This article lists the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) platforms supported by Citrix for use with HDX 3D Pro. The article intends to provide guidance for customers when choosing GPU hardware to be used for graphics acceleration with HDX 3D Pro. Deployment considerations for XenDesktop and XenApp workloads are also included, in the context of HDX 3D Pro.

Hardware Support

Citrix currently supports the following GPU platforms from the main hardware vendors. Specific GPUs tested by Citrix during the development of HDX 3D Pro are included in this list. Citrix recommends that customers become familiar with different GPU vendor technologies and choose a GPU that meets the technical requirements for the use-case.

• NVIDIA GRID
  • M6 / M10 / M60
  • P6 / P40 / P100
  • T4
• AMD RapidFire
  • FirePro S7150 / S7150x2
  • WX 4100
• Intel Iris Pro  
  • Intel Xeon Processor E3 v5 Family

Note: This is not an all-inclusive list of all the GPU hardware that can be used with HDX 3D Pro. This is just a list of the hardware that Citrix includes as part of engineering testing during product development. Refer to the GPU vendor website for additional GPU models supported under each platform.

Cloud deployment options

HDX 3D Pro is supported when running on GPU-enabled virtual machines available from the following Cloud providers:

• Microsoft Azure NV-Series
• Amazon AWS EC2 G3

Deployment Considerations

It is important to understand the different deployment options for using GPU hardware acceleration with XenDesktop and XenApp. The following list includes supported deployment options and key design considerations for each:

Virtual Desktops (Single session OS VDI)

HDX 3D Pro mode. Recommended for datacenter desktops with GPU hardware. This option is available with the Desktop OS VDA to leverage GPU vendor drivers and application program interfaces (APIs) for hardware rendering and graphics acceleration. There are two different ways to configure a virtual desktop with HDX 3D Pro depending on the product version used:

VDA versions 7.16 and newer

• VDA will detect the presence of supported GPU drivers automatically at runtime and leverage GPU for graphics rendering and acceleration if available. 

• Citrix optimizations can be enabled via Citrix policy “Optimize for 3D graphics workload.”
• Note: There is no special installation mode for HDX 3D Pro
• Refer to product documentation for additional information: GPU acceleration for Windows single-session OS

VDA version 7.15 LTSR

• HDX 3D Pro mode must be selected during installation of the VDA.
• Required in order to utilize GPU vendor drivers as well as enable Citrix optimizations for 3D graphics workloads.

HDX 3D Pro Support	NVIDIA	AMD	Intel
Display Driver	GRID	FirePro	Iris Pro
Operating Systems	Windows 7 (7.15 LTSR only) and Windows 10	Windows 7 (7.15 LTSR only) and Windows 10	Windows 10
Multi-monitor	Up to the number supported by GPU and license in use.	Up to 6	Up to 3 (tested with 7.6 – 7.15 LTSR) Up to 8 (tested with 7.16 – newer)
H.264 hardware encoding	GPUs must support NVENC hardware encoding. See NVIDIA video codec SDK for a list of supported GPUs.	*Pass-through only with select RapidFire compatible GPUs.	Intel Broadwell processor family and later required.   Intel Remote Displays SDK version 1.0 is required and can be downloaded from Intel website: Remote Displays SDK.
3D & Custom Driver extension APIs	DirectX, OpenGL, OpenCL, CUDA *May vary based on GPU vendor support

Standard mode. This is the default installation option with the Desktop OS VDA version 7.15 LTSR. Recommended for virtual desktops without GPU and RemotePC installations. This mode will install and use the Citrix Display Driver for rendering. Note that if a GPU is available, hardware acceleration for applications is still possible in standard mode with the following limitations:

• Windowed applications only, no full-screen application support.
• DirectX feature levels up to 9.3 with Windows 7. Some DirectX 10, 11, 12 applications may not run if they do not tolerate fallback to DirectX 9.
• DirectX 10, 11, and 12 with Windows 10 only.
• OpenGL application acceleration with NVIDIA GPUs only.
• No hardware encoding support.

Virtual Apps (XenApp)

Note that there is no HDX 3D Pro mode option available when installing the Multi-session OS VDA (Server OS). A specialized Citrix Driver for display remoting is used in all Windows Server OS installtions. GPU sharing and application graphics acceleration is supported on the Windows Server 2012, 2016, and 2019 operating systems, with the same limitations as listed under the Standard mode section above. Refer to product documentation for more information: GPU acceleration for Windows multi-session OS

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This article contains the list of Citrix tested hardware for HDX 3D Pro feature in XenDesktop.

For more details on supported Nvidia cards, Please refer: https://citrixready.citrix.com/nvidia.html