I am giving up on VM Gaming

9 hours ago

The author was inspired by VM gaming promises from a Linus Tech Tips video but now gives up due to unresolved issues.
VM gaming setups involve using virtualization (like Unraid or Proxmox) with PCIe passthrough for near-native gaming performance.
Initial motivation was to use a gaming PC as a NAS and gaming machine, replacing an underperforming Synology NAS.
Unraid was chosen for its mature PCIe passthrough, improving docker performance significantly.
Some VM issues were solved: state management via APIs, USB passthrough using PCIe controllers, and NVIDIA VBIOS patching (no longer needed).
Unsolved issues include GPU sharing with docker, multi-VM GPU sharing lacking SR-IOV support, stability problems, and anti-cheat blocking in multiplayer games.
Resource starvation occurs when gaming VM reserves RAM and CPU cores, impacting docker container stability.
The time cost tradeoff is unfavorable; VM gaming is only recommended for severe budget or space constraints.
The author plans to separate the GPU into a dedicated gaming machine and praises Unraid despite VM-specific issues.
VM gaming led to learning about computers but ultimately did not fulfill gaming needs due to persistent problems.

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