Yeah LiquidSky is using IBM data centers with Nvidia Tesla GPUs and GRID architecture. It's a good set-up but costs have to be managed wisely as high-end GPU accelerators for cloud virtualization instances and managing data centers is very expensive as OnLive learned.

I started losing interest in LiquidSky when they dropped their Linux client support. Now you're expected to use the Windows client in Wine but as I've mentioned above, Wine has made pretty solid advancements in the last couple years so the need for a solution like LiquidSky just for the purpose of accessing games that rely on newer Direct3D 10 and 11 APIs has waned considerably.

Thanks for mentioning VRidge, I'll have to check that out. I recently purchased a very inexpensive phone VR headset and the idea of possibly being able to play PC games on it via VRidge seems awesome.

Google's ChromeOS also has me pretty excited. I just got an ARM Chromebook that has Google Play support and it's really cool how the Android container works and interfaces with the real hardware--pretty much all apps I throw at it seem to work and Android games run at full speed., plus I got to try out Crouton chroot for running pure Linux distributions on-top.

Actually, my Linux VM Shell isn't an IOMMU GPU passthrough solution but more of a way to seamlessly integrate host application integraiton into a Linux VMware guest image running ontop of a Windows host. The interesting part is the scripts that make the integration happen, otherwise it's just a Linux VM on Windows.

That said, however, I ACTUALLY got to try actual GPU passthrough for the first time yesterday on one of my newer laptops!!!

Intel is developing a really exciting technology called Intel GVT-g, which enables 5th generation Intel Core CPU with Intel graphics or newer to pass thru the Intel GPU as a IOMMU PCI device into a Windows or Linux guest using the Xen or KVM hypersivors running on a bare-metal Linux host. Instead of solely dedicating the GPU to the VM, despite being passed into the VM guest and using the genuine intel GPU driver on the guest, it shares it's GPU processing resources between the the guest and host simultaneously and delegatesmore or less to either depending on the demand. As of now, it only works by showing the display thru a remote desktop network protocol, such as VNC or RDP in a bridged network configuration, which has significant lag (although I'm planning to see if I can get Steam In-Home Streaming to work with it) Fortunately, Intel is working on a solution called Dma-buf that can forward the guest VM video framebuffer back to the host, so that the 3D accelerated guest desktop can be displayed with very low latency in an application window on the host. These should be ready at the kernel level in the 4.16 to 4.17 release window but there are some experimental kernel and gemu/kvm patches that I want to try to enable Dma-buff early.

This is quite exciting because it opens the door to much easier and more accessable access to GPU passthrough on Linux systems with fewer stringent requirements typical of traditional PCI passthrough--it works on laptops and desktops with a single integrated GPU. No custom gaming-class or dual-GPU hardware required.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1290687183

Yep! LiquidSky is cool cloud GaaS technology. Remember when I talked about LiquidSky 2 to 3 years ago on these forums? At that time I was using their alpha Linux client to stream games like Fallout 4 to native Linux. As long as the data center was within 1500 miles and you have a solid broadband connection, the input latency was tolerable and network spikes and hiccups are only occassional.

However, cloud gaming seems less necessary for Linux users these days as Wine now has initial and improving Vulkan, Direct3D 10 & 11 support, therefore many newer games now work on Linux with Wine, such as GTA 5, Fallout 4, and The Witcher 3. Wine jut needs to improve their support for DRM and anti-cheat technologies, such Battleye so games like PUBG can work, along with of-course implementing Direct3D 12 support.

That said, I actually now use Linux exclusively inside a full-screen VMware Player guest on-top of a stripped-down, shell-less Windows 10 host. I developed some special software that enables me to seamlessly access Windows 10 host Win32 & UWP software from within the Linux guest as desktop program icons and integrates their windows into the native Linux Tint2 or GNOME taskbars inside the virtual machine. This way all Windows games will take full advantage of my GTX 1070 without the overhead, frameloss, and bugs of Wine. Plus I can also use and play the WinRT/UWP apps & games from the Microsoft Store, which Wine doesn't support at all.

Who likes spam?

Originally posted by dubigrasu:

I'm not too keen in trying/using something that still needs Windows, but the amount of work you put into this makes me really curious.
But indeed, you need to find a better place for all this, because it will soon disappear covered in the crap that is posted here. You need some better exposure.

Thank you sir. I have put a bit of effort into this because I now actually use this as my primary OS configuration for both my computers because I like Linux environments and Bash best but the framerate gaming on Windows provides. Furthermore to be honest, I can recover from crash easier this way. Bare metal Linux and X11 like to totally hard lock my system after several hours of heavy use (yes, I'm sorry but I feel a Windows host crashes/freezes far less for me).

Yup it requires Windows but so does vfio GPU passthrough and the end result is basically the same as that, except that it will work on laptops (what I use) and far more computers & motherboards, plus doesn't require a secondary monitor, and Windows apps have Linux desktop integration (much like Wine). In this case Windows just runs shell-less with a skeleton runtime engine to drive apps/games. :)

Thanks. The "Shortcut Creator" makes adding and using Windows apps and games on VMShell super simple. Just drag a Windows program shortcut into the script and it magically creates a Linux launcher on the VMShell desktop. This software feels like a real Linux shell & desktop replacement for Windows now. Feel free to host the Shortcut Creator on your Libregeek repo next to the Linux VM Shell package already there. The VMScripts25.zip file should be deleted, however, as it's outdated.

A guide page could be useful but I've already included fairly detailed documentation within the download packages. What's probably needed is a dedicated website as this has basically turned into it's own standalone virtual Linux distribution for Windows gamers and software users and can be a good way for Windows users to try Linux while still having easy and integrated access to their already installed Windows apps and games.

Hey group,

I've made a Linux desktop shortcut creator that makes it very simple to create launchers for host applications in my Linux VM Shell distribution.

You can see it in action and how to use it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hARQXR12Zos
Download Linux VM Shell:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6MSPACqGiOuekQ3N0pwa3hzU0U

Download Shortcut Creator (Requires Linux VM Shell to be installed):
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Am9uPEIZtbF9g1m1l4MfH7nLeEtB

Originally posted by Dude13:

this looks an awful lot like a virus lol - I'm no way I'm gonna download that XD

It's good to be cautious as you cannot trust people but this is certainly not a virus. The source code to my scripts are included along with documentation. A virus wouldn't need to be a 2GB download. Instead that 2GB is a virtual image file of my custom Linux distribution.

However, this software is only for people who want to try out Linux and transform their Windows installation into a distribution, without dual-booting or giving up their current games. Meaning when you log into your Windows account, within seconds, the explorer.exe shell will be terminated and your system booted into a GNOME desktop environment that acts as a shell replacement for explorer. However, you can still get back to the Windows desktop by doing this:

* Click on the 'Exit VM' launcher from the System Control folder
* Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to open task manager then run 'explorer.exe'

You can stop the software from automatically starting at Windows boot by moving the 'vmlaunch.cmd' startup script out of C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup.

Originally posted by 999999999:

Originally posted by Dude13:

this looks an awful lot like a virus lol - I'm no way I'm gonna download that XD

Which is why it is posted here and not the Linux forum. To have gullible users download the malware.

Um my software isn't malware and Steam Universe used to be mainly a Linux oriented group. "SteamOS" is a Linux distribution but this group has since been overran by CS:GO and skins spam.

Hey group,

I'm happy to present version 3.0 of my VMShell virtualized Linux distribution and Windows shell replacement software for Windows 10.

Transform your Windows OS into a Linux distributon and play and run almost all Windows games and software at full-speed, and full-compatibility in a GNOME Linux desktop environment without the complication and problems of Wine.

Features:

• Support for Windows 10 Fall Creators Update
  
• Automated installer for all necessary software
  
• Documentation and bug fixes and improvements
  
• Based on Archlinux and fully updated to 10/25/2017
  
• Windows host app integration with Linux launchers and taskbar
  
• Windows host apps now have icon images on the Linux taskbar

Download:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B6MSPACqGiOuekQ3N0pwa3hzU0U

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1180991919