Installing Nvidia Drivers on a guest VM

fkasmani · 08-18-2013, 02:57 AM

Hello,

I have Linux Mint 15 as the Host OS and Win Vista as the guest through VirtualBox.

My PC has an Nvidia GT610 and when I try to install the drivers into the guest Vista, the Nvidia CD that came along with the card says there's no compatible hardware in my system.

Would really appreciate some help on this, pls.

Thanks in anticipation.

273 · 08-18-2013, 06:46 AM

The reason you get that message is that there is no compatible hardware on your system. The video card that Vista is using is the VirtualBox video adaptor which is a virtual device provided to guest OSs. The video drivers required for this are present in the guest extensions that can be installed from the menu of VirtualBox's window.

naitso · 08-18-2013, 06:46 AM

Hi, Virtualbox create a specific hardware and you must install guest add-on to install the correct driver for Vista VM. Virtualbox do not use the real hardware installed on your system

fkasmani · 08-18-2013, 02:24 PM

Thanks.

I've already installed guest add-on's; now do I need to get some nvidia add-ons?

273 · 08-18-2013, 02:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fkasmani

Thanks.

I've already installed guest add-on's; now do I need to get some nvidia add-ons?

No, the guest operating system (Windows in your case) does not see the NVIDIA hardware so does not need any drivers for it.

jefro · 08-19-2013, 02:21 PM

In only some of the most advanced VM's might you need any driver for the host video card.

A virtual machine is a software version of a single type of computer. It is independent from most of your hosts hardware. It has a software video card. As such, you support the software video card and not the hosts video card.

Mint may already have a virtual video card driver installed.

fkasmani · 08-20-2013, 02:51 AM

I'm looking at it this way:
I'm using linux Mint and at times need to use certain Windows software - for this, I'm going the VM way as opposed to dual-boot, but some of the Windows software may require the use of the PCI graphics card and that's the reason I actually bought an Nvidia card.
At the moment some Windows apps tell me I don't have the required graphics capabilities.

descendant_command · 08-20-2013, 05:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fkasmani

some of the Windows software may require the use of the PCI graphics card and that's the reason I actually bought an Nvidia card.
At the moment some Windows apps tell me I don't have the required graphics capabilities.

Then you will want to dual boot.
You cannot use the nvidia card from within thed VM.

aus9 · 08-20-2013, 08:53 AM

linux does have video drivers for nvidia, open src and closed

linux has wine which may allow certain ms software to be installed onto a linux OS.

Have you considered these options?

wine with open source nouveau
wine with closed source nvidia

fkasmani · 08-20-2013, 11:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aus9

linux does have video drivers for nvidia, open src and closed

yes, the Nvidia drivers are working fine in Linux, but how do I get them to work in the guestOS (Win7) - that's where I'm stuck.

273 · 08-20-2013, 01:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fkasmani

yes, the Nvidia drivers are working fine in Linux, but how do I get them to work in the guestOS (Win7) - that's where I'm stuck.

As descendant_command says, you can't. The OS inside a virtual machine has no idea of the real hardware on which it is run and only sees the virtual hardware given to it by the VM.
That is, at least, without playing with PCIE passthrough which I haven't read of anyone doing successfully yet:
http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch0...pcipassthrough
https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=46450

jefro · 08-20-2013, 02:51 PM

Some computers and some virtual machines are starting to be able to allow you to attach a pci card to the client directly. I'd guess that maybe a spare video card might be able to be attached but if you think about it, the primary video card is really using the host's OS directly. I doubt you could ever attach it to a client.

mostlyharmless · 10-04-2013, 11:22 AM

Not with virtualbox, but with Xen and a second card there are reports of success; eg
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopi...744210#p743979

John VV · 10-04-2013, 04:05 PM

for " some windows programs" you could use WINE , maybe
or dual boot depending on just what the program is
or xen
or i like KVM , but for that you NEED TWO 3d cards !!!!
one for the os hosting kvm and one FOR the virtual os

273 · 10-05-2013, 07:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mostlyharmless

Not with virtualbox, but with Xen and a second card there are reports of success; eg
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopi...744210#p743979

Thanks for that, if I upgrade my graphics card to something less puny I might keep the puny GT 640 in my second slot and try that.