but that is still a long way off.
 
nicolaecarabut said:
Any other laptops marks / non marks that have this separated and no Optimus ?
Click to expand...

As companies cut corners to save money, it has become increasingly difficult to locate a new model laptop with a hardware multiplexer, you might try looking at higher end/business class laptops for single GPU systems. You'll have to scrutinize them carefully too, the vendors assume everyone want's dual GPU's automatically and many are not specific about their GPU configurations.
 
Hi, thanks for clarification.

Here is a configuration: http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade-pro

What it says is:
Code: 
Graphics and Video
    Intel® HD4600
    GPU – NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 860M
2GB GDDR5 VRAM, Optimus Technology
But does anyone have experience with this? I mean is it really 2 GPU or one with fallback to Intel and there is no way to use them separately with BHyve?

Just out of curiosity, is a SLI system usable in the way I want or is it my imagination? I mean, there are 2GPU systems in SLI mode, can their GPUs be used separately by the system?
 
If it says "Optimus", it is supposed to mean an Intel framebuffer and GPU, and an additional Nvidia GPU that can write into the Intel framebuffer when power usage is not a problem. But they might use the same trademark on systems that actually have two separate GPUs.

Just to make sure: are you asking if two bhyve() instances can be running, each using a separate graphics card directly? Because that would be cool and surprising if it could do that already.
 
I don't know about using two of them, but if it could at least use one of the video card that would be awesome. The only sad part is that at this time bhyve does not support graphics yet (as far as I know).
 
@wblock
"are you asking if two bhyve instances can be running, each using a separate graphics card directly"

@D4rkSilver
"bhyve does not support graphics yet"

Hi Guys,
what I'm after is not have a VirtualBox alternative that supports and ships drivers for the guests (DirectX for example).

I wanted BHyve because it supports VT-d http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_virtualization#I.2FO_MMU_virtualization_.28AMD-Vi_and_VT-d.29

So the utopia scenario is to have a laptop with 2 cards, one taken over by BHyve and keep it for the guest OS, and one for the main OS. But not sure how this works on a laptop, because the output must on the same monitor :) . Just toying with the idea. Maybe it's impossible.
 
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