Poor performance with GPU Passthrough and virtual machine hardware 11

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

Symptoms:
After enabling GPU pass-through using either a supported Nvidia or AMD GPU, performance on a virtual machine becomes degraded with high CPU usage.

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi 6.5
VMware vSphere ESXi 6.0

Cause

This issue occurs when pciHole settings are added to the vmx file for VMs with hardware version 11 or later.

Resolution

pciHole settings are no longer required for vSphere 6.0+/HW 11+ VMs. These settings can be removed from the VMX files and any primary image. For more information see VMware vSphere VMDirectPath I/O: Requirements for Platforms and Devices (2142307).

Additional Information

VMware vSphere VMDirectPath I/O: Requirements for Platforms and Devices