We have a working PoC environment currently. Windows 7 VDI is working flawlessly with OpenGL and DirectX.
However, it seems that when using 2012 R2 VDI, we’re not seeing the Grid driver displayed in Dxdiag and also we cannot access the nVidia control panel. I noticed that Citrix mentions contacting them for registry entries to make DX work, but I thought I’d ask here if others might have already tested/built this setup.
From some of the other posts, and searching through their support portal (older links were broken), it looks like I just need this local policy enabled on those 2012 R2 VDIs?
On Windows Server 2012, Remote Desktop Services (RDS) sessions on the RD Session Host server use the Microsoft Basic Render Driver as the default adapter. To use the GPU in RDS sessions on Windows Server 2012, enable the Use the hardware default graphics adapter for all Remote Desktop Services sessions setting in the group policy Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Remote Desktop Services > Remote Desktop Session Host > Remote Session Environment
Checked that policy and we are applying it to the VDI VMs. Also added those registry keys via GPO.
DX IS indeed working in 2012R2, verified by a few benchmark programs. One question I had was, why doesn’t dxdiag pick up the GRID K2 driver as being enabled/directx capable? It just shows a Citrix Systems Inc. Display Driver.
Another question is, cannot access the Nvidia Control panel. Is there any workaround to allow access to this in 2012R2 ? Just wondering, as we might have a scenario where one would want to tweak settings for their program?
That’s due to the way the drivers are chained so that it can be shared across multiple sessions.
You cannot access the Control Panel in an RDSH session, only at the console, and any change in the settings in the console will affect all users.
If you need to provide users with the ability to change these settings, then VDI is the better option.