Display driver for Windows 7 running on KVM
 

Hi.

I have Windows 7 (32-bit) successfully running on KVM on Kubuntu 12.04. My question is, is there a way to use the driver for the graphics card in the host hardware?

To be more precise, my Linux is running on a Dell Precision workstation with an nVidia Quardo FX 1800 card. However, Windows 7 running on KVM says the driver is a standard VGA driver. As the result, I cannot use any of the Aero advanced effect.

If using the driver for the actual graphics card is not possible, would I at least be able to update the software driver that supports Aero?

TIA,
Dai

You may want to look at Spice, I haven't played with it myself but I've heard good things. It actually uses the graphics capabilities of the client not the host, but the point is to get a good experience.

Your other option is to install the Open VM tools package and change the guest video driver to vmvga, it's not high performance or 3d but it's better than vga

Thanks for the quick response.

I will first try the Open VM tools option. I'd assume the package is included in Ubuntu's standard repo. Am I correct?

Thanks again,
Dai

Generally a VM uses an emulated video card. Not sure if KVM yet could use a passthrough to the video or a second video card to use as native.

You may need to adjust some settings in the VM or provide a cirrus driver for your distro or see about setting up spice as suggested above.

Just an update, I've got Spice working for a Windows XP kvm guest this morning and it runs beautifully - viewing the console full screen you can't even tell it's not the host OS.

Moved: This thread is more suitable in the Virtualization forum and has been moved accordingly to help your thread get the exposure it deserves.