zlacker

>>jfreax+(OP)
Does anyone know if PCI passthrough works so we can play games inside a windows vm? Some user already asked this on the mailing list but got no answer. [1]

[1] https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/qubes-devel/MfHy2jmX...

>>redtue+FA
Qubes uses Xen and thus PCI passthrough for gaming can be made to work through the same procedures necessary for any other Xen+Linux OS.

But PCI passthrough for gaming isn't a great fit for the Qubes security model: it requires trusting that the Windows guest cannot compromise the GPU you loan it, which makes it a much bigger risk than an ordinary AppVM.

>>wtalli+HB
Thanks for the answer, that's promising. Maybe I give it a try after investigating if my other hardware is supported (vt-d etc. is no problem, but it's not on the supported hardware list).

Yes, a dedicated machine for gaming would certainly be better. But I play only irregularly and games like Divinity: Original Sin, Pillars of Eternity etc. which I kind of trust to don't hijack the GPU.

>>redtue+TD
It's not exactly about trusting the game. You'd be extending trust to... everything inside the VM you expose the graphics card to.

And graphics cards are messy. Many of them are frankly a lot like accessing main memory without an MMU. It's extremely easy to get scrapes of other application's video RAM that hasn't been zeroed.

I'm not trying to tell you you shouldn't do it of course. Just... be aware. "hijack the GPU" doesn't even require a whole lot of malice. I've had video memory of my firefox tabs from last shutdown draped across my screen while the lightdm login windows do their first paint, for example. This is just the world we live in :(

>>heaven+OT
I remember reading a submission here on hn about the problems with GPUs a while back.

No worries, I did not undertand it that way. I like it if users try to keep the awareness about potential security problems up.