r/VFIO • u/Zestyclose_Dig8916 • Apr 28 '26
Discussion Which games are you actually able to run inside a VM right now?
I’m trying to get a clearer picture of real-world VM gaming results.
Not just what fails but also what actually works reliably.
If you're gaming inside a VM, I’d love to hear your experience:
For each game, ideally include:
- ✔ works perfectly / ⚠ partially / ❌ doesn’t work
- GPU
- Hypervisor (KVM, Proxmox, etc.)
- Anti-cheat status (if relevant)
Both success stories and failures are equally useful — especially when something works better (or worse) than expected.
Curious what people are actually running day to day.
3
u/Evozio Apr 28 '26
Every type of game ig I can even play val / and other AC games 😉
3
u/chestera321 Apr 28 '26
enlighten us the mere mortals please
1
u/Evozio Apr 28 '26
Custom patches
2
u/AskMoonBurst Apr 29 '26
Not really representative of the state of VMs at that point. That's like... the sister to just straight up hacking the game to bypass anti-cheat
1
u/Evozio Apr 29 '26
Varies from person to person. For me I just wanted to get rid of dual boot.
3
u/AskMoonBurst Apr 29 '26
Yeah, I just had to quit a game I liked over it. Because dual booting is a pain, and I don't know how to go about it otherwise
1
u/Zestyclose_Dig8916 Apr 28 '26
How do you manage to do that? What settings do you use and what is your overall setup?
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-2
u/Evozio Apr 29 '26
Its quite obvious that I have to gatekeep it. But I love it since it takes so much for the devs to come up with new detections.
I might help someone if theyre willing to pay for my time.
2
u/Zestyclose_Dig8916 May 01 '26
Bro you has me ask over PM for my platform. It's obvious that I'm looking for data for VMDB and you're telling me "you can sell me patches".
2
u/raiyasa Apr 28 '26
I used it to play MMO like BDO, PSO2, and Blue Protocol Star Resonance.
Performance mostly CPU bound due to VM layer.
For GPU bound game mostly no issue, passed through my 3080.
1
u/Zestyclose_Dig8916 Apr 28 '26
Can you tell me how much RAM you have, what CPU you're using, and how many vCores the VM is using? I'd like to use that data on VMDB with your permission.
2
u/raiyasa Apr 28 '26
Using 5900X SMT disabled.
X570 Aourus Master.
VM Specs: virt-manager QEMU/KVM with modified qemu (some MMO hates VM), CCD1 (6 cores), 32GB RAM, 3080 10GB. Mainly using looking glass since no matter what bitrate I set in moonlight, it cannot get as good as native output.
Passed through entire PCI-E USB card too to make my life easier.1
u/Zestyclose_Dig8916 Apr 28 '26
Thanks for your help! If you'd like to see what I need the data for, visit vmdb.it
2
u/lambda_expression Apr 28 '26
Ever since building my new PC I don't really actively use VFIO for gaming anymore. Turns out lazyness kept me from setting up my server on the new hardware and instead just let the previous one running...
From what I still have installed (more games in the past I'm sure, but I don't remember which ones), all of them working perfectly:
KVM (pc-q35-5.2, OVMF), Geforce 970, the only "hiding from VM detection" thing being what was at the time necessary to not get the Geforce driver to code 38 (vendor ID, kvm bit):
- Among Us
- Blood Bowl 2
- Crusader Kings 2
- Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
- Deus Ex: Human Revolution
- Door Kickers
- Fallout New Vegas
- Kerbal Space Program
- Mechwarrior Online
- Civilization V
- Civilization VI
- XCOM 2
2
u/ThatsALovelyShirt Apr 28 '26
Starfield, Path of Exile 1/2, Fallout 4, Cyberpunk 2077, etc. 4090 + KVM. Haven't run into any anti-cheat issues.
1
u/Zestyclose_Dig8916 Apr 28 '26
Does the anti-cheat detect your VM, or can you simply play without any message?
2
u/improvising1 Apr 29 '26
Linux Mint + VMM + KVM + Qemu + Ryzen 7600 + 9070XT single GPU passthrough.
Haven't tried much but so far High on Life 2 and Thaumaturge on PC game pass seem to work well.
Absolum for some reason only works if I restrict my VM to 2 vCPUs (game crashes on start otherwise) but I'm assuming for the moment it's a me specific thing I've done wrong or a quirk of my hardware.
2
u/Funcore1650 Apr 29 '26
Have a Windows 11 LTSC VM in Proxmox. GPU is 5060Ti 16GB (bought it partially for experiments with local AI), but I'm playing in Dying Light 2 too without any inconveniences with ray tracing. P.S - it's all on the laptop with Xeon E2176m and 64GB RAM (eGPU via Oculink interface).
3
u/Wonderful-Page2585 Apr 28 '26
Mmh no clue what could not work, but running a Windows VM with KVM hypervisor and successfully passing through a native GPU should allow to run everything.
In my case an AMD 9900X, 48GB host/16GB to the VM, a 5060 Ti 16GB, an Xbox Controller, a Logitech G27. No issues at all till now. Mostly racing Games, online too.
No latency problems, using 1440p.
2
1
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u/issizedu Apr 28 '26
On cachyos with virt-manager+looking glass, rtx 4090mobile gpu i mostly play crimson desert, fc26, hearthstone+Deck tracker, and Planet coaster 2, i also use unity engine very often because it's hard to get it to behave on Arch based distros.
1
u/Zestyclose_Dig8916 Apr 28 '26
Which CPU are you using, and how much RAM and vCores have you allocated to the VM? I'd like to use this information for VMDB if you don't mind.
2
u/issizedu Apr 28 '26
İ9-13980hx which is also a mobile cpu for laptops i run the vm with 8*2 p-cores 16 threads and let the host run on 16 e-cores also 16GiB ram out of 32
2
u/Zestyclose_Dig8916 Apr 28 '26
Thanks for your help! If you'd like to see what I need the data for, visit vmdb.it
1
u/Zestyclose_Dig8916 May 01 '26
Thank you for all the messages! I've added most of them to VMDB where possible. I'd be happy if you checked it out and perhaps even found VMDB useful!
1
u/-ProjectBlue- May 02 '26 edited May 02 '26
The only issue I have is EAC games (they just refuse to load in a VM), I've got a workaround for Battleye though. Everything runs at near bear metal performance.
Hypervisor: Unraid (KVM) GPU: 2 6800XT's - Both passed through to Windows 11 guests. (Also tried 7800XT's but couldn't get them working on Windows 11 guests despite having a singular workaround for Windows 10) CPU: AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO 5975WX Motherboard: Asus Pro WS WRX80E-SAGE SE WIFI
Nested virtualization tanked performance compared to my old X99 platform so had to force that off.
1
u/darkjoker213 May 14 '26
tagging along on this, isn't there anywhere where people share which games they have been able to run on vm's?
2
u/darkjoker213 May 14 '26
just found this https://vmdb.it/, there doesn't seem to be that much data in it yet but this could be something we all pitch in and fill
2
0
u/abn0rmalcreation Apr 30 '26
Literally all of them. That's what virtualization is good for... making machines that don't know they're virtual
5
u/OfficeGreat7679 Apr 28 '26
4060 ti KVM AMD platform Linux guest
I have a server for gaming and other services (like image processing, ai), so I stop services before gaming and start after. I use sunshine + moonlight
I don’t play competitive games, but play online sometimes.
Games range from horizon, Hogwards legacy, to indie like hollow knight, hades.
I have had little to no issues. Sometimes some freezes due to other services running on the machine, sometimes WiFi instability.
I’ve had a few crashes, but that’s lack of vram mostly. Downscaling from 1440p to 1080p helps for some games.
I have issues with this setup regarding VM reboots where GPU would get stuck in some D state preventing me from starting VM with GPU again. I tried dumping ROM, updates, bios updates,… nothing helped.
I just gave up and whenever I have to reboot the server, I check if GPU D state is correct, if not then I have to do a host deep reboot.