3 ms·

I use a configuration like this (with Proxmox) to send content to the various TVs in my house (HDMI over Cat 5e). 4 cheap GPUs in the machine allow for up to 4

I use a configuration like this (with Proxmox) to send content to the various TVs in my house (HDMI over Cat 5e). 4 cheap GPUs in the machine allow for up to 4 VMs running OS X (my preferred OS for media) to simultaneously play HD content, run classic emulated games, web browsing, etc. (haven't bothered with UHD yet, and probably won't for a while). Of course, a lot of HD content can run with very modest specs (as long as the codecs are accelerated on the GPU), but for occasional content that requires CPU decoding or players/sites that aren't yet supported on standalone devices (Apple TV, Roku, etc), it's a really nice solution. Plus, it keeps each TV very clean in terms of cables and hardware. I've done hackintosh on bare metal in the past, but even if I were setting up a single-headed hackintosh now, I'd still go the VFIO route - it makes updates much less stressful since you can quickly roll back to a snapshot if you break something.

weitzj 10y ago
Do you have this configuration by chance as a GIST on GitHub? There are KVM/Qemu configurations, but especially ProxMox would be nice
- dperfect 10y ago
  Kind of a late response, but here are the basics of my setup (maybe I'll publish some specifics in a gist at some point): - Hardware (which is dated now): Asus Z87 Pro with i7 4770, 16 GB Memory, 4x AMD Radeon 6450 cards (< $20/ea used) - Proxmox/host config: vfiobind the PCI device IDs for graphics cards on boot, slightly modified pve-q35.cfg (workaround for some OS X issues on q35), using fairly standard VM args for booting OS X - GPUs work fine after a standard OS X install, but to get audio working over HDMI, I needed a couple of edits to my DSDT (basically just inserting a GFX0 device with "hda-gfx" = "onboard-1", a standard HDAU device, and a DTGP device), and boot with the Enoch bootloader (this can be specified in the VM args to avoid having to install to disk). No extra kexts needed. That's about it. Some of those things may no longer be necessary in the latest version of Proxmox (I haven't updated my base system in a while). Once I got things working, it's been completely stable for more than a year.
mountaineer22 10y ago
What is your hardware setup like? How much physical RAM and what mobo/GPUs?
toredash 10y ago
How do you do input to the different VMs/TVs?
- dperfect 10y ago
  It's a bit overkill (that's what we do as engineers though, right?) - I have a Raspberry Pi attached to the back of each TV that receives input from a small Bluetooth keyboard/trackpad/remote and passes the input (over UDP) to the appropriate VM. Depending on the environment, wireless devices could be used with separate USB receivers (e.g. Bluetooth adapters) for each screen (passed directly to the VMs), but the distance in my setup was proving to be a bit too far for a stable Bluetooth connection. I'm just using some of my own scripts right now to configure everything and allow for some meta commands (things like powering on/off the TV, switching inputs, etc). I'd love to clean it up and publish it at some point, but just haven't had the time.

weitzj 10y ago

Do you have this configuration by chance as a GIST on GitHub? There are KVM/Qemu configurations, but especially ProxMox would be nice

dperfect 10y ago
Kind of a late response, but here are the basics of my setup (maybe I'll publish some specifics in a gist at some point): - Hardware (which is dated now): Asus Z87 Pro with i7 4770, 16 GB Memory, 4x AMD Radeon 6450 cards (< $20/ea used) - Proxmox/host config: vfiobind the PCI device IDs for graphics cards on boot, slightly modified pve-q35.cfg (workaround for some OS X issues on q35), using fairly standard VM args for booting OS X - GPUs work fine after a standard OS X install, but to get audio working over HDMI, I needed a couple of edits to my DSDT (basically just inserting a GFX0 device with "hda-gfx" = "onboard-1", a standard HDAU device, and a DTGP device), and boot with the Enoch bootloader (this can be specified in the VM args to avoid having to install to disk). No extra kexts needed. That's about it. Some of those things may no longer be necessary in the latest version of Proxmox (I haven't updated my base system in a while). Once I got things working, it's been completely stable for more than a year.

mountaineer22 10y ago

What is your hardware setup like? How much physical RAM and what mobo/GPUs?

toredash 10y ago

How do you do input to the different VMs/TVs?

dperfect 10y ago
It's a bit overkill (that's what we do as engineers though, right?) - I have a Raspberry Pi attached to the back of each TV that receives input from a small Bluetooth keyboard/trackpad/remote and passes the input (over UDP) to the appropriate VM. Depending on the environment, wireless devices could be used with separate USB receivers (e.g. Bluetooth adapters) for each screen (passed directly to the VMs), but the distance in my setup was proving to be a bit too far for a stable Bluetooth connection. I'm just using some of my own scripts right now to configure everything and allow for some meta commands (things like powering on/off the TV, switching inputs, etc). I'd love to clean it up and publish it at some point, but just haven't had the time.