Before getting a lot of Windows games, I tried to buy games that worked on Linux. Eventually though it just got to the point I decided to gamble on WINE. That didn't work great (like a 30% success rate, even with tinkering), but they were all [relatively] cheap bundles and always came with enough Linux games so I didn't feel cheated (just unlucky). In theory I could run all my Linux games in Windows (I think all of them have Windows version), but that's just silly IMHO. This system actually has an APU powerful enough to game (mostly) on Linux but again because of the buggy IOMMU it's a moot point. Regardless, even if one is an integrated GPU, technically you're still buying two.
Yeah, Wine is practically hit or miss, there's just no in between. That's why I was excited when Valve announced a fork made specifically for gaming including more advanced stuff like using Vulkan by default instead of OpenGL. Plus it's apparently compatible
with many other titles than just the official ones, so hey: I don't see many gamers suddently making the jump because of it, but it's definitely a nice bonus for the ones who were already thinking about it or were undecided
I could see this argument for most AMD CPU, but mainstream Intel CPU do have iGPU built-in (unless you want to also use the GPU on Linux).
If they are not willing to add it to the mainstream desktop, they should really add it to the laptops. I could see a lot of cross-platform developers buying these machines. Regardless, it is really dumb that this isn't mainstream.
I've got a Ryzen 5 1600 which hey, don't get me wrong, I absolutely
love this CPU especially considering that I've overclocked it no problem @ 3.8 GHz with little to no voltage increase! But still, no iGPU for me to even attempt passthrough...
That aside, I remember reading somewhere that it's possible to switch GPUs before using your VM so that you always get the best of both worlds, but of course it's only going to make an already complicated setup even more convoluted.
"right now" might be the key word. I recall similar things for USB pass through when that was still a new tech. Today it is old hat and a few button clicks. I could repeat that for a variety of other tech. That said if the worthwhile GPU devs are going to continue to move away from nice hardware and try to gate things off* then so it goes.
That said most windows things I want these days are older legacy programs for certain things where performance is less of an issue than their ability to manipulate files or generate numbers.
*I am still bitter about the old "make a server grade board using one of the old designs but leave off the fancy stuff for high uptime and sell that to people wanting good stuff" design concept going away.
I feel you there, the GPU market in its current state is a hot mess with NVidia getting away with a lot of anti-consumer practices simply because they have a monopoly and AMD trying to keep up and failing basically everytime (sometimes by a hair's lenght, but that isn't enough for most gamers who want that sweet, sweet 2/3 -ish FPS gain...
) It doesn't help that NVidia is a complete asshole when it comes to supporting the open source community either. Luckily I've got an RX 580 in my main rig, which I bought because I've found it at a good price at the time and also from what I know the Radeon open source drivers are actually gaming capable unlike noveau, so at least I won't have to put up with NVidia's BS. I don't know how much it'll help with a possible distant-future GPU passthrough setup but something tells me once I make the switch I'll gradually drift away from Windows so much that a "pure" VM setup will become viable, if not optional
About what programs I use, Vegas is one of them. It runs like crap under Wine and while there are open source video editors out there no one comes even close to what Vegas can offer, plus it really likes direct hardware access for obvious reasons. That aside, not considering the usual games that don't run well under Wine/Proton, I admittedly don't have much else going on with the exception of a few scripts and stuff I've made for myself, which honestly wouldn't be too bad to port to Linux. However I'm also developing Snickerstream in AutoIt right now (windows only) and it might not be a good idea to run it in a VM as it could have an impact on performance (it's a lightweight app, sure, but you never know) as well as adding a few hurdles while connecting (and NTR CFW is already "lunatic" as it is) so all things considered I might just install Windows on a beater drive and be done with it for the moment. Once the right time comes, I'll be more than happy to virtualize it all!