If an ESXi host has an NVIDIA GRID GPU graphics device, you can configure a virtual machine to use the NVIDIA GRID virtual GPU (vGPU) technology.

NVIDIA GRID GPU graphics devices are designed to optimize complex graphics operations and enable them to run at high performance without overloading the CPU. NVIDIA GRID vGPU provides unparalleled graphics performance, cost-effectiveness and scalability by sharing a single physical GPU among multiple virtual machines as separate vGPU-enabled passthrough devices.

Starting with vSphere 6.7 Update 3, you can add up to four NVIDIA GRID vGPUs to a virtual machine.

Prerequisites

  • Verify that an NVIDIA GRID GPU graphics device with an appropriate driver is installed on the host. See the vSphere Upgrade documentation.
  • Verify that the virtual machine is compatible with ESXi 6.0 and later.
  • To add multiple NVIDIA GRID vGPUs to a virtual machine:
    • Verify that the virtual machine is compatible with ESXi 6.7 Update 2 and later.
    • Use only NVIDIA vGPU profiles with a maximum frame buffer.
    • Only Q-series and C-series vGPU types are supported.

Procedure

  1. Right-click a virtual machine in the inventory and select Edit Settings.
  2. To add a shared PCI device to the virtual machine, on the Virtual Hardware tab, click the Add New Device button.
  3. Select Shared PCI Device from the drop-down menu.
  4. Expand the New PCI device, and select the NVIDIA GRID vGPU passthrough device to which to connect your virtual machine.
  5. Select a GPU profile.
    A GPU profile represents the vGPU type.
  6. Click Reserve all memory.
  7. Click OK.

Results

The virtual machine can access the device.