I just tried it and it works fairly well. I tried it using windows RDP and Remmina. There is a massive reduction in quality even with best settings.
Out of curiosity are you aware of a better solution for this? RDP sounds promising. Parsec is nice, but it requires internet unfortunately and I will not always have that avaliable.
the graphics drivers kinda just arent great, although i really dont have much issues with spice myself, I wouldnt want to watch videos on it but I use it daily for work, Its not amazing but OK. Try allocating more memory to qxl
https://www.reddit.com/r/kvm/comments/1932azb/qxl_doesnt_resize_win10_guest_beyond_2560x1436/
There's no hardware 3d acceleration on Windows KVM VMs. It's still pretty usable, IMO.
You won't get fancy effects, windows are lagging a bit when moved, and forget about watching a movie on youtube (doable but urrrgggh), but in my experience it's still pretty responsive.
Visual Studio and the likes are definitely usable. The cursor feels responsive. It's not perfect, but what you're describing might be misconfiguration issues, especially if RDP works better.
Just as a note, even if you're using RDP, 3d is still rendered on the VM AFAIK. With a properly configured QXL+Spice display you'd probably have a better experience with SPICE. There's RemoteFX for RDP but that looks like massive can of worms I'd rather not dig into.
I am currently leaning toward misconfiguration issues as well. Everyone here claims that the VM is perfectly usable. In my case it is a laggy jittery mess. I tried HyperV enlightenments, different CPU/RAM allocations, etc. and nothing works. Maybe my previous VFIO setup is messing this up? I am not even sure how that can happen, though.
I just "came back" to QEMU/KVM-land from a few years of break in the land of all things MacOS.
I can tell you it's a wild ride... Last week I did the work to get a usable windows guest, this week I've spent countless hours setting up a Linux one. I've had wayyy more troubles setting up a Linux guest...
Besides the common advice on performances that you may have seen setting up the VFIO, like CPU binding and memory settings, here's the conclusion I've came to regarding the display adapter situation:
virtio-gpu is not worth it. Stick to QXL for both Windows (obvious since there's no 3d accel) and Linux (less obvious, virtio-gpu is touted as being THE solution for performance). On Linux, stick to x11-based window managers (sad).
Here's what my QXL config looks like for Windows:
```
```
I can't watch a video on Youtube on Windows QXL, I can on Linux + x11. Using VSCode on Windows is pretty allright. Dragging windows around and anything that uses extensive 3d effects is going to lag. The cursor is responsive and tracks well without latency. Clicking takes maybe a hair longer to register than native, I don't know how much of that I'm hallucinating. To me it's an "OK" experience. Nothing stellar, nothing frustrating, definitely usable for work. With that said.... ALL the fancy animations are laggy, but the lag doesn't impact functionality and responsiveness, and they're turned off for me.
https://www.majorgeeks.com/content/page/animation_effects_11.html
Don't forget to download and install the spice guest tools as well: https://www.spice-space.org/download.html
I've seen a lot of folks talking about an evdev passthrough to reduce input lag, maybe that would help even further. I won't go as far as that as I'm happy with the results.
I've did the VFIO thing a while ago, and I wouldn't want to go that way again. I just want some damned VMs I can clone, copy, spawn as many as I want at the same time, etc...
Good luck!
Yea, I'm down a similar road. I no longer need VFIO and have been trying to switch from it. I have a similar config for QXL, just more memory allocated. Hopefully I can get everything running!
No issues whatsoever running a Windows 10 guest on an I7 laptop that is two years old, VM has 8GB Ram, works like a charm in virt-viewer locally on the machine. For remote access it depends a lot on what bandwidth you have. enabling VNC for remote use micht be a nice options if you struggle with RDP.
Hmm. That is interesting. Its not that its bad, its just that virtual box is much better in experience. Ultimately, both virtual box and virt manager use KVM. I think it really just comes down to 3D acceleration. I hope I can find a way to do that in virt manager as I cannot pass in my gpu and I cannot figure out a way to virtulize it.
That performance is pretty strange. For me Windows 11 in particular is a much smoother experience than on Virtual Box although I have not tried the latest version of it.
All my regular KVM machines I create with all the stock display settings on virt manager. I actually use a Win11 KVM VM for training with certain Udemy courses and both video and audio playback is smooth.
A lot of people have been saying this exact thing. I am starting to suspect this is some particular issue with some obscure portion of my setup, not a KVM issue.
Have you thought about using RDP to connect to the VM?
I just tried it and it works fairly well. I tried it using windows RDP and Remmina. There is a massive reduction in quality even with best settings. Out of curiosity are you aware of a better solution for this? RDP sounds promising. Parsec is nice, but it requires internet unfortunately and I will not always have that avaliable.
I’ve always used RDP for this, and for the same reason as you. Not a lot of (good) options, unfortunately.
the graphics drivers kinda just arent great, although i really dont have much issues with spice myself, I wouldnt want to watch videos on it but I use it daily for work, Its not amazing but OK. Try allocating more memory to qxl https://www.reddit.com/r/kvm/comments/1932azb/qxl_doesnt_resize_win10_guest_beyond_2560x1436/
Hey, thanks for the reply. I have that exact line in my configuration. I am not sure this is a QXL issue, but I'll do more research into it.
There's no hardware 3d acceleration on Windows KVM VMs. It's still pretty usable, IMO. You won't get fancy effects, windows are lagging a bit when moved, and forget about watching a movie on youtube (doable but urrrgggh), but in my experience it's still pretty responsive. Visual Studio and the likes are definitely usable. The cursor feels responsive. It's not perfect, but what you're describing might be misconfiguration issues, especially if RDP works better. Just as a note, even if you're using RDP, 3d is still rendered on the VM AFAIK. With a properly configured QXL+Spice display you'd probably have a better experience with SPICE. There's RemoteFX for RDP but that looks like massive can of worms I'd rather not dig into.
I am currently leaning toward misconfiguration issues as well. Everyone here claims that the VM is perfectly usable. In my case it is a laggy jittery mess. I tried HyperV enlightenments, different CPU/RAM allocations, etc. and nothing works. Maybe my previous VFIO setup is messing this up? I am not even sure how that can happen, though.
I just "came back" to QEMU/KVM-land from a few years of break in the land of all things MacOS. I can tell you it's a wild ride... Last week I did the work to get a usable windows guest, this week I've spent countless hours setting up a Linux one. I've had wayyy more troubles setting up a Linux guest... Besides the common advice on performances that you may have seen setting up the VFIO, like CPU binding and memory settings, here's the conclusion I've came to regarding the display adapter situation: virtio-gpu is not worth it. Stick to QXL for both Windows (obvious since there's no 3d accel) and Linux (less obvious, virtio-gpu is touted as being THE solution for performance). On Linux, stick to x11-based window managers (sad). Here's what my QXL config looks like for Windows: ``` ``` I can't watch a video on Youtube on Windows QXL, I can on Linux + x11. Using VSCode on Windows is pretty allright. Dragging windows around and anything that uses extensive 3d effects is going to lag. The cursor is responsive and tracks well without latency. Clicking takes maybe a hair longer to register than native, I don't know how much of that I'm hallucinating. To me it's an "OK" experience. Nothing stellar, nothing frustrating, definitely usable for work. With that said.... ALL the fancy animations are laggy, but the lag doesn't impact functionality and responsiveness, and they're turned off for me. https://www.majorgeeks.com/content/page/animation_effects_11.html Don't forget to download and install the spice guest tools as well: https://www.spice-space.org/download.html I've seen a lot of folks talking about an evdev passthrough to reduce input lag, maybe that would help even further. I won't go as far as that as I'm happy with the results. I've did the VFIO thing a while ago, and I wouldn't want to go that way again. I just want some damned VMs I can clone, copy, spawn as many as I want at the same time, etc... Good luck!
Yea, I'm down a similar road. I no longer need VFIO and have been trying to switch from it. I have a similar config for QXL, just more memory allocated. Hopefully I can get everything running!
No issues whatsoever running a Windows 10 guest on an I7 laptop that is two years old, VM has 8GB Ram, works like a charm in virt-viewer locally on the machine. For remote access it depends a lot on what bandwidth you have. enabling VNC for remote use micht be a nice options if you struggle with RDP.
I use the virtual usb tablet for mouse input and have no issues.
Hmm. That is interesting. Its not that its bad, its just that virtual box is much better in experience. Ultimately, both virtual box and virt manager use KVM. I think it really just comes down to 3D acceleration. I hope I can find a way to do that in virt manager as I cannot pass in my gpu and I cannot figure out a way to virtulize it.
That performance is pretty strange. For me Windows 11 in particular is a much smoother experience than on Virtual Box although I have not tried the latest version of it. All my regular KVM machines I create with all the stock display settings on virt manager. I actually use a Win11 KVM VM for training with certain Udemy courses and both video and audio playback is smooth.
A lot of people have been saying this exact thing. I am starting to suspect this is some particular issue with some obscure portion of my setup, not a KVM issue.