qemux/qemu-macos repository overview

⁠QEMU macOS

Custom Linux build of QEMU for running macOS guests, with Reims vGPU⁠ support for hardware-accelerated graphics.

⁠What is Reims? 🚀

Reims⁠ is a paravirtualized GPU implementation for macOS guests. It exposes a virtual Apple-compatible GPU to macOS and uses the stock AppleParavirtGPU.kext already present in the guest, so no custom guest kernel extension is required.

On the Linux host the macOS GPU command stream is decoded by Reims and executed through Vulkan on the host GPU. The physical GPU remains owned by Linux instead of being dedicated to the virtual machine through PCI passthrough.

At a high level:

macOS application
      │
      ▼
Metal
      │
      ▼
AppleParavirtGPU.kext
      │
      ▼
reims-vgpu-pci
      │
      ▼
QEMU + Reims
      │
      ▼
metal2vulkan
      │
      ▼
Host Vulkan driver
      │
      ▼
Physical GPU

⁠Runtime requirements ⚙️

• KVM acceleration.
• The Reims vGPU PCI device.
• Shared memfd-backed guest RAM.
• A Vulkan 1.2 or newer host driver.
• The Reims GOP option ROM for EFI display output.

⁠VMVGA 🖥️

This build includes VMVGA⁠, a virtual graphics adapter implementing the VMware SVGA interface, to improve performance even when the Reims vGPU is disabled.

⁠Acknowledgements 🙏

Special thanks to steelbrain⁠, this project would not exist without his invaluable work.