Which virtualization option offer better performance and feature

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Hello

which one of the following solution would give better performance and full feature of graphics card compared to if installed windows as dualboot or on bar metal

  • virtual box
  • vmware
  • kvm
  • wine
0 voters

thanks for your time and have a nice day :slight_smile:

2

None of the above?

I dropped VMware when Broadcom bought VMware and they took away the ESXi free license. They now only offer a trial license. I switched to ProxMox which is a turnkey, Debian based virtualization server. So far, so good. I have heard that virtual box is similar but haven’t tried it yet.

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I wouldn’t use virtual box if i had KVM and I wouldn’t touch wine again ever (tried it once -don’t see the point with kvm/qemu at native/near native speeds). vmware comes as a type-1 and a type-2 hypervisor depending on version afaik so “apples and oranges” there. General rule-of-thumb: kvm is the best option (imo) - you usually won’t know you’re on a vm most of the time. Found a useful link with overview here. That said, config/access is a whole separate discussion: you can pass hw through so it is dedicated to the vm but multi-monitor availability screen size etc depend on vm clients/how you connect - some clients don’t support multiple monitors. I know I had video issues when I tried to do something - think it was watching streaming video (TV) via the vm on the host - it wasn’t workable but you could probably use a separate dedicated monitor and video card passed-through or your overall system spec might work. If you want full use of the video card you’re probably gonna have to pass it through and not have access to it on the host though you can share for opencl/cuda applications apparently with nvidia at any rate : see here

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4

thanks @bobar @DaveAtFraud :slight_smile:

5

TBH, which virtualisation offers better performance/features, etc, is difficult to answer, and will vary from one thing to another.

I would only class VirtualBox as a desktop-type virtualisation for running locally on your own system (similar to VMware Workstation). Whilst it might be possible to run on a server, I don’t see this as a true server product at the same scale that KVM/VMware ESXi is. And I most certainly would never use VirtualBox anyway when KVM is natively available on Linux.

Wine isn’t a virtualisation product, it’s just an emulator pretty much and doesn’t work for all Windows apps anyway. So not an option to vote for to be honest.

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6

thanks @iwalker

i know it still very wide and general question but if it might help it from graphics card capability point of view also i got many knowledge about virt type from @bobar links

i agree that wine is not virtualization but wanted to include it cause it ability to run windows app like games or graphic app so it there for comparison with those virtualization option in case there other option that someone know who perform better

thanks again for your feedback :slight_smile:

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If I were using only Linux for my desktop work, I’d go with KVM. It’s built it, fully functional and works well. I still have a Windows 7 system I use regularly, so I wanted a virtualization solution that works on both Windows and Linux. VirtualBox satisfies that requirement. I’ve been using VB for probably 12+ years, and it is a solid virtualization platform. I haven’t done any performance comparison, because these days computers are amazingly powerful. Use SSDs for storage, and a virtualized system has near native performance.

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VirtualBox isn’t a type 1 HyperVisor like KVM, VMware, or Hyper-V is. So it won’t perform as well.

KVM is fast & works very well. There are drivers available which allow access to the GPU within you VM’s, but normally you won’t need that as you would be connecting to the VM remotely, & then the host’s hardware doesn’t normally count much. Proxmox by the way also uses KVM…

VMware Workstation Pro is still available, & for free, after they have been bought by Broadcom, but like VirtualBox it is only a type two HyperVisor, so slower than KVM. Only the ESXi based version is no longer free, & so I wouldn’t recommend that.

Wine isn’t a HyperVisor at all. it is an emulator to run Windoze & DOS software. It can’t be compared with the above. For some situations it makes sense to use though. But you might also look at DOSBox, which is also a utility that can run DOS software.

Generally I use KVM for all my VM needs.

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Minor correction, free for personal use. For commercial use, eg: at work you still need to purchase a license. That said even on my laptop with Linux, I would still use KVM even though VMware Workstation Pro is free, since the performance will be better.

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thanks @rindi for sharing those info

but remote access not required it all about get the highest graphics performance and all it’s feature to be available as if it was running on windows as dualboot or on bar metal

for wine i included it

DosBox would not be valid option to run graphics app or games

thanks for your sharing and have a nice day :slight_smile:

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For VMware ESXi remote access to the VM’s actually is a requirement. ESXi is a pure baremetal HyperVisor & no GUI runs directly on it. It just hosts the VM’s to which you connect remotely.

For games you can look t lutris & steam.

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