[rMBP] Nvidia 650M Driver for Paralells/Virtual Machine

[WillTC]

Hi there. I just installed Windows 7 32-bit with Parallels and tried downloading CPU-Z and GPU-Z. Apps that show information about the CPU/GPU. The CPU-Z displayed the info just fine. But GPU-Z didn't. No information was there.

So I was wondering, where I could get the correct drivers from? Any links would be HIGHLY appreciated.

Thanks,
Will

 

[NMF]

Windows on Parallels uses Parallels custom video driver (it has to). If you download an official nVidia driver it'll mess things up.

 

[WillTC]

Windows on Parallels uses Parallels custom video driver (it has to). If you download an official nVidia driver it'll mess things up.

Any idea how?

 

[NMF]

Any idea how?

Because it's a virtual machine that doesn't have direct access to your system's hardware. With Parallels, Windows isn't running like it does in bootcamp because you've already booted into OSX. Parallels creates what's called a "virtual machine," essentially creating a fake hardware back-end to run Windows inside of OSX itself (hence the need to use Parallels video drivers -- Parallels is essentially tricking Windows into thinking it has access to a video card). If you want to use the real video drivers from nVidia then bootcamp is the only method. If you want to use an emulated solution like Parallels, you have to use their custom drivers in order to virtualize the operating system. That's just the way it is.

 

[vanc]

Any idea how?

Install the "Parallels Guest Tools" and done. If you let the Parallel wizard doing the installation, it will install for you.

Most desktop/server CPUs produced the last 4 years (about) support hardware virtualization. Intel calls it VT-x. For virtual machines, they see almost the same CPU features as host. So CPU-Z works (almost) as expected. But for GPU, so far, there are no virtualization support yet. Virtual machine software have to simulate some generic graphics cards. So GPU-Z can not see the physical GPU.

 

[ayeying]

Install the "Parallels Guest Tools" and done. If you let the Parallel wizard doing the installation, it will install for you.

Most desktop/server CPUs produced the last 4 years (about) support hardware virtualization. Intel calls it VT-x. For virtual machines, they see almost the same CPU features as host. So CPU-Z works (almost) as expected. But for GPU, so far, there are no virtualization support yet. Virtual machine software have to simulate some generic graphics cards. So GPU-Z can not see the physical GPU.

Our CPUs also support VT-d which is a direct connection to the I/O, which can use the real graphics card and other items directly inside a virtual machine. Parallels' Workstation Extreme supports this but it is directed for very specific machines and hardware.

http://www.parallels.com/products/extreme/

The technology/software just isn't available for the average consumer yet.