# Installing Special Windows Drivers

#### Scenarios

Before using some types of ECSs to create private images, you need to install special drivers on the ECSs.

#### GPU Driver

If you want to use the created private image to create GPU-accelerated ECSs, install a proper GPU driver for the image to enable GPU acceleration. There are two types of NVIDIA Tesla GPU drivers for GPU-accelerated ECSs, Tesla and GRID/vGPU drivers.

- To use graphics acceleration, such as OpenGL, DirectX, or Vulcan, install the GRID/vGPU driver and separately configure a GRID license. The GRID/vGPU driver with a vDWS license also supports CUDA for both computing and graphics acceleration.
- To use NVIDIA CUDA computing acceleration, install the Tesla driver.

Table 1 Installing the GRID driver
ECS Type | How to Install the Driver
--- | ---
G1 | For details, see Downloading GRID Driver and Software License Packages in Installing a GRID Driver on a GPU-accelerated ECS.

G2

Log in at http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us. You are advised to select the latest CUDA Toolkit version.

NOTICE:

After the GPU driver is installed, run the following command to switch the GPU working mode and restart the ECS (for example, the GPU driver is installed in C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\NVSMI\nvidia-smi.exe):

"C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\NVSMI\nvidia-smi.exe" -dm 0

#### SR-IOV NIC Driver

If you want to use the created private image to create G2 ECSs, install the SR-IOV NIC driver for the image to improve performance and scalability.

To download the SR-IOV driver, log in at https://downloadcenter.intel.com/search?keyword=Intel++Ethernet+Connections+CD. You are advised to select version 20.4.1 or later.

If error "No Intel adapter found" occurs during the driver installation, refer to What Do I Do If a Windows 7 ECS Equipped with an Intel 82599 NIC Reports an Error in SR-IOV Scenarios? for troubleshooting.

Parent topic: Windows Operations