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Updated findings for passthrough of Intel NUC Integrated Graphics (iGPU) with ESXi

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While searching for drivers for another Intel NUC platform, I saw that Intel had recently published new graphic drivers for Linux including support for their new Intel Arc GPUs. This of course got me curious on wondering whether this would help at all with the issues regarding passthrough of the integrated graphics (iGPU) for recent Intel NUCs? 🤔

As a refresher, starting with the 11th Gen Intel NUCs, passthrough of the iGPU on Windows had stopped working and would result in the infamous Windows Error Code 43 and even worse on the 12th Gen Intel NUCs, Windows would simply BSOD after the initial reboot. The behavior is also simliar for Linux operating systems, while it better handles the issue by not crashing the OS, iGPU passthrough is also not functional for Linux systems.

To be honest, I had low expectations these new Linux graphic drivers would behave any differently, but I decided for the sake of persistency that I would give it one more go. I had access to both an Intel NUC 12 Extreme (Dragon Canyon) and Intel NUC 12 Pro (Wall Street Canyon), both of which included recent Intel iGPUs.

🤯🤯🤯 is the only way I could describe what I had discovered after my testing!

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Quick Tip - ESXi 7.0 Update 3f now includes all Intel I219 devices from Community Networking Driver Fling

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Thanks to Reuben F who left a comment on the Community Networking Driver for ESXi Fling asking about something interesting he saw in the latest ESXi 7.0 Update 3f release notes regarding Intel ne1000 driver.

ESXi 7.0 Update 3f upgrades the Intel-ne1000 driver to support Intel I219-LM devices that are required for newer server models, such as the Intel Rocket Lake-S platform. The TCP segmentation offload for the I219 devices is deactivated because of known issues in the hardware DMA.

He asked whether the Community Networking Driver for ESXi Fling was still needed to support the various Intel I219 devices on the Fling requirements page?

First off, thank you Reuben for making me aware of this, which I totally missed while reading the release notes. Secondly, I reached out to Songtao, one of the Engineers on Fling and he was also surprised by the news. He checked the source and then confirmed that all listed Intel I219 devices in the Fling has actually been incorporated into the latest ESXi 7.0 Update 3f release and the Fling would no longer be required for these specific devices and we have Shu, another Engineer on the Fling to thank for this awesome update! Thank you Shu!

Songtao, Shu and myself had released the Community Networking Driver for ESXi Fling back in early 2021 to help support some of the networking devices that we had observed in the community and there have been a number of releases that has added additional devices. It is always a great feeling to see your work not only being well adopted but also now productized. This is one of the many benefits of the VMware Fling's program and being able to share a solution that solves an immediate problem and iterating on feedback from our users, we have the opportunity to enhance and improve our products/services. Thank you to all the VMware customers who have and continue to support us! 🙏

Who knows ... maybe the network devices under the igc-community module in the Fling will be productized next? 😀

Updates to USB Network & NVMe Community Driver for ESXi 7.0 Update 3

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Happy Thursday! I know many of you have been asking about the status and support for ESXi 7.0 Update 3 and the popular USB Network Native Driver for ESXi. It has taken a bit longer as Songtao (the Engineer behind the Fling) has also been extremely busy and was also recently on PTO. Although I know this is something folks use extensively, I do also want to remind everyone that this is provided as a Fling, which means it is developed and supported as time permits. I will certainly do my best to help get new releases out aligning with ESXi updates and as a reminder, a new version of the USB Fling will ALWAYS be required for major releases of ESXi, which also includes update releases.

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