Install GRID K2 on VMware ESXI using VDGA *Without* View/Horizon

Hi, is it possible to passthru the GRID K2 on ESXi (5.5 or 6.0) for one particular guest without (repeat without) Horizon View?

I found some old documents that seem to say that this is possible.

I have a Dell 720 server running ESXi 5.5 (with plans to upgrade to 6.0) and I have one guest machine that needs to use 3D Graphics acceleration (runs AutoCAD).

Before I buy the card and begin, I need a fairly confident "YES" answer. VMware Horizon View is out of the question for complexity and fiscal reasons.

Thanks & Blessings,
-gg

Hi GG

Yes it’s absolutely possible. Neither Horizon, XenDesktop or any other desktop management solution are required for using GPUs with VMs.

For Passthrough, no hypevisor licenses are required. And because you’re using a Kepler GPU, there are no Nvidia licensing requirements either.

Which protocol are you planning to use to connect to the VM? RDP?

Regards

Ben

Hi Ben,

Thank you for that. I’m planning on using RDP and RemoteFX.

I should say they are already using RDP, but their AutoCAD (Civil 3D) has pegged their CPUs. I suspect it’s due to rendering.

Thanks again,
-gg

Hi GG

No problem at all.

I’d be interested to hear the difference on performance when you add a GPU into the mix. Would you mind posting back when you’ve done some testing / have it in production?

Regards

Ben

I know this is an old thread but I am in a similar position. I need a 1/2 a dozen Virtual Workstations, mostly for remote workers. I have a HP Z820 workstation with ESXI 6.0, 128GB RAM, dual XEON’s, NVME SSD storage and three Quadro 4000’s with dedicated graphics to the VM’s but I can’t add any more Quadro’s. I am hoping to replace the Quadro’s with K1 or K2’s becasue they would be more flexible. Using HP’s remote graphics protocol I get very good accelerated graphics from the virtual workstations. I purchased floating licenses for the HP remote graphics software. Using GRID cards will graphics be accelerated with RDP? Setting up the Citrix, or Horizon software is beyond our budget. I just want the cheapest and simplest way to have accelerated virtual machine graphics for 3D CAD users. Thanks!

Why don’t you just replace the VMs with Server 2012 R2 / Server 2016 and use them as RDS Hosts sharing the available resources between them? It’s cheaper, quicker and easier than what you’re thinking of doing. Plus if you start to cram too many VMs on there, you’ll more than likely run out of I/O performance.

Regards

Ben