This is a guide for passing an AMD GPU to a Windows 10 Guest VM on Linux
I will not cover hugepages and CPU pinning because I'm currently busy with school but I will try to update this guide when I'm not busy anymore.
There are several outstanding guides covering this topic and you should check them out first If you have no idea about single gpu passthrough.
I decided to make my own guide because all of the guides already available didn't work for me because they were mostly ment for Nvidia GPUs. After 2 months of troubleshooting I was finally able to make this setup work and hopefully this will work for you too.
This guide assumes you're using Arch Linux.
STEP 1 Enabling IOMMU in your BIOS
If you have an Intel CPU, enable VT-d and VT-x
If you have an AMD CPU, enable SVM Mode and IOMMU
once thats done you can move on with step 2:
STEP 2 Editing the boot parameters
If you use systemd-boot open this file /boot/loader/entries/arch.conf (This might not be arch.conf for you) and edit the options line to look like this: For AMD:
amd_iommu=on iommu=pt iommu=1 video=efifb:off
For Intel:
intel_iommu=on iommu=pt video=efif:off
Now Reboot your PC
STEP 3 Checking IOMMU Groups
To check if IOMMU is enabled enter this command and press enter:
dmesg | grep -i -e DMAR -e IOMMU
If you get a response youre good to go
STEP 4 INSTALL ALL TOOLS
enter this command and press enter:
pacman -S virt-manager qemu vde2 ebtables iptables-nft nftables dnsmasq bridge-utils ovmf
STEP 5 EDIT CONFIG
edit this file:
/etc/libvirt/libvirtd.conf
Uncomment the # off the following lines:
unix_sock_group = "libvirt"
unix_sock_rw_perms = "0770"
add these line at the end of the file:
log_filters="1:qemu"
log_outputs="1:file:/var/log/libvirt/libvirtd.log"
Save the file and exit the editor
Now enter these commands (some of them are systemd specific):
sudo usermod -a -G libvirt $(whoami)
sudo systemctl start libvirtd
sudo systemctl enable libvirtd
Now edit this file:
/etc/libvirt/qemu.conf
change #user = "root" to user = "your username"
and
#group = "root" to group = "your username"
Now restart libvirt:
sudo systemctl restart libvirtd
To get networking working enter these commands:
sudo virsh net-autostart default
sudo virsh net-start default
STEP 6 CONFIGURE VIRTUAL MACHINE
Download the Windows 10 iso and the fedoraproject virtio drivers
open virt-manager and create a new VM
leave the vm name default
once you see the overview section select the customize before installation box
change the Firmware to /usr/share/edk2-ovmf/x64/OVMF_CODE.fd
uncheck the copy host CPU configuration box and set it to host passthrough
add the ISOs you downloaded and make sure you enable the CD ROM.
Change the virtual Network type to virtio and the disk type to virtio aswell
Now boot into Windows Installer. Once it says it cant find the disk press load driver and navigate to the virtio CD. The drivers are in the folder amd64/w10.
After that continue the bloatware install
STEP 7 PREPARATION FOR OUR SCRIPTS
Download the corresponding GPU vBios.
Either dump it yourself or find one on https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/
and enter mkdir /var/lib/libvirt/vbios in your terminal to make the directory for the vBios.
Now move the vBios in that folder and execute these commands:
chmod -R 660 ROM_NAME.rom
chown username:username ROM_NAME.rom
Now enter this script to get the IDs of the GPU
#!/bin/bash shopt -s nullglob for g in /sys/kernel/iommu_groups/; do echo "IOMMU Group ${g##/}:" for d in $g/devices/; do echo -e "\t$(lspci -nns ${d##/})" done; done;
You can also find it here:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PCI_passthrough_via_OVMF#Prerequisites
You will want to find your GPU in there with its Audio component (if it has one)
For me these IDs are:
08:00.0 and 08:00.1
Now go into virt-manager once more and add the parts of the GPU to the virtual machine
Go into your GPU in virt-manager and add this line:
<----THIS ONE
Remove spice / qxl stuff in VM
enter these commands to make the hooks for our VM
mkdir -p /etc/libvirt/hooks
sudo wget 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/PassthroughPOST/VFIO-Tools/master/libvirt_hooks/qemu'
-O /etc/libvirt/hooks/qemu
and enter:
sudo chmod +x /etc/libvirt/hooks/qemu
Now you want to create these directories:
/etc/libvirt/hooks/qemu.d
/etc/libvirt/hooks/qemu.d/win10
/etc/libvirt/hooks/qemu.d/win10/prepare
/etc/libvirt/hooks/qemu.d/win10/prepare/begin
/etc/libvirt/hooks/qemu.d/win10/release
/etc/libvirt/hooks/qemu.d/win10/release/end
And make edit these files:
/etc/libvirt/hooks/qemu.d/win10/prepare/begin/start.sh
It should be empty. Now just copy the start script uploaded by me into the file.
execute this command:
chmod +x /etc/libvirt/hook/qemu.d/win10/prepare/begin/start.sh
To make this script executable.
next edit this file:
/etc/libvirt/hooks/qemu.d/win10/release/end/revert.sh
It should be empty. Now just copy the revert script uploaded by me into the file.
execute this command:
chmod +x /etc/libvirt/hook/qemu.d/win10/release/end/revert.sh
now make another file in /etc/libvirt/hooks/kvm.conf
I remember from running the script earlier that the IDs of my GPU are 8:00.0 and 8:00.1 so I would need to enter:
VIRSH_GPU_VIDEO=pci_0000_08_00_0
VIRSH_GPU_AUDIO=pci_0000_08_00_1
Save the file and exit
STEP 8 ENJOY YOUR WINDOWS GAMES
You are now ready to start the vm.
If you are having problems message me on Discord @ Mike12#2308 or create a Reddit post on https://old.reddit.com/r/VFIO/ and mention me in your post and I will try to help.