Gaming on a vm

[Jonathan .]

I have some resources that I can spare on my serve, 6 cores 8gb of ram and I was wondering if I were to pick-up a gpu second hand, how would the gaming experience be if I ran a windows vm. Would the quality be good or is it not worth the effort.

Thanks.

 

[Samuel Tai]

It'll probably not be worth the effort. You'd likely need to passthrough a USB card for the keyboard and mouse as well as the GPU. However, I'm not aware of any mechanism in bhyve, the TrueNAS hypervisor, to prefer allocation of CPU timeslices to a VM over the host.

 

[marian.zlatev]

Still it would be nice if someone shares his experience. I am also looking for something similar, where I would like to be able to kill some time playing casual games. Performance is not that critical, it just needs to be acceptable.

 

[Jailer]

The problem is passing through the GPU. Several have tried and from what I've read all have failed.

If you absolutely must do this you'll likely have better luck with esxi or proxmox with a compatible gpu. TrueNAS is just not capable of doing it.

 

[Pitfrr]

I can share my experience but it's not directly with TrueNAS, as @Jailer mentions, I'm using ESXi and GPU passthrough.
It works quite well. I also use an nvidia GPU that has the GameStreaming protocol in combination with moonlight on the client so I don't need to have a physical keyboard/mouse/monitor on the VM. I'm very impressed by the streaming performances.

 

[WI_Hedgehog]

If/when something goes wrong and hozes the server, how bad will the fallout be?

For the effort involved in setting up gaming and potentially having to rebuild the server after this goes sideways, perhaps consider using a tablet, laptop, or phone for gaming (even a used handheld device).

 

[Davvo]

8gb of RAM is little to game with those days.

 

[Jailer]

8gb of RAM is little to game with those days.

Not if you're setting up a VM for some retro gaming with say windows XP as the OS.

 

[WI_Hedgehog]

You're not going to believe this, I found a video:
Proxmox with TruNAS SCALE as a VM, Portainer under a Debian VM, WireGuard, Jellyfin, and Windows for remote gaming using Parsec and PCIe passthrough on 16GB of DDR3 unregistered memory in a used Lenovo ThinkStation.

Okay, he added 16 GB additional RAM and generic 2.5Gb Ethernet card because that 4-core Skylake can handle it thanks to an 80mm fan zip-tied to the CPU heatsink.

My Proxmox Home Server Walk-Through: Part 1 (TrueNAS, Portainer, Wireguard)

Get an exclusive NordPass deal plus 4 additional months for FREE here: https://nordpass.com/hardwarehaven or use code hardwarehaven at the checkout! #homeser...

www.youtube.com

Remote Gaming and Streaming w/ Proxmox - Proxmox Walk-Through: Part 2

Make sure to watch part one here: https://youtu.be/_sfddZHhOj4#homeserver #proxmox #virtualmachines Proxmox VE - https://www.proxmox.com/en/downloads/categor...

www.youtube.com

 

[Jailer]

As long as you can pass through a compatible GPU it is possible, just not on TrueNAS.

 

[marian.zlatev]

You're not going to believe this, I found a video:
Proxmox with TruNAS SCALE as a VM, Portainer under a Debian VM, WireGuard, Jellyfin, and Windows for remote gaming using Parsec and PCIe passthrough on 16GB of DDR3 unregistered memory in a used Lenovo ThinkStation.

Okay, he added 16 GB additional RAM and generic 2.5Gb Ethernet card because that 4-core Skylake can handle it thanks to an 80mm fan zip-tied to the CPU heatsink.

My Proxmox Home Server Walk-Through: Part 1 (TrueNAS, Portainer, Wireguard)

Get an exclusive NordPass deal plus 4 additional months for FREE here: https://nordpass.com/hardwarehaven or use code hardwarehaven at the checkout! #homeser...

www.youtube.com

Remote Gaming and Streaming w/ Proxmox - Proxmox Walk-Through: Part 2

Make sure to watch part one here: https://youtu.be/_sfddZHhOj4#homeserver #proxmox #virtualmachines Proxmox VE - https://www.proxmox.com/en/downloads/categor...

www.youtube.com

I have a newbie question here.
Let's say I want to migrate to proxmox. I would like to have one VM running truenas and another for gaming. My question would be do you know if there are any downsides in running truenas in a VM and would it be possible to reinstall truenas on a VM while at the same time preserving the data that is managed by my current truenas instance?

 

[Davvo]

I have a newbie question here.
Let's say I want to migrate to proxmox. I would like to have one VM running truenas and another for gaming. My question would be do you know if there are any downsides in running truenas in a VM and would it be possible to reinstall truenas on a VM while at the same time preserving the data that is managed by my current truenas instance?

"Absolutely must virtualize FreeNAS!" ... a guide to not completely losing your data.

[---- 2018/02/27: This is still as relevant as ever. As PCIe-Passthru has matured, fewer problems are reported. I've updated some specific things known to be problematic ----] [---- 2014/12/24: Note, there is another post discussing how to deploy a small FreeNAS VM instance for basic file...

www.truenas.com

 

[WI_Hedgehog]

I have a newbie question here.
Let's say I want to migrate to proxmox. I would like to have one VM running truenas and another for gaming. My question would be do you know if there are any downsides in running truenas in a VM and would it be possible to reinstall truenas on a VM while at the same time preserving the data that is managed by my current truenas instance?

Also being new here, after all the stuff I've read, I'd say my summary is:

• Use TrueNAS, on bare metal, with as few modifications as possible, if your data is really valuable.
• Use something other than TrueNAS that is more suited to your needs if you want a custom solution.

TrueNAS has a solid reputation for being a data serving powerhouse for a reason: It's designed to be in a datacenter for the purpose of attaching a crap-ton of storage to the network. Using it for something other than what it is designed for is a recipe for disaster. Using it for home storage is...well, you should really have a need first....and I think that's why people are trying to shoehorn it into all these "also" situations, like "also gaming" and "also a Virtual Machine server" and "also works on hardware designed to run Windows 3.11."

Seriously, load up Ubuntu and work on a great data backup strategy, you'll be way farther ahead and your electricity bill will be far less. If you have to do Proxmox, set up file shares, it can do that. If you really have to have a lab in your home because like me you live in an arctic climate where it's dark 23.75 hours of the day and the high is -12°F and you need the heat so your coffee cup isn't holding a solid block of ice, set up TrueNAS on one box (with ECC memory and a real NIC of course), and Proxmox on another box (with ECC memory and a real NIC of course), and a workstation or two (with ECC memory and a real NIC--of course!), and a crap router so nothing works the way it should.

----
(I got a good router, I'm kidding you.)