HP Graphics Server Blade VMware vDGA Quick Start

Solution Quick Start Guide | HP Graphics Server Blade VMware vDGA Quick Start
VMware vDGA Considerations
 Using VMware vDGA technology directly attaches a GPU to a VM for maximum graphics performance. For that
reason, it is required that proper video driver be installed within the virtual machine
 High availability and vMotion is not supported when host is in vDGA mode
 V10 version hardware on a VM can no longer be managed via Virtual Center standard console, must use web access
to manage
 If using VMWare vSGA and vDGA technologies, if you have a GPU configured for vDGA it cannot be used for vSGA
Tips and Tricks you need to know - Tech Nuggets and Known issues
 When configuring VM with vDGA, only select the PCI GPU device itself and not the Audio Device on GPU’s that
support it
 There is a known issue where after configuring VM for vDGA, when you try to start the VM it will shut down after a
few seconds
o To resolve, make sure the following is included as a VM configured parameter
 Right Click VM and click “Edit Settings”
 Click “Options” tab.
 Click Advanced/General and then click button on lower right “Configuration Parameters”
 On Bottom right click “Add Row”
 Manually add the following rows if they don’t exist
NOTE – Only the pcihole.start parameter is needed for this specific issues, however as seen in
the configuration section later, we recommend both
 The Graphics Server Blade support multiple video modes, when using VMware, only “SETUP” mode needs to be used
o If unfamiliar with video modes, please read Appendix A before continuing
 In order to activate the NVIDIA display adapter in vDGA on a newly configured VM, you must connect via PCoIP, and
at full screen from the endpoint (at native resolution), or the virtual machine will use the SVGA 3D display adapter.
o To test, attempt to open the NVIDIA control panel. If it fails the NVIDIA adapter is not active.
 vDGA will not work through the vSphere console session, you will only see a blank screen in this mode.
 vDGA multi-monitor support is dynamic, it will try to automatically detect your endpoint client monitor
configuration and display on all. All monitors must be the same and GPU must support multi-monitor.
o Although not fully supported, quad display will only work on GPU’s that support it, for example NVIDIA
K5000 and K6000
o If you try to connect from an endpoint configuration that is not supported and vDGA cannot dynamically
configure session, you may get a single display output across all monitor as seen in this example
 To Resolve this, go back to a single monitor full screen or log out and then connect with a
supported configuration