I have a Dell tower server near my TV at home which functions as a media server, web server, etc. It runs VMware ESXI 6.0.
I'd like to be able to install a graphics card in the server, connect it to my TV, set up a Windows VM and play video games on it.
Note that I'm not trying to play games over a remote connection, like through vSphere Client, VNC or otherwise. I'd like to directly connect the graphics card to the TV and play that way.
Is this possible? If so, how can it be done?
Sort of.
If you have VT-D support, and have your video card passed through, you can
Puget systems has an example build here and while there's much too much to include in my answer, here's the salient points.
Your motherboard and processor matter. I've heard reports that regular mainstream boards may have vt-d disabled, and K series processors may not. Check your processor and motherboard. I'd boot into a linux livecd to check if your processor supports vt-d (proc/cpuinfo should have that?) and google if people have done that with the same model of server.
Puget had issues with nvidia cards so went with AMD. This may be an ESXI issue rather than an nvidia issue (nvidia cards seemed to work fine with KVM), and they did it with 5.5 This is finicky and your milage may vary.Check up the specific video card and ESXI version before buying a card, or test it with an existing one.
So, yeah, its possible, but it requires a fair bit of homework to pick the right parts, and testing to get it all working. At this point, if everything is compatible, and meets requirements then you can pass through a video card or 4 to a VM.
Yes, but importantly you need two graphics units of some sort or another. One for the Host and one for the Guest.
Normally I wouldn't include videos in answers but Linus Tech Tips recently did a very concise video on how to run virtualized gaming. 1 System 2 players. The concept is the same for what you want.
