List of GPU's that Support DDA in Server 2016 for GPU Pass Through in Hyper-V VM's

I’m going to lead off with the fact that I do not represent a corporate entity which means I don’t have the means to purchase GRID or Tesla cards or licensing specifically for this purpose. This is purely for educational, proof of concept & testing purposes in a home lab environment.

As the topic suggests, I’m just looking for a list of non-GRID non-Tesla GPUs that support Discrete Device Assignment (DDA) in Server 2016 so I can pass through GPU’s (or vGPU’s if the card supports it) to a Hyper-V VM.

My objective is to

  1. locate some sort of datasheet with an exhaustive list
  2. understand whether or not it's possible to know which cards do support DDA
  3. understand which cards (outside of high-end cards like GRID and Tesla) support vGPU's
  4. check for any get firsthand accounts from others who have done this complete with gotcha's, lessons learned etc

I’ve seem some reports that suggest it may be possible to get consumer grade cards (e.g.: GeForce) working in VM’s. However, the processes are not well documented and the explanations seemed really convoluted, so I don’t want to waste cycles jumping through a bunch of hoops. Plus I don’t want the host BSOD’ing periodically either because I’m doing something super hackish.

I’ve read some things online that suggest any Quardo card (e.g.: Quadro NVS, Quadro FX etc.) should support DDA/pass through. However I can’t find any literature to support those claims, and all the examples I’ve come across are K1’s, Teslas etc. Since I don’t have the means to burn through various models (e.g.: FX 3800, NVS 420, 600 etc) in trial & error, I’m reaching out to the community for guidance.

Bummer they don’t maintain that list, but what’s there is helpful - thank you! When you say Quadro >= x2000 am I correct in understanding that this means Quadro cards numbering 2000 and up such as Quadro 2200D, Quadro FX 3800, Quadro K2200 but not something like a Quadro NVS 420, right?

Understood - I failed to mention I’m doing this on a Dell PowerEdge R710 Gen II.

I find that XenServer site very useful - thank you again.

I’m intellectually interested in this, but a little concerned it’s a tad over my head. :) Also Windows Server 2016 would be the host so I’m unsure if it would translate the same way. I’m open to trying it out but I would need some help getting caught up to your level of intelligence on this subject.

Hi Julius,

Your host won’t even support DDA at all. You should start to check your hardware first before starting with anything else.

Here a script to check for DDA requirements as starting point:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Microsoft/Virtualization-Documentation/master/hyperv-samples/benarm-powershell/DDA/survey-dda.ps1

Regards

Simon

Martin,

this is not correct. DDA requires SR-IOV support. But you are right with R710 Revision II. I just checked and for Revision II Dell provided a BIOS update to support SR-IOV. R710 (Revision I) does not support DDA!

regards
Simon

Hi & Good morning everyone
First, thanks for taking the time to reply to this; I really do appreciate the feedback.

Correct, R710 Gen II or Revsion II does support SR-IOV provided it’s running the proper BIOS version. For anyone else who stumbles across this post, additional information on that can be found in the links below (among others):
http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/w/wiki/3921.enabling-sr-iov-technology-on-delltm-poweredgetm-servers
http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/os-applications/w/wiki/3459.dell-supported-platforms-for-windows-server-2012-sr-iov-feature

FYI Simon thanks for posting that script; I’d forgotten about it. More details on that can be found here:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/virtualization/hyper-v/plan/plan-for-deploying-devices-using-discrete-device-assignment