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QNX Advanced Virtualization Frameworks User's Guide
This User's Guide is aimed at all systems integrators and developers who want to design and build embedded systems using the QNX Advanced Virtualization Frameworks.
Graphics Sharing
Graphics sharing is supported by the Shared GPU and Display framework. This framework supports sharing graphical content between the host and guests, and includes a virtual device, virtual rendering libraries, and other services.

QNX Momentics IDE User's Guide
This User's Guide describes version 7.1 of the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that's part of the QNX Momentics tool suite.
QNX Software Development Platform
QNX SDP is a cross-compiling and debugging environment, including an IDE and command-line tools, for building binary images and programs for target boards running QNX Neutrino 7.1.
QNX Hypervisor
The QNX Hypervisor allows you to run multiple OSs on a target system so you can separate critical and non-critical functions, support a wide variety of applications, and reduce hardware costs.
QNX Software in the Cloud
QNX Software in the Cloud enables developers to use the QNX software in Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure (Azure).
QNX Advanced Virtualization Frameworks User's Guide
This User's Guide is aimed at all systems integrators and developers who want to design and build embedded systems using the QNX Advanced Virtualization Frameworks.
- QNX Advanced Virtualization Frameworks Architecture
  The QNX Advanced Virtualization Frameworks allow you to build systems that share resources such as graphics, audio, and input devices among multiple OSs, while separating the management of critical services and non-critical services to mitigate the effects of faults.
- Audio Sharing
  The Shared Audio framework allows guests to capture and output audio on devices connected to the hypervisor host. It does this by providing an audio virtual device through which guests can start and stop these operations and configure parameters such as sampling rate.
- Camera Sharing
  The Shared Video and Camera framework allows the host and guests to share the same camera.
- Filesystem Sharing
  The Shared Filesystem framework allows guests to access directories on the host through mountpoints of their choosing. The framework does this by providing a virtual filesystem device through which guests can interact with files in shared host directories as though they were local files.
- Graphics Sharing
  Graphics sharing is supported by the Shared GPU and Display framework. This framework supports sharing graphical content between the host and guests, and includes a virtual device, virtual rendering libraries, and other services.
  - GPU sharing architecture
    The Shared GPU and Display framework enables guests running in virtual machines (VMs) to access GPU resources on the host system.
  - Display sharing architecture
    The Shared GPU and Display framework enables guests running in virtual machines (VMs) to show content on a display that's attached to the host system.
  - Shared GPU and Display: Required components
    To support the Shared GPU and Display framework in a QNX Hypervisor-based system, you must add components to your guest and host images, and configure the virtio-gpu vdev in the VM of any guest that wants to use the host GPU and send displays to the host.
  - vdev virtio-gpu
    Provide GPU functionality and display-sharing capabilities to guests running in hypervisor VMs
  - Rendering libraries: Support in host and guests
    Applications in the host and in guests can use the OpenGL and Vulkan APIs to render graphics. While QNX Neutrino and Android have some specific extensions and configurations required to use these APIs, no additional work is needed to use them in the QNX Advanced Virtualization Frameworks environment.
- Input Sharing
  The Shared Input framework allows guests and the hypervisor host to share access to input devices. Specifically, it provides a virtual device that lets guests access input from physical devices connected to the hypervisor host.
- Sensor Sharing
  The Sensor Sharing framework allows guests to read data from sensors connected to the hypervisor host. Sensor support will vary. Presently, the framework allows guests to access Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) sensors on the hypervisor host.
- USB Sharing
  The Shared USB framework allows guest and host applications to share access to USB devices. Specifically, it provides a virtual device that lets guests access USB devices connected to the hypervisor host.
- Virtual Socket
  The Virtual Socket framework provides a simple mechanism for passing data between the host and a guest, or between guests, independently of network protocols.
- VPU Sharing
  The Shared Video and Camera framework allows guests to use the video processing unit (VPU) on the host system to decode video. The framework does so by providing a virtual video device that provides media codec and video control functionality to client guest applications and uses the host system's VPU to do the required codec operations.
- Integration Support for Android
  The QNX Advanced Virtualization Frameworks support integrating Android into a QNX Hypervisor system with minimal changes to the Android Operating System. This is possible by supporting common Android OS versions and services, adhering to industry standards for virtualization, and allowing existing components to be reused unmodified. There's also a demonstration system that shows how applications in an Android guest can use the virtualization frameworks.
Typographical Conventions, Support, and Licensing
This section describes the typographical conventions used throughout the documentation and explains how to obtain technical support.

Graphics Sharing

Graphics sharing is supported by the Shared GPU and Display framework. This framework supports sharing graphical content between the host and guests, and includes a virtual device, virtual rendering libraries, and other services.

The Shared GPU and Display framework enables the sharing of:

GPU functionality: GPU sharing enables the use of the graphics processing unit (GPU) on the host by guest virtual machines (VMs) and the host simultaneously. Applications use the GPU to generate pixel content in image buffers; the GPU doesn't show content on the display.
Displays: Display sharing enables the image buffers of a guest to be shown on a display that's attached to the host.

Note:

To use this framework, your host system must have the Screen Graphics Subsystem. This component is included in your QNX SDP installation and can be included in a hypervisor host image and started on the target after booting. For links to examples, see the Integration Support for Android chapter.

The Shared GPU and Display framework is considered experimental because the VirtIO specification that defines the virtual device interface or the guest OS components that use this interface might change. Thus, the guest or host components may require updates in future releases.

Virtual device

The Shared GPU and Display framework uses a virtual device (vdev) that implements section 5.7 (GPU Device) of the VirtIO 1.1 specification, which is available from oasis-open.org. This vdev, virtio-gpu, manages guest access to the host's GPU and display controller.

This chapter explains the framework's architecture, how to configure the virtio-gpu device in a VM to make it available to a guest, and how to add the necessary components to the guest and host.

Note:

To understand the graphics-sharing capabilities in the virtualization frameworks, familiarity with the following documentation is required:

QNX Hypervisor User's Guide
The virtualization frameworks architecture
The Screen Graphics Subsystem Developer's Guide

Page updated: March 12, 2026