Driver / Setup issue (Quadro NVS 295 + Tesla M2090)

Hello! I’m trying to get the generic VS2012 project (the one you get when you create a new Optix project) running on Windows 7. My machine has a dual graphics setup where a Quadro NVS 295 runs the dual monitors, and there is a separate Tesla M2090 for running compute jobs (no output to monitors).

I have been trying to use the following two drivers:

  • 334.95-quadro-tesla-grid-desktop-win8-win7-64bit-international-whql
  • 354.56-tesla-desktop-win8-win7-64bit-international-whql

With the former driver installed, my dual monitor setup works normally, but any call to rtContextCreate fails with an invalid context error.

With the latter driver installed, only one of my monitors functions, and everything is slower than normal, but rtContextCreate works! Then later it crashes on the call to rtContextLaunch2D with an optix::shared::InvalidValue error. If I look in device manager, the Quadro reports that it is not functioning properly when this driver is installed (both devices show as working when the Quadro driver installed).

In either case if I run sample3.exe that came with the SDK, it reports the Tesla as the only available device (with the Quadro driver installed it also fails to create a context).

In case it matters, I’m using OptiX SDK 3.8.0 and CUDA 7.5.

I assume my problem is that the drivers that make the Quadro work properly don’t support the Tesla and vice versa. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance!

Please read the matching OptiX Releases Notes before setting up a development environment.
In your case neither the 334.xx drivers nor the CUDA Toolkit 7.5 are supported by OptiX 3.8.0.

The GPU on your NVS 295 should be a G98 and that’s too old. OptiX 3.8.0 requires a Streaming Multiprocessor (SM) version 2.0 or better. Your Tesla M2090 is based on a Fermi GPU which fulfills that.

If you build OptiX 3.8.0 programs yourself, use the CUDA Toolkit 7.0.
The next upcoming OptiX version will have CUDA 7.5 support.

The driver which supports CUDA 7.0 or newer should resolve the invalid context error on the Tesla. But as you found, the GPU on your NVS 295 is not supported by the CUDA 7.0 drivers required to run OptiX 3.8.0 applications.

The newest Quadro NVS 295 drivers available on [url]Official Advanced Driver Search | NVIDIA are 341.92. If you look at the 354.56 drivers as a Quadro version, that lists under supported NVS only the newer NVS 510, NVS 315, NVS 310 products.

OK I saw that 7.5 wasn’t supported in another thread and went back to that, but thanks for letting me know about the 295! I guess it’s time to look for new hardware.