Uncommon Nvidia Driver Problem

[FallenCube]

Hey all,

 

This is my first post so bear with me if I mess it up. My profile shows all the relevant system information to my pc, and this problem is kinda weird so I'm not actually expecting a solution lol.

 

So I have an RTX 2060 Super that I recently got and my older GPU was a GTX 960 4gb... I have a pretty niche use case where I work with Autodesk Revit a lot and also photoshop and indesign for my architecture work. I am also dedicating some of my system to a virtual machine that my friend uses from an hour away with a virtual desktop. He uses the virtual desktop directly to the VM so I can use the computer on the outside at the same time (He's doing work in python for research and I'm basically letting him use my pc which has more power than a rented server and is for free). I also occasionally game which is where the Nvidia driver comes in. I want to dedicate my GTX 960 to the virtual machine for him to use and then I can do my CAD work with the more powerful RTX 960 Super. Where I'm having trouble is switching between the game ready driver and the studio driver on my GeForce Experience app. It wont switch between GR and Studio drivers when I have these two different graphics cards installed but it switches no problem when I have just one installed. All drivers are up to date and don't seem to have any issues otherwise.

 

I fully expect someone to just come out and say "nope it wont work, go home GLHF" but if y'all can give me a tip, that would be greatly appreciated!

[Husky]

I'm not an expert on Nvidia stuff, mostly an AMD user here. However, can you not simply leave it on the Studio drivers? From what I understand, the Studio drivers are simply more tested and more stable than the Game Ready drivers. Unless you are playing some very new games that just came out extremely recently, you shouldn't have a problem using the Studio drivers. Otherwise, I have no clue what the issue could be if you really do need to use the Game Ready drivers.

[Moonzy]

are both gpu supported on both driver?

cant you game on the studio driver?

[FallenCube]

Yes both are supported on both but I cant switch between them. For instance if I uninstall every trace of GR driver, restart, and install Studio driver it will work. and then I can go back again. But it takes a lot of time and have to download the fairly large file every time.

 

I can game on studio driver but certain features like DLSS and ray tracing doesnt work for some games.

[GhostRoadieBL]

so what's happening is the Studio driver from Nvidia doesn't support cards under the 1000series, straight up not programmed to recognize the cards, Game Ready drivers go back to much older models which is why it recognizes the 960 without issues. 

 

the solution sucks, it's to run linux as the host and VM your windows environment with the 2060 and studio drivers, and a separate VM for your friend. windows doesn't allow you to segment off "installed hardware" to allow different drivers to be linked to each piece unfortunately, as long as windows/Nvidia can "see" both cards it won't work. 

[FallenCube]

1 minute ago, GhostRoadieBL said:

so what's happening is the Studio driver from Nvidia doesn't support cards under the 1000series, straight up not programmed to recognize the cards, Game Ready drivers go back to much older models which is why it recognizes the 960 without issues. 

 

the solution sucks, it's to run linux as the host and VM your windows environment with the 2060 and studio drivers, and a separate VM for your friend. windows doesn't allow you to segment off "installed hardware" to allow different drivers to be linked to each piece unfortunately, as long as windows/Nvidia can "see" both cards it won't work. 

Ah, makes sense! well thank you very much for the help! It seems my post about both working with both drivers was wrong. Thank you very much as well for the help with the VM problem too! To clarify, does linux allow you to segment off installed hardware to allow different drivers to each piece? (Which sounds like it would allow two separate VMs to run and allow me to get both to use both cards fully)

[GhostRoadieBL]

3 minutes ago, FallenCube said:

does linux allow you to segment off installed hardware to allow different drivers to each piece

as long as the VMs are setup to have the 2060S on one and the 960 on the other the system only allows the VM's OS to see the hardware you designate to it, they are completely isolated from each other. Your windows VM will let you switch between drivers for the 2060 and ignore the 960 as if it doesn't exist on your system because you have told the VM it can only see the 2060. 

it should be the same as what your friend see when remote accessing your system, the hardware and cores you allow them to use are all the hardware that VM's OS can "see"

 

in the linux host OS it is possible for both cards to run on separate drivers but the coding is well above my experience to point drivers at specific cards, VMs simplify this by being their own universes.