GRID K2 on Microsoft Windows 2012 Hyper-V Core Server

Virtual GPU Forums General Discussion
1

Hi All,

I’m trying to install NVIDIA GRID K2 driver ver 333.11 on to a Windows 2012 R2 Hyper-V Core server.

There is a setup.exe for it. But when i run setup.exe i don’t see anything happening. Task Manager shows that the setup.exe is running. I dont see anything happening apart from that.

I tried to use the pnputil with the inf’s present on the NVIDIA display drivers folders, i use devmanview which provides me with an GUI to check the devices on the core server and the drivers installed. But i do not see the NVIDIA GRID K2 card. And the hyper-v manager does not detect the GPU and has the message “None of the physical graphics processing units (GPUs) on this computer support RemoteFX”. Not sure what else i could be missing.

Please see attachment for the message that i see on Hyper-V Manager.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Arun

2

Hi Arun,
Our driver today for Windows Server 2012 + Hyper-V will not work with the "Core" configuration.
Please use the regular FULL installation + GUI for use with the NV driver.

-sharpster

3

I’m reading into the use of "today" to signify that this is a work in progress? … with perhaps (hopefully) an ETA?

Full windows okay for prototyping, and I’ll go rebuild a test box, but most virtualization projects are going to plan for Hyper-V server core. Just wanted to share that perspective from a Hyper-V admin, since I’m guessing that there is a silent queue of buyers waiting on the driver to work before even considering production.

Thanks,

Jim

4

Jim, No timing implications for Core support are implied.

5

Thanks for clarifying Eric. If this could be relayed as a feature request to your team, that’d be much appreciated.

For core support, I believe the driver typically would be installed through pnputil (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff800798.aspx) and an INF file. Perhaps instead of including any of the control exe assets, many settings could be simply hard optimized for VDI instead. Just some thoughts.

Perhaps I’ll consider crafting a custom INF file in the mean time.

Thanks,

Jim

6

I second the request for a cheat sheet for installing the Grid K1 drivers via command-line interactions.

There are a bunch of inf files under

C:\NVIDIA\DisplayDriver\340.84\Win8_WinVista_Win7_64\International\Display.Driver

for example, with a number of them quite large.

The intent of using the free version of Hyper-V is to prove out the concept of using the hardware with specific applications within virtual machines. We did after all, pay for the server (24 cores, loads of memory) and the spiffy graphics card, so no reason for the hardware vendors to hold back.

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Me three! I was severely disappointed to find that our new $2000 GRID GPU doesn’t have support for Hyper-V Server (or 2012 Core). Guess I’ll have to do baremetal :(

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This is a major BUMP, this is a need, not a want!

Thanks NVIDIA!!

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I agree - Microsoft Hyper-V Server support is absolutely needed for the Grid cards.

In the interim here is what I tried and seemed to work. On a Dell PowerEdge 730 with an NVidia Grid K1, running ‘Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012R2’:

  1. Ran the NVidia driver install, selected a directory, got to the license agreement, clicked the ‘I agree’ button, and the UI disappeared (although the process remained running)
  2. Navigated the install directory and found: nv_dispwi.inf
  3. Ran: pnputil.exe -i -a nv_dispwi.inf
  4. It sort of worked but then indicated a problem installing (don’t know if it actually installed or not)
  5. Next I went to Dell’s support site to downloaded the Dell version of the NVidia driver
  6. Installed that Dell NVidia driver and the prompts indicated it was replacing an older driver (I suspect the NVidia driver I just nstalled above)
  7. Clicked ‘OK’, it started to do its thing and then errored out
  8. On a hunch I went to hyper-v manager and POOF - the option for ‘RemoteFX 3D Video Adapter’ was now available and I was able to add it to virtual machines

Not sure how this will all turn out but if anything interesting pops up, I’ll post a comment here. Also if all goes well we will be running multiple physical servers as RDS hosts for thousands of users, and hopefully will all have NVidia Grid cards.

And NVidia I must again reiterate - HYPER-V server support is DEFINITELY needed here (not just a ‘nice to have’). You have a great product and it would be unfortunate if something as simple as this driver ends up holding people back from adoption.

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Hyper-V on Server 2012 is supported and has been since before this thread was started.

What is not supported (either by Nvidia or Microsoft) is the use of the GPU’s in Server Core due to the requirement for the UI.

Hyper-V support is included in the Server 2012 R2 driver.

11

> And NVidia I must again reiterate - HYPER-V server support is DEFINITELY needed here (not just a ‘nice to have’). You have a great product and it would be unfortunate if something as simple as this driver ends up holding people back from adoption.

Hi ITmage,

We are always limited by what the hypervisors choose to support and even if something works you need the support from Microsoft (you don’t want to phone up Microsoft support and be told you can’t raise a ticket and get declined because running a configuration they don’t support). We do work closely with Microsoft to pass on requests for GPU enablement. As a customer you should also let them know of your need but it’s not one NVIDIA can support ahead of Microsoft.

Best wishes,
Rachel