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I am looking into a Windows Server 2008 SP1 with RemoteFX enabled, however I do not want to buy one of the NVIDIA Quadro $1000+ video cards to do it (as only a small number of users will be using virtual machines). I would like to use one of the Geforce cards (I was looking at the 560 Ti or the 570).

I have heard that there are people that have modified the INF driver files for the Geforce cards to get them to work with RemoteFX, but I can't find any information on this. I would like to see some proof before heading out to buy one of the cards to test.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Skyhawk
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The Woo
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    I imagine that the downvotes are because people are expecting that this is about gaming. Can you please add some more detail about what you're doing, please? – wfaulk May 08 '12 at 00:00
  • No no! Not about gaming at all. This is for a small company with 5 users that want to access their own desktops from any of the computer in the office, and from home. Their home computers will be upgraded to Windows 7 SP1 to take full advantage of the RemoteFX RDP session. – The Woo May 08 '12 at 00:10
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    I recognize that it's really not relevant to the question, but maybe you could explain what they need the accelerated graphics for. Then again, maybe you don't realize that you don't necessarily need a GPU to make RemoteFX work? – wfaulk May 08 '12 at 00:13
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    They have a Windows 2003 Terminal Server at the moment, and are not happy with Flash performance. Now with more and more content on the web going to video, they want it to run the same as a desktop experience - but still want the freedom to move around with their desktop sessions (fair enough). I am looking into RemoteFX to go beyond their expectations so that this solution will server them for the next several years. – The Woo May 08 '12 at 00:15
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    Also, maybe change "Gaming" in the title to "consumer-grade" or "less expensive"? Anything to get gaming out of people's minds will improve the number of people looking at the question. – wfaulk May 08 '12 at 00:16
  • It's rarely worth it to take the cheap route through a project, especially if it means you'll be implementing something that is not a recommended configuration and unsupported. – EEAA May 08 '12 at 00:18
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    You understand that for a RD Session Host server the RemoteFX encoder is optional? You don't require a GPU. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff817602(WS.10).aspx#BKMK_SHserver – Zoredache May 08 '12 at 00:23
  • @Zoredache you better have a gpu for "improved flash performance", bleeding edge remote desktop sessions here ... :-| – Joseph Kern May 10 '12 at 05:17

4 Answers4

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Well, I can't show you any proof but I can speak from experience in modifying the INF, of course, your results may vary.

Whenever you modify the INF file for the NVIDIA drivers, you have to download the international drivers. So start by downloading the international drivers for the Quadro/Tesla (I downloaded version 296.70).

Extract the installer using your tool of choice. Now, you'll need to know the device ID of the card you're planning to use (eg. 1082.01 for the 560 Ti), device ID's can be extracted from the drivers originally designed for your card (ie. the GeForce drivers). The sections you need to change in the INF are the "Devices" list and the "Strings", there's two different sets of devices in the Quadro drivers, so you might need to experiment but I am guessing the 560Ti would fit under SetA. So you'd modify the INF like so:

[NVIDIA_SetA_Devices.NTamd64.6.0]
%NVIDIA_DEV.1082.01% = Section008, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1082

[NVIDIA_SetA_Devices.NTamd64.6.1]
%NVIDIA_DEV.1082.01% = Section018, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1082

[Strings]
NVIDIA_DEV.1082.01 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti"

Once you've done that, you should be able to save the INF file and run setup.exe from the directory you extracted the installer to.

Nathan
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  • That sounds perfect. Thank you for the detail in the response. I think I'm confident enough to buy one now and give it a crack :) Thanks again. – The Woo May 15 '12 at 00:57
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The GeForce drivers can be added and installed using pnputil.exe make sure to use the -i argument for installation and -a for adding to the driver library.

You can also use the wildcard to install all of the drivers thus making multiple displays also available in HV sever core.
(pnputil -i -a c:\NVidia\*.inf) to use the GeForce drivers in remoteFX you will need to make them available in Hyper-v settings before adding them to a VM.

HBruijn
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Kputkamer
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Wait for WIndows Server 8 - coming in October. RemoteFX is significantly better there, including support for no graphics card (virtual remote fx card).

Forget Nvidia - to my knowledge ATI works fine ;)

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itproSP/thread/79d5258f-a069-451a-a558-75b39a707fdf

TomTom
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Have you read the documentation?

  1. SLAT-enabled processor The processor in the RemoteFX server must support Second-Level Address Translation (SLAT). In virtualization scenarios, hardware-based SLAT support improves performance. On Intel processors, this is called Extended Page Tables (EPT), and on AMD processors, it is called Nested Page Tables (NPT).
  2. GPU At least one graphics processing unit (GPU) is required on the RemoteFX server. The GPU driver must support DirectX 9.0c and DirectX 10.0. If more than one GPU is installed in the RemoteFX server, the GPUs must be identical. The GPU must have sufficient dedicated video memory that is separate from system memory.
  3. Hyper-V The Hyper-V hardware requirements must be supported on the server. The Hyper-V hardware requirements for Windows Server 2008 R2 are available in the Windows Server 2008 R2 Technical Library

And an official Beta SP1 list of drivers:

We recommend the following drivers available from our partners: Nvidia drivers version 195.62 and 196.21, and ATI driver versions 8.720 and 8.723. We continue to work closely with all our partners to ensure that customers can reliably access drivers for their RemoteFX solutions, including through our participation in the next Logo kit. link

Joseph Kern
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  • Why did you copy the VDI requirements into your answer when he is talking about Remote Desktop Services? – Zoredache May 10 '12 at 07:34
  • Because I missed that single line in the comment. So remotefx for a terminal server doesn't need hardware acceleration? This is a software only upgrade? – Joseph Kern May 11 '12 at 04:06