vGPU on XenServer is awsome technology. But as with any other software, it can happen that you run into issues. For example, when starting a VM which has a vGPU profile assigned, the VM can fail with the dreaded “vgpu exited unexpectedly” error. To be more precise, such an error could read:
Last week, NVIDIA released an update for the vGPU driver and manager (also described on The Citrix Blog). Besides bug fixes, this release introduces 3 new vGPU profiles, 1 new profile for the GRID K2 card (K280Q) and 2 new profiles for the GRID K1 card (K160Q and K180Q).
Card
Profile
Frame buffer
Virtual display heads
Max resolution per head
Max vGPUs per GPU
Max vGPUs per board
K1
K180Q
4096Mb
4
2560×1600
1
4
K1
K160Q
2048Mb
4
2560×1600
2
8
K2
K280Q
4096Mb
4
2560×1600
1
2
As you can see, the K180Q and K280Q profiles will assign an entire GPU to a VM. This can be compared to GPU pass-through, but leveriging the functionality of vGPU.
A few days ago, I wrote a post about Citrix’s fix for fullscreen applications in HDX 3D Pro connections. In that post I mentioned the fact that by default, an application launched in a resolution larger than the session’s resolution, will be trimmed off. Rachel Berry (Product Manager HDX Graphics for XenDesktop/XenApp, twitter @rhbBSE) provided me with some feedback on my article. Especially this part:
I understand why the application behaves in this way. The best way to fix such an challenge is to “scale” the application (I don’t even know if this would be possible programmatically) so that it scales while it maintains the aspect ratio. This way you would always see the entire application, no matter what the resolution is.
One feature of Citrix Receiver, which I knew exists, but never used, is the ability to scale the session completely. I investigated this feature as solution for the trimming of high-resolution applications.
In my previous post about full screen applications in HDX 3D Pro, I explained possible solutions to the “Full Screen Applications are not supported in Citrix HDX 3D Pro” message. In short, the issue is due to the fact that the application does not use the same resolution as your HDX session.
Full Screen Applications are not supported in Citrix HDX 3D Pro
In the mean time, Citrix release XenDesktop 7.6. The XenDesktop HDX 3D Pro VDA now contains an experimental fix to support full screen applications in any resolution. This fix is explained by Rachel Berry (Product Manager HDX Graphics for XenDesktop/XenApp, twitter @rhbBSE) on the Citrix Blog: http://blogs.citrix.com/2014/10/24/hdx-3d-pro-experimental-support-for-full-screen-apps/
Enable support for full screen applications
As described in Rachel’s blog post, you have to modify the registry on the machine where your VDA is installed. Insert the following value:
Implementing GPUs in your virtual desktop environment (for example vGPU or GPU pass-though) allows better use of graphical intensive applications (like Catia, AutoCAD, Photoshop, etc.). These applications have an impact on utilization (CPU, memory, disk I/O) in your infrastructure. Not only the applications will impact your infrastructure, sending the graphical intensive data over the LAN or WAN will at least impact your network and the CPU on the end-point and inside your virtual desktop. In this article I will explain the impact on network level.
In my previous post, I explained some planning considerations when implementing GPUs in a virtualized environment. There are a few other considerations, especially in terms of hardware, when you implement GPUs in your virtualized environment. This article will contain some of these considerations.
Blade hardware
When planning to implement GPUs in existing hardware, be sure that the current hardware does support the installation of a GPU. If your current environment, for example, consists of blade servers (like Cisco UCS B-series or HP BL series), your environment will not be able to be upgraded with a GPU. This means that you have to invest in new hardware.
Implementing a graphics card in your server allows better performance for GPU-intensive applications in VDI and SBC environments. With Citrix and NVIDIA’s vGPU innovations, this is becoming more popular. However, if you don’t plan your GPU deployment correctly, user acceptance of these new innovations will be difficult. This article will contain some things to keep in mind while planning your GPU deployment in virtualized environment. While I created this article with XenDesktop in mind, it does apply to any other VDI or SBC technology like Vmware View, RemoteFX and XenApp.
