Hello,
I am currently using an NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000 GPU with VMware ESXi 8.0, and I’m attempting to enable vGPU functionality using the latest vGPU driver package (version 570.133.10).
After successfully installing the driver, the nvidia-smi command returns the following error:
“Failed to initialize NVML: No supported GPUs were found.”
The nvidia kernel module is loaded, and the GPU is correctly listed in lspci, but it appears to be unrecognized by the vGPU driver. Based on this behavior, I suspect that my specific model (Quadro RTX 5000) might not be supported for vGPU use — or perhaps vGPU is not enabled on this particular SKU.
Could you please clarify the following:
- Is the standard Quadro RTX 5000 (non-OEM / non-data center SKU) officially supported for use with vGPU on ESXi 8.0?
- If not, is there a way to enable vGPU capabilities on this card (e.g., firmware upgrade or entitlement)?
- Do you maintain a public list of PCI Device IDs or SKUs that are confirmed to support vGPU?
- If vGPU is not supported — is GPU passthrough the only available option for this model?
I would greatly appreciate your clarification, as it will help determine whether I can proceed with this GPU or need to switch to a supported model like the RTX A5000 or A40.
Thank you in advance for your support.