Cisco Cisco UCS C22 M3 Rack Server Libro bianco
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With the support of Horizon and the GRID vGPU, GPU deployment is becoming an increasingly popular and cost-
effective way to meet user and application requirements (Figure 7).
Figure 7. Virtual Desktop User Segmentation and Application
Difference Between Soft 3D, vSGA, vDGA, and vGPU
Table 4 summarizes the differences between Soft 3D, vSGA, vDGA, and vGPU graphics drivers.
Table 4.
Graphics Driver Comparison
Name
Definition
Description
Soft 3D
Software 3D renderer
Support for software-accelerated 3D graphics is provided through a VMware Microsoft
Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) 1.1
Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) 1.1
–compliant driver without the need to have any
physical GPUs installed in the ESXi host.
vSGA
Virtual shared graphics
acceleration
acceleration
Multiple virtual machines use physical GPUs installed locally in the ESXi hosts to provide
hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to multiple virtual desktops.
hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to multiple virtual desktops.
vDGA
Virtual dedicated graphics
acceleration
acceleration
Only one virtual machine is mapped to a single physical GPU installed in the ESXi host to
provide high-end, hardware-accelerated workstation graphics when a discrete GPU is
needed.
provide high-end, hardware-accelerated workstation graphics when a discrete GPU is
needed.
vGPU
Virtual graphics processing unit
Multiple virtual machines use physical GPUs installed locally in the ESXi hosts, and the
virtual machines or users share the GPU resources through a shared PCI mode profile
attached to the user to provide shared graphics.
virtual machines or users share the GPU resources through a shared PCI mode profile
attached to the user to provide shared graphics.
Soft 3D: Software-Based 3D Rendering
The Soft 3D renderer is based on a VMware WDDM 1.1
–compliant driver and is installed with VMware Tools on
Microsoft Windows 7 virtual desktops. Soft 3D differs from vSGA and vDGA in that it does not require any physical
GPUs to be installed in the ESXi host.
The VMware Soft 3D graphics driver provides support for DirectX 9.0c and OpenGL 2.1. The driver is supported on
Windows 7 for 2D and 3D graphics and is used for both Soft 3D and vSGA. vDGA configurations do not use the
VMware Soft 3D driver; instead, they use the native graphics-card driver installed directly in the guest OS.