Installing GPU drivers on Windows XP

[inghamio]

Hi All,

 

I have recently managed to get a Windows XP VM up and running using the advice from here:

 

One thing that I'd love to do is pass through the GPU hardware instead of using VNC. The GPU I have is a Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 and I have official xp drivers for it downloaded from Nvidia.

 

The problem is I am not sure how to install the GPU drivers. At the moment I can either connect via VNC, in which case the Nvidia installer complains that there is no hardware found. Or, I can attempt to connect with GPU passthrough enabled, but then I never see anything on the monitor and I am unable to get XP to login so that I can then RDP in so I can try to install the drivers.

 

Anyone have any ideas? Thanks

[Kilrah]

There are no official XP drivers for the 970, need to take the ones for the 960 and edit the files to add the 970's identifiers.

 

Not even sure passthrough is possible on XP though. 

Edited March 23, 2023 by Kilrah

[inghamio]

Ah, yes you are correct. I do have another GPU installed which is a GeForce GT 610. I think I can use these drivers for it: https://www.nvidia.co.uk/download/driverResults.aspx/105193/en-uk

 

If the hardware is compatible, is there a reason why passthrough wouldn't work if configured correctly?

 

Thanks

[Kilrah]

Believed there needed to be at least some support for that in the guest OS but it seems it should be possible:

 

 

But if passthrough works you should have basic output before the drivers are installed just like on a real machine, so it probably doesn't at this point.

Edited March 23, 2023 by Kilrah

[inghamio]

Yeah I'm not getting any output on the graphics card for this WinXP config on either card.

 

With my current XP config, I am finding that as soon as I switch the VM's graphics card from "Virtual" to either of the cards installed (and I am then also setting the soundcard to the relevant option), and then start the VM, nothing seems to work. If I switch the graphics card back to Virtual/VNC, it all starts working again. The network setup is the same in both scenarios, yet when using a virtual graphics card I am able to RDP to remote in (without touching VNC), but when using a real graphics card I cannot. So I'm guessing the OS isn't booting at all.

 

I'll update this post if I get any further... Thanks for your input.

[Darigaaz_Firekin]

I have this same issue on Unraid 6.11. Worked fine before upgrade from Unraid 5. I assume the changes made to either libvirt or qemu removed pass through for Windows XP.

[inghamio]

On 3/25/2023 at 7:40 AM, Darigaaz_Firekin said:

I have this same issue on Unraid 6.11. Worked fine before upgrade from Unraid 5. I assume the changes made to either libvirt or qemu removed pass through for Windows XP.

Interesting that it worked on Unraid 5 - I saw the other day that someone else had mentioned this on Youtube.

 

For now I am using legacy VMs just using VNC. I would like to get this working though, so I will update this thread if I come across any solutions!