[vfio-users] Mouse and keyboard for gaming

[Jayme Howard]

Initially, I was playing all my games over Steam In-Home Streaming.  I
played on the host machine, just using the integrated graphics to display
the stream.  That worked pretty well, in games that weren't CPU intensive,
but it had framerate limitations, and you could definitely see the cracks
on more intensive games.  I've, relatively recently, moved to native
controls on the guest OS.  I tried, at first, using USB passthrough to
detach my keyboard and mouse from the host and provide them to the guest,
but that was a pain, because I'd have to either connect a secondary
keyboard or SSH in to go back to the host.  Since then, I've taken a more
novel approach.

I have a dedicated PCI-E USB 3.0 card with 4 ports (Insignia brand from
Best Buy.  I tried an Anker, and had TONS of problems, and this one just
works flawlessly.).  That entire card gets passed through to the VM just
like my GPU does, so it's effectively native.  Then, I have a USB A/B
switch, with one input and two outputs.  One output is connected to a host
USB port, and the other is connected to the previously mentioned card.
Attached to that is a 4 port hub.  I have my keyboard and mouse (sometimes
a flash drive as well) attached to the hub.  This allows me to easily swap
between the host and the guest at the push of a button on the switch.  I
also use dual inputs on my monitor, so it's connected to both the host and
the guest.  This allows for mostly seamless transition between the two.  I
switch the input, then the USB, and I'm off to the races.  When I want to
go back to the host, I reverse the process.  The USB switchover event
generally takes about 2-3 seconds in either direction, about the same as
the input change on the monitor.

As far as my Windows guest is concerned, the input is 100% native, and it
works flawlessly.

On Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 3:46 PM, Jonas Camillus Jeppesen <jonascj at sdu.dk>
wrote:

> Hi everyone
>
> This is not strictly vfio related, but many people associate vfio with
> gaming on virtual machines on Linux, so that's my justification for posting
> my question here.
>
> How is your mouse and keyboard setup for gaming on Windows guests?
>
> By gaming I mean you pass your dedicated GPU through to a Windows 7 or 10
> guest to play Counter Strike, World of Warcraft, Rocket League, Skyrim etc.
>
> Personally I've only tried Synergy with the Linux host as server, and Win
> 10 guest as client. This works reasonably well for non-first person
> shooters (FPS). In FPS games the camera tends to go completely haywire when
> moving the mouse.
>
> Are people binding mouse/keyboard to the guest (no longer usable on host),
> and then run the Synergy on Windows, and client on Linux host?
>
> I look forward to hear about your setups! The goal is to have mouse and
> keyboard on both Linux host and Windows host, and mouse working in 3D games
> (like CS, WoW, etc.).
>
>
> / Jonas
>
>
>
>
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