Windows Server 2012 with NVIDIA GRID GPU Driver
NVIDIA | 1.3Windows, Windows Server 2012 6.2 - 64-bit Amazon Machine Image (AMI)
Nice
The driver is not installed automatically, a bit less convenient.
The driver is not installed automatically, a bit less convenient.
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Having a large potential, but very inconvenient ...
This service gives computational power ranking with GeForce GTX 680 with low fee. But comsumers can't use CUDA under windows remote desktop enviroment.
Althoguh TeamViewer isn't a bad choice, critical problems remain accordint to my experience (There's no sound device, TeamViewer at the side of the server doesn't launch until windows remote desktop acceses to the server, etc...).
To grow a market of CUDA cloud application software, more easy, fast and robust way to access NVIDIA GRID is required, I think.
For example, nvidia's GRID test drive provides very nice user interface.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/trygrid.html
Product is OK; documentation is a bit lacking
GPUs don't show up under RDP! This should be front and center in every description of this product. The AMI does not come with a VNC server installed, which is an odd choice, because to do anything with the GPU you first have to install a VNC server, disconnect from RDP, and connect with VNC. Amazon: please just roll a VNC server into the AMI and clarify the documentation.
Interest and perspective but problematic
G2 instance is a great and probably best on-demand hour-rate GPU server offer on the market but it have two serious problems.
First of all, RDP instance access significally reduce all benefits that G2 instance offers. It is unable to start any application that uses GPU directly or through OpenGL/DirectX in RDP session. Setup VNC instance access is complicated.
TeamViewer mostly solves this problem but it has its own limitations.
And second there is a problem with running applications that based on shader model 3 or shader model 4. This applications succesfully run on GeForce GTX 6xx-like hardware (also with shader model 5.0) but crashes when running on G2 instance with "unable to obtain shader API access" reason.
All this makes G2 instance using problematic for us.
As described
It's just the stock Windows Server 2012 Base AMI with the latest NVIDIA GRID K520 drivers (Rel. 320.59).
You still have to install a VNC server (I used TightVNC) in order to get the video card working (even if you just want to run a CUDA app from the console), since RDP uses its own emulated video card with a standard video driver.
perfect when used with TeamViewer
Remoting GPU accelerated desktop from AWS instance:
using RDP at first to install TeamViewer inside the instance, and set it to start automatically ("Add this computer"). If you add the instance to your list of "Computers" in Teamviewer keychain, then you get notified when your VM desktop is up. A simple double click and you land directly on your AWS GPU accelerated desktop. You then have no worries with any of the RDP and VNC apps anymore, since they will be never used again. The nice thing is that the MAC address of the AWS instance does not change. So TeamViewer will always be available and working each time the instance starts up.
The whole experience then becomes really simple and seamless, and performs really well.
Boo.. Drivers do not work with remote desktop
What's the point when the main point of entry for Windows Server 12 on AWS is RDP. Having to run VNC or something else is a contortion, esp. when one doesn't want the instance running all the time.
I just don't get it.