# VMWare ESXi 4/4.1 VMDirectPath



## Zare (Jun 17, 2011)

...yes, it allows guest machines to directly connect to PCI(e) devices on the host 

Guys at VMWare forums tell stories about hooking up another GPU into hypervisor host, passing that GPU's PCI ID's and stuff to virtual guest, together with a complete USB root hub. Hook up keyboard/mouse to USB, and external monitor to that GPU, and you have fully accelerated console of virtual host.

There seems to be two gimmicks currently, guest will see both VMWare's virtual GPU and that physical VMDP'ed GPU, so you need to tweak around multi-monitor settings. Some people report failures on Direct3D acceleration, some report success. There seems to be a memory limit for host, 2.8GB, and memory needs to be reserved.

This option is currently available, but not supported. Inside vSphere; Configuration->Hardware->Advanced Settings->Configure Passthrough. I'm confident that significant amount of work will go into this functionality in future releases.

I may be overly enthusiastic about this feature, but it could transform relation between computer and operating system - simply put, you could install hypervisor on bare metal, and then just distribute hardware towards virtual guests. For instance, i use Windows for music production/multimedia stuff and games. I need that kind of hardware and software support. I could as well install ESXi, pass both GPU and soundcard to virtual Windows, but also pass PCI gigabit Ethernet adapter and some physical drives (this is another feature, SCSI Passthrough) to FreeBSD guest for ZFS fileserver or whatnot.


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## tingo (Jun 17, 2011)

I'll wait until I see it working first.


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