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.
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.
It is not but more like a building block for my daily driver.
I plan to use Proxmox VE to build a virtual infrastructure in one machine. It will have many VMs running and one of it would be my daily driver.
It's subpar, closed source, kernel module installing, type 2 virtualization that makes users believe VMs are slow, when in fact Type 1 hypervisors usually achieve near 98% efficiency. And too boot it means that open-source projects like
virt-manager
don't get the usership they deserve and need to continue being maintained.There is legit not a single reason to use it on Linux, and there hasn't been in well over a decade.
Wow I didn’t even know it was closed source. Thanks for pointing this out, I will definitely be getting virt-manager.
It's not entirely closed source, but the extension packs are. The other reason are the main one that should make you switch. Why use subpar software when there's a better, trusted by the entire industry, alternative builtin already?
I am already spinning up a Debian vm. I had a minor issue with file permissions but it it is working great now and is definitely faster than I remember virtualbox being. I am so glad I saw your comment and I would switch to this even if Richard Stallman himself wrote Virtualbox and all the extensions.
It's also a whole lot more flexible. And will easily do full PCIe passthrough with some more advance configuration.
virt-manager
even works remotely over SSH if you have another machine you want to run your VMs on!
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.
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.
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.
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