Installing GRID® drivers for virtual workstations

Linux VMs Windows VMs

To support the GPUs on your virtual workstations, you need to install a GRID driver.

Before you begin

If you want to use the command-line examples in this guide:
1. Install or update to the latest version of the gcloud command-line tool.
2. Set a default region and zone.
If you want to use the API examples in this guide, set up API access.

Installing GRID drivers

For a full list of NVIDIA drivers that you can use on Compute Engine, see GRID® drivers for virtual workstations.

Linux

Download the GRID driver. For example, to download the NVIDIA 440.107 driver, run the following command:

curl -O https://storage.googleapis.com/nvidia-drivers-us-public/GRID/GRID10.3/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-440.107-grid.run

Start the installer. To start the NVIDIA 440.107 driver, run the following command:
```
sudo bash NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-440.107-grid.run
```
During the installation, choose the following options:
- If you are prompted to install 32-bit binaries, select Yes.
- If you are prompted to modify the x.org file, select No.

Windows Server

Depending on your version of Windows Server, download one of the following NVIDIA GRID drivers:
Run the installer, and choose the Express installation.
After the installation is complete, restart the VM. When you restart, you are disconnected from your session.
Reconnect to your instance using RDP or a PCoIP client.

Verifying that the GRID driver is installed

Linux

Run the following command:

nvidia-smi

The output of the command looks similar to the following:

Thu Oct  8 19:37:13 2020
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 440.107      Driver Version: 440.107      CUDA Version: 10.2     |
|-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name        Persistence-M| Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp  Perf  Pwr:Usage/Cap|         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|===============================+======================+======================|
|   0  Tesla P100-PCIE...  On   | 00000000:00:04.0 Off |                    0 |
| N/A   33C    P0    27W / 250W |      0MiB / 16280MiB |      0%      Default |
+-------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                       GPU Memory |
|  GPU       PID   Type   Process name                             Usage      |
|=============================================================================|
|  No running processes found                                                 |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Windows Server

Connect to your Windows instance using RDP or a PCoIP client.
Right-click the desktop, and select NVIDIA Control Panel.
In the NVIDIA Control Panel, from the Help menu, select System Information. The information shows the GPU that the VM is using, and the driver version.

What's next?

Learn more about GPUs on Compute Engine.
To monitor GPU performance, see Monitoring GPU performance.
To handle GPU host maintenance, see Handling GPU host maintenance events.
To optimize GPU performance, see Optimizing GPU performance.