Multiheaded SteamBox on VMware ESXi

[eric]

So I built a multiheaded SteamBox, this one is a little different on the inside:

Asrock X58 Extreme MB
24 GB ram
i7 Extreme
1 TB hdd
2 GB SSD
4x ATI Radeon 6450
1x ATI Radeon 4650
1x Nvidia PCI card

This runs VMware ESXi 5 on the bare metal, using the 2gb SSD and the Nvidia PCI card as the console. I have multiple VM’s defined, 4 of which are SteamOS. These run concurrently, side by side, each using one of the HD 6450’s.and a USB using PCI Passthrough.

PCI Passthrough is where the physical hardware is passed through to the VM, with its full capabilities. How much RAM or CPU cores are assigned to each VM is defined in its config. The RAM assigned is owned by the VM, but CPU cores can be over-provisioned.

Sound works, youtube, games, etc. ON ALL FOUR SteamOS’s simultaneously.
The performance is equivalent to a SteamBox on a dual core board with the same graphics card. I only gave the VM’s 2 cores from the i7 initially.

The VM’s are protected by snapshots, so no need for a recovery partition. They can all be returned to “New Install” state at any time.

I can also define many more SteamOS VM’s, and run any 4 of my choosing.

I also have other VM’s of other OS’s defined.
Win7
XP
Win8
MacOSX Mountain Lion
Suse
Centos
Ubuntu
Etc

These can run out of the HD 4650, or any of the HD 6450’s

All simultaneously with the SteamOS’s, in any combination.

One VM runs in the background with a wifi card passed through, acting as an integrated WiFi access point.

VMware ESXi normally requires the Vsphere Client for management to be run on a separate pc or VM. This is not exactly End-User friendly, so I wrote an Android App to manage the VM’s residing on this box. From the App you can power on VM’s, take or return to snapshots, and manage which display is assigned to a VM.

The box is actually portable (luggable?) with a handle on top, for LAN parties. The Datastore which contains the VM’s can be an iscsi target, so another ESXi box can run the VM’s stored there.

I can certainly post videos or screenshots in the appropriate tabs in the hw forum.

[MauriDz]

:L

[Scith]

Hello, your project seems very interesting!
Would it be possible to use it in an home? This Hydra machine would be stored in the basement and all inputs/outputs in the home would be linked to it (eg a TV with a Xbox controller; a desktop monitor/keyboard/mouse; A WiFi laptop; ...).

Can I use things such as "HDMI over Ethernet" and "USB over ethernet" to bring all inputs/outputs to the hydra via Ethernet? Or do I need "thin clients" such as Raspberry Pi or NUCs to display the virtual machines or stream the content (Steam In-Home; Limelight) ?

Thanks

[eric]

You can do USB or HDMI over ethernet. I have the project documented here:

http://hackaday.io/project/1071-The-HYDRA-multiheaded-virtual-computer

There is more documentation to follow, but you could even do PCIe over fiber which is explained in the latest build log.

You can also setup some VM's to be headless streaming hosts, and connect to them with a NUC. I am also working on a streaming client using a HP5720 thin client.

[eric]

Youtube of my SteamOS VM booting.
http://youtu.be/YCxF9sm5Gp8

[ripes]

Hi Eric, a scribed project you have there. I would be interested how you did it more than 8 devices to an ESXi host to use with passthrough. I always thought that one time per ESXi passthrough host can nutzne maximum of 8 and 3 per VM.

Thanks in advance

[zerocdv]

This is what I've been trying to accomplish in a much bigger scale.

I will refer to your hackaday post for more details but this is basically what I want to try:

Have on "server" running ESXi and then be able to launch 2 VM's with Win 7, but passthrough
one Xbox 360 controller onto each of them.

Thank you.

[Shark]

引用自 zerocdv：

This is what I've been trying to accomplish in a much bigger scale.

I will refer to your hackaday post for more details but this is basically what I want to try:

Have on "server" running ESXi and then be able to launch 2 VM's with Win 7, but passthrough
one Xbox 360 controller onto each of them.

Thank you.

Not to make fun of your effort, since it is pretty darn awesome, but wouldn't this be easier with Linux and loginctl or kvm?

[zerocdv]

I checked my system configuration and my processor doesn't support Vt-d so that's a no go for now.


When I build a new system I will certainly take this into consideration.

Awesome stuff!

[Charmander]

sorry maybe im not following this, but once they are running what next? how are you using them, I dont see the usefulness?

[BRA\\\]

引用自 Charmander：

sorry maybe im not following this, but once they are running what next? how are you using them, I dont see the usefulness?

If you have 4 cards you could hook up 4 controllers and multiplex 4 full HD screens onto each corner of a 4K television for the ultimate party game setup. When you're not in party mode you can use all that GPU power in SLI/Crossfire to push 4K.

[MC Mjolnir]

Sounds pretty cool, but do you know any hardware that could do this?

[Shark]

引用自 MC Mjolnir：

Sounds pretty cool, but do you know any hardware that could do this?

In theory any system with a motherboard and cpu with either iommu or vt-d support with more than 1 graphics cards can do this, although in reality a lot of parts have badly implemented this and it might not work at all, even if you do have the right hardware. This also requires a lot of memory and it's a lot of work to optimize the performance of it. It is pretty awesome when it works, though.

[MC Mjolnir]

I was talking about the multiplexing, I've got the virtualization implemented myself :P Sorry, I should have been more clear.