Slow opengl in xen dom0 with GTX 550 Ti

[mijutu]

My goal is to set up one computer so that it can run windows and linux desktops simultaneously so that neither feel like virtualized.

I've almost managed to do this with IOMMU hardware, xen-4.1, linux-3.1.0-rc4-git2, and windows 7. There are some smaller issues (have to restart dom0 if win7 restarts), but the last remaining showstopper is that glxgears gives me only 5 fps on the GTX 550Ti in dom0. Vdpau works ok.

If I boot the dom0 linux installation on bare metal, everything works.

I didn't apply any patches to xen, kernel or nvidia drivers. Are there some recent enough that I could try? Is there something I can do to find out what causes this? Any debug options in xen, nvidia drivers or kernel that I should turn on?

Attachments: nvidia-bug-report-logs, with and without xen.

[shaundennie]

I've actually been setting up a similar type of machine this week and have seen the exact same thing. Running Debian Squeeze with Xen 4.1, 3.1-rc6 kernel and the latest nvidia driver. Dom0 with a GTX560 gives me like 3fps in glxgears and Dom0 with an older Quadro FX580 gives me a sane number of fps. 2D and vdpau work fine for both cards in Dom0. Bare metal gives sane values for either card with the same kernel as the Dom0 kernel.

This isn't a showstopper for me because I was planning to run the Quadro FX580 in Dom0 and the GTX560 in the gaming VM but, I just thought I'd verify your findings.

[zander]

The NVIDIA Linux graphics driver doesn't support Xen, but if you have a lot of RAM installed in your system, and if you're using a 32-bit DOM0 installation, you may be encountering a problem that will be addressed in a future driver release (likely 29x.xx). This problem wouldn't reproduce if no RAM were mapped above 4GB, or if a 64-bit DOM0 installation was used, instead.

[uOpt]

Why does it work at all for you, OP? I got nothing but a corrupted screen with linux-3.0.6 and the 285 nvidia drivers.

[shaundennie]

Thanks for the response zander. I'm running a 64-bit Dom0. The machine has 48GB of RAM and 32GB dedicated to the Dom0. I can provide logs if you'd like.

[mijutu]

Originally Posted by uOpt

Why does it work at all for you, OP?

I guess because I didn't use version 285. Try 280.13. When I have the time (and that might be tomorrow or 3 weeks from now) I'll try all the major versions that support my card and post bug-report-logs with and without xen. This time with -verbose 6.

[mijutu]

Here are the logs I promised:
http://k2c42.dyndns.org/tmp/nvidia-b...-logs.tar.lzma
(On external site, because the forum doesn't accept large attachments or lzma)

bare-275.28-GTX_550_Ti-nvidia-bug-report.log
dom0-275.28-GTX_550_Ti-nvidia-bug-report.log
dom0-285.03-8600_GT-nvidia-bug-report.log
bare-285.03-GTX_550_Ti-nvidia-bug-report.log
dom0-280.13-8600_GT-nvidia-bug-report.log
dom0-285.03-GTX_550_Ti-nvidia-bug-report.log

8600 GT works just fine in dom0, but opengl is slow with GTX 550 Ti. It seems there is a slight difference in speed. Older drivers gave me 4-5 fps and newer only 3.

I didn't try 270 series drivers because the installer didn't work.

[uOpt]

Can somebody clarify this: the binary NVidia drivers should work fine in a Windows DomU via PCI(e) passthrough, right? Will they work fine in a Linux or FreeBSD DomU? Would I use hvm or pv for this?

I had started building this nice "bunch of OSes in a box" laptop but it has been torpedoed by version messes, namely the Dom0 kernels offered by Debian not running the drivers offered by NVidia.

[johnnyk]

Hi,

have you managed to get the VGA pass through working with your hardware?

- J