Server 2012 R2 and GRID Drivers

Virtual GPU Forums General Discussion
1

Here is my companies current config:
HP Proliant WS460c Gen8 Blade Server

  • 2x 10 core Xeon E5-2670 v2 2.5 GHz (40 CPUs)
  • 128 GB RAM
  • 10GbE LAN
  • PCIe Sidecar with 2 PCIe carrier cards that carry 3 Nvidia Quadro K3100m each (6 GPUs total)
  • MS Server 2012 R2 Running Remote Desktop Services, VDI, RemoteFX
  • VDI Pool with 4 VM's running Windows 7 Ent sp1
  • Using Nvidia Driver 340.84

    • We have to put the server into User Mode (Bios Setting) to utilize the Nvidia GPUs. This mode only enables RDP sessions to access the server, and I’m not able to use the Nvidia control panel. All Server settings are per HP on using this setup for this purpose.
    This configuration works with RemoteFX graphics enabled on Hyper-V Manager and the RemoteFX 3D video Adapter installed on each VM.

    The problem is that we’re having performance issues with Creo 2.0 Parametric crashing the display driver when it’s actually using the GPUs, when the RDP settings are set to the LAN or higher Experience. When the RDP session is set to Low-speed broadband, it doesn’t use the GPU, but it doesn’t crash the display driver. The VM uses the Microsoft RemoteFX display driver when in LAN mode and it uses the RDPUDD Chained DD when in Low-speed mode.

    So my questions are;
    Is there a better display driver or GRID driver for this setup?
    Is there settings that just need to be changed to utilized the cards better with this driver?
    How do I change settings when I don’t have access to the Nvidia Control panel?
    Why is MS so slow at integrating pass through graphics?
    (you don’t have to answer that last one)

    Please help.

    Thanks,
    Jeff

    2

    Is the Quadro K3100m a GRID compatible GPU?

    3

    Hi Jeff,

    The issues you’re encountering are due to using RemoteFX and Hyper-V. This introduces it’s own driver which "translates" GPU calls from the VM down to the Nvidia driver in the host. It’s limited to DirectX and only when the RemoteFX protocol is engaged.

    Because you don’t have the Nvidia driver in the VM, you will not have access to the Nvidia control panel.
    On the RDSH server that cannot even make use of the RemoteFX video adapter, so no GPU acceleration of any kind is available.

    Now to the application issue…

    The problem with CREO Parametric is that it requires OpenGL 3.1 as a minimum and that’s not supported in RemoteFX / RDP. So to get around the problem you’ll need to switch to a solution that doesn’t use Hyper-V.

    Both VMware View and Citrix XenDesktop would resolve this for you and both can use the GPU’s in passthrough allowing you full GPU functionality and performance.

    No it’s not. Nvidia GRID K1 & K2 are the current GRID cards.