▷ How to activate virtualization in bios and uefi with vt-x and amd

The most current machines have an option to activate virtualization in BIOS so that resources are shared more efficiently between various physical and virtual machines. Thanks to virtualization we can abstract the hardware of our team to allocate it to a workload that is capable of sharing these resources between the physical operating system and the virtual operating system.

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Companies that make a processor like Intel and AMD have this type of technology that is visually reduced to an option available in our BIOS to optimize the virtualization process. In this article we will talk about these virtualization technologies that these companies have available and we will also see that they can be activated in our team so that our virtual machines have better performance.

Virtualization technologies

As we know, there are two large companies that supply processors for the desktop computer market, notebook computers, and also corporate servers and workstations. Due to the great use of virtualization techniques by IT companies and the objective of pursuing optimal performance of their virtual teams for work, hardware manufacturers have been practically forced to create solutions for their platforms that allow better use of hardware resources of physical machines by virtual machines.

This is how VT-X virtualization technologies were born in the case of Intel and AMD-V by the AMD company. Let's see what these technologies do and how they facilitate the performance of virtual machines.

Intel VT-X technology

Intel's virtualization technology has features that fully abstract the technical characteristics of Intel processors for virtual machines. In this way, the software of a virtual machine will be able to run natively on the dedicated CPU. To do this, VT-X physically allocates part of its CPU to the virtual machine so that it is able to work with it directly. In addition, this reduces the problems in migrating virtual machines from one hardware to another.

It is also possible to abstract the RAM memory of a machine so that the virtual software also uses it physically. From this part of the hardware resource it will belong to the virtual system so that the access operations (DMA) are more efficient.

VT-X is also capable of abstracting graphics resources on processors that have Intel GPUs to allow hardware acceleration just as if we were on a real computer. In addition, it will allow the multimedia resources to be played remotely on computers connected to a virtual desktop.

This also applies to input / output (I / O) devices such as network cards, hard drives, and devices connected to PCI slots. This virtualization technology for input / output devices is called TV-d. The Intel processors that implement this technology are:

• Intel XeonIntel Core2Intel CoreIntel Celeron E3200 and E3300Intel Pentium 4, Pentium D

AMD-V technology

For AMD chipsets we also have a technology for optimizing virtual resources.

AMD-V also allows you to abstract hardware resources into PRO series processors so that machines are also able to use these resources directly and more efficiently.

This technology is designed for maximum compatibility with Microsoft Hiper-V virtualization software. It also has optimized support for desktop virtualization techniques. The processors compatible with this virtualization technology are:

• CPU with Socket AM3CPU with Socket AM2Socket S1Socket FAMD Athlon 64 and Turion 64

In short, they are technology with similar characteristics and only aimed at optimizing virtual processes.

Virtualization software compatible with these technologies

These are hypervisors that are compatible with CPU virtualization technologies

• VMware: supports Intel VT-x but they are disabled by default VirtualBox: supports both Microsoft Virtual PC and Hyper-V technologies: it supports both AMD-V and VT-X KVM: in kernel versions higher than 2.6 it also supports both Xen technologies: it has support for Intel VT-x since version 3.0 and later also with AMD-V Parallels: it supports Intel VT-X

How to know a team to support virtualization technology

The manufacturers Intel and AMD have free software that allows us to check if our equipment supports activating virtualization in BIOS or not.

Intel

If we go to the official download page, we can choose the download language we want for this software. When we download it we will open it by double-clicking it to start a quick installation process.

When we have opened it we will go to the " CPU technologies " tab. At the bottom we will look for the line " Intel VT-x with page table ". If the result says " Yes " it is that our pc supports virtualization.

AMD

To download your software we will click on this link. In this case, all we have to do is unzip the file and make the application " As administrator ".

Enable virtualization in BIOS or UEFI

To activate the virtualization technology that supports our equipment, it is necessary to access our BIOS or UEFI to verify that it is active. We can differentiate between the types of BIOS that we currently find on computers.

Activate virtualization in Phoenix BIOS (traditional)

BIOSes of this type are usually found on computers from a few years ago. So if your computer is about 3 or 4 years old, we will surely have a UEFI type BIOS. To activate virtualization in a traditional Phoenix type BIOS (blue screen) what we will have to do is the following:

• We must turn off the computer and restart it

As soon as the screen turns on we will try to locate a message that says " Press to enter setup ”or a similar message. If you can't see this message, use one of these keys to access your BIOS.

• SUPRF2F12ESC

It should be one of these. We will notice that we have entered when a blue screen appears in which at the top it says " Phoenix " or " American Megatrends"

• To navigate your options we will use the arrow keys.

From here the location of this option in each BIOS may vary. We should not go to the tab " System configuration " or " Advanced " or some similar section.

• We must be pending to find an option that says " Intel VR " or " VR-x " or " Virtualization Technology " When we locate this option we will check that it is in " Enabled " If it is not, press enter and with the arrow keys we will choose this option.

• Then we press the " F10 " key to save the changes and restart.

We will already have active virtualization technology in our team.

Activate virtualization in BIOS UEFI type (graphical interface)

The new computers almost all have a BIOS with a graphical interface or also called a UEFI. In this case the procedure can be as we have seen in the previous section. since being a BIOS the access is the same. Or we can also do it from the operating system itself if we have Windows 10. Let's see how:

• We are going to start and at the same time we press the " Shift " or " Shift " key, we click on the " restart " option. Now a blue window appears with the recovery options for Windows 10. We choose the " Solve problems " option.

• Then we choose advanced options It is possible that the previous menu does not appear and we get the advanced options directly. In this case we choose " UEFI Firmware Configuration "

• Next, it will ask us to restart the computer, so we accept.Once you start this again, we will enter directly into the BIOS of our computer

As we said in the previous method, the options may vary depending on the type of UEFI that our team has. in any case we will access the menu of advanced options or " Advanced options " and we will have to locate somewhere the word " Intel VT-x " or " Intel Virtualization Technology " and activate it.

• In our case, the option was available in " Advanced -> CPU Configuration "

In this way we will identify what technology is compatible with our equipment, and with the Hypervisor that we use.

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Have you already been encouraged to try virtualization? Try it and tell us how your experience has been. We will continue to publish more articles on virtualization to gradually teach you all the details of how to do it. Leave us in the comments that you think about virtualization.