6.0.1

5 Click OK.
The virtual machine can access the device.
Add a PCI Device in the vSphere Web Client
vSphere DirectPath I/O allows a guest operating system on a virtual machine to directly access physical PCI
and PCIe devices connected to a host. This action gives you direct access to devices such as high-
performance graphics or sound cards. You can connect each virtual machine to up to six PCI devices.
You configure PCI devices on the host to make them available for passthrough to a virtual machine. See the
vSphere Networking documentation. However, PCI passthroughs should not be enabled for ESXi hosts that
are configured to boot from USB devices.
When PCI vSphere DirectPath I/O devices are available to a virtual machine, you cannot suspend, migrate
with vMotion, or take or restore Snapshots of such virtual machines.
Prerequisites
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To use DirectPath, verify that the host has Intel Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d) or
AMD I/O Virtualization Technology (IOMMU) enabled in the BIOS.
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Verify that the PCI devices are connected to the host and marked as available for passthrough.
However, if your ESXi host is configured to boot from a USB device, you should disable the USB
controller for passthrough. VMware does not support USB controller passthrough for ESXi hosts that
boot from USB devices or SD cards connected through USB channels. For more information, see
http://kb.vmware.com/kb/2068645.
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Verify that the virtual machine is compatible with ESXi 4.x and later.
Procedure
1 Right-click a virtual machine in the inventory and select Edit Settings.
2 On the Virtual Hardware tab, select PCI Device from the New Device drop-down menu, and click
Add.
3 Expand New PCI device and select the passthrough device to connect to the virtual machine from the
drop-down list and click Next.
4 Click OK.
Configuring 3D Graphics
When you create or edit a virtual machine, you can configure 3D graphics to take advantage of Windows
AERO, CAD, Google Earth, and other 3D design, modeling, and multimedia applications. Before you enable
3D graphics, become familiar with the available options and requirements.
You can enable 3D on virtual machines that have Windows desktop or Linux guest operating systems. Not
all guests support 3D graphics. To verify 3D support for a guest operating system, see the VMware
Compatibility Guide at http://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility.
Prerequisites
VMware supports AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards. See the vendor Web site for supported cards. To use
the graphics card or GPU hardware, download the appropriate VMware graphics driver from the vendor
Web site.
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Go to the NVIDIA Web site for information about the VMware graphics driver for your NVIDIA
graphics card.
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Go to the AMD Web site for information about the VMware graphics driver for your AMD graphics
card.
vSphere Virtual Machine Administration
136 VMware, Inc.