Activation of NVIDIA vGPU for RDS Sessions on Windows Server

On Windows Server, applications within an RDS session may not use the assigned NVIDIA vGPU. Instead, Windows uses Microsoft Basic Render Driver by default. As a result, DirectX-based 3D applications, in particular, cannot access the GPU.

This article shows how to activate NVIDIA vGPU for RDS-sessions.

Requirements

The NVIDIA vGPU must be assigned to the virtual machine and the suitable guest driver must be installed.

Check first if Windows recognizes the vGPU:

nvidia-smi

The command should display the assigned GPU and the graphics memory available.

Enable Group Policy

Open the dialogue Execute via Windows-Key+ R and start:

gpedit.msc

Navigate to:

Computer-Configuration > Administrative Templates> Windows-Components> Remotedesktopservices > Remotedesktop-Session-Host > Remote-Session-Environment

Activate the guideline:

Hardware graphics adapter for all remotedesktopservices-sessions

The English name is:

Use the hardware default graphics adapter for all Remote Desktop Services Sessions

After that, restart Windows-Server-VM.

Check GPU-use

Re-establish an RDS connection and launch an application that uses GPU acceleration.

Check the utilization in the Task-Manager:

Performance > GPU

Alternatively, you can execute the following command:

nvidia-smi

If a GPU still does not appear, check the NVIDIA vGPU guest driver, the assigned vGPU profile, and the licensing.

Background

NVIDIA describes this behaviour for all supported Windows Server guest operating systems. The default settings uses Microsoft Basic Render Driver, as Software Rendering can be more efficient for simple 2D-applications. DirectX-based 3D-applications cannot, however, access the GPU.

Sources

NVIDIA vGPU Documentation – RDS sessions do not use the GPU with Microsoft Windows Server as guest OS (en)

Author: Florian Müller

Translator: Alina Ranzinger

Alina has been working at Thomas-Krenn.AG since 2024. After her training as multilingual business assistant, she got her job as assistant of the Product Management and is responsible for the translation of texts and for the organisation of the department.