Linux @lemmy.ml umami_wasabi @lemmy.ml 10 mo. ago

Gaming in Proxmox VM, feasible?

I'm considering to switch to Proxmox for my main PC, run a Windows VM on top and passthrough the GPU to play games. However, I heard anti-cheates aren't that friendly to VMs. Had anyone tried this? Thanks.

30 comments

Isn't Proxmox intended for servers whose only use is to run VMs? Why not go for a traditional desktop distro like Mint and run KVM, QEMU, or VirtualBox on it?

Anyway, I have heard something like this, but it probably depends on the anti-cheat. Some might run in kernel mode to deliberately detect VMs. Others won't care if you use a VM.
- Proxmox runs KVM/Qemu in the backend, so it's essentially the same thing. OP might want to have a machine in their rack they use for remote gaming for example.
  
  Also don't use VirtualBox.
  
  It sounded like OP wanted to install Proxmox on their main PC, which would imply using it as a daily driver desktop OS, which it isn't.
  
  What is wrong with using virtualbox?
- I think that's what they're saying, in that, use proxmox to host a gaming vm. But choosing a hypervisor that can run games well bare-metal does sidestep some potential headaches.
All depends on the games you play, personally is mostly emulators and indie so there's no problem. Generally the more online/micro transactions, the more hostile the game will be to vms

If you want a list just google what games can be played in a qemu vm
Can't speak to anti-cheat, but I've run a Windows 11 VM with GPU passthrough on Proxmox. I got basically identical performance from the hardware, considering the reduced ram/cpu count in the VM. USB port passthrough was glitchy though. I didn't spend too much time messing with it but it definitely was functional. Battlenet (World of Warcraft, Overwatch, etc...) worked fine. I don't recall any game that didn't run but, again, I didn't do too much.
Surprised that nobody yelled Proton yet? Lots of Windows games running pretty good, some close to native, some even better on Linux through Proton. But here is the thing you mentioned which could be a problem: anti cheat. It works on Linux but depends on the developer to enable it. Some major games simply does not support it. You can check them here: https://areweanticheatyet.com/ , for general compability check https://protondb.com , even non Steam games can run through Lutris with little to no hassle. Proxmox with GPU passthrough seems like a big clunky overhead in terms of gaming but maybe you got that game that will never run on Linux.
- Thanks for the information.
  
  However, I'm not concern about Linux, Windows, or Proton. I'm fine on any platfrom that I can game on.
  
  I'm concern about anti-cheat within virtualized environmnet due to my unpopular setup: a Homelab running services like PiHole and a PC for daily and gamming need all roll into one machine. The concept behind is configuration and data isolation (and fun).
I use Steam + Proton in an LXC so I can share the graphics card among several other containers. It works quite well with streaming once I got it set up.
I'm in the planning stages of a build that will be essentially this, a proxmox build that'll include my NAS with several hard drives (running in one VM), all my docker containers (another VM) and Linux and Windows vms with passthrough that I can spin up temporarily for games.

I think I can get the Windows VM in a place where I can also restart the whole machine and boot in natively, as a fallback for games with aggressive anti cheats that won't allow VMs, which I don't think I'll be playing much of anyway.

To answer your question, it really would be best to check game by game if the anti cheat allows VMs.
- How can you boot natively to a proxmox VM? I'm guessing you'd have to keep a whole separate physical drive and pass through the whole drive to the windows VM or boot to that drive natively?
  
  Maybe they mean they will dual boot between windows and a hypervisor? I've never considered if that's a possibility.
- That's kind of my plan too, without the native boot. I tried dual boot and found myself using Windows more than I should.
  
  I'm planning to have the Windows VM running the game and I use Parsec/Moonlight from a Linux VM to game on.
  
  I did looked online about EAC and BattleEye, both are popular and not that VM friendly, but I heard some say it's fine. Information conflicts and I don't want to test the water and got myself banned. Elite and Starfield doesn't know if they support VM or not.
Yea its doable. Really depends on the games anti-cheat. You'd want to check each game.

Battle Eye based anti cheat games like R6S and Tarkov gave me issues last time i tried a similar setup. That was a few years back however, and with valves proton push, much of the compatibility has improved since then.
It's feasible. I ran that so setup for a couple of years. Not with Proxmox as desktop system, but Windows VM with VGA passthrough for gaming, relying on Steam in-home streaming.
Wouldn't recommend. I didn't find a ton of games that wouldn't work, but the performance hit was quite noticeable in hindsight.
I never sorted out core-pinning, though.
But overall the setup was very fragile and prone to breaking after random updates just as much as randomly fixing itself with the next update.
Streaming was probably the biggest pain point, though.
I don't think Proxmox is supposed to be a daily driver, but I think this would work, except for maybe Anti-Cheat as you mentioned.
I have proxmox running on a nuc and do a GPU passthrough to a windows VM. I haven't encountered any anti cheat issues yet, but I honestly don't game near as much as I used to.
Video card passthrough can be a real struggle. If you are using Intel/Nvidia it will be easier though
Marauders is the only game that I have had an issue with. I'm not a prolific gamer but everything else I have tried has been fine.

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