Install NVIDIA drivers on Windows instances

An instance with an attached NVIDIA GPU, such as a P3 or G4dn instance, must have the appropriate NVIDIA driver installed. Depending on the instance type, you can either download a public NVIDIA driver, download a driver from Amazon S3 that is available only to AWS customers, or use an AMI with the driver pre-installed.

To install AMD drivers on a Linux instance with an attached AMD GPU, such as a G4ad instance, see Install AMD drivers. To install NVIDIA drivers on a Windows instance, see Install NVIDIA drivers on Windows instances.To install NVIDIA drivers on a Linux instance, see Install NVIDIA drivers on a Linux instance.

Contents

• Types of NVIDIA drivers
• Available drivers by instance type
• Installation options
  • Option 1: AMIs with the NVIDIA drivers installed
  • Option 2: Public NVIDIA drivers
  • Option 3: GRID drivers (G6, Gr6, G5, G4dn, and G3 instances)
  • Option 4: NVIDIA gaming drivers (G5 and G4dn instances)
• Install an additional version of CUDA

Types of NVIDIA drivers

The following are the main types of NVIDIA drivers that can be used with GPU-based instances.

Tesla drivers

These drivers are intended primarily for compute workloads, which use GPUs for computational tasks such as parallelized floating-point calculations for machine learning and fast Fourier transforms for high performance computing applications.

GRID drivers

These drivers are certified to provide optimal performance for professional visualization applications that render content such as 3D models or high-resolution videos. You can configure GRID drivers to support two modes. Quadro Virtual Workstations provide access to four 4K displays per GPU. GRID vApps provide RDSH App hosting capabilities.

Gaming drivers

These drivers contain optimizations for gaming and are updated frequently to provide performance enhancements. They support a single 4K display per GPU.

Configured mode

On Windows, the Tesla drivers are configured to run in Tesla Compute Cluster (TCC) mode. The GRID and gaming drivers are configured to run in Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) mode. In TCC mode, the card is dedicated to compute workloads. In WDDM mode, the card supports both compute and graphics workloads.

NVIDIA control panel

The NVIDIA control panel is supported with GRID and Gaming drivers. It is not supported with Tesla drivers.

Supported APIs for Tesla, GRID, and gaming drivers

• OpenCL, OpenGL, and Vulkan

• NVIDIA CUDA and related libraries (for example, cuDNN, TensorRT, nvJPEG, and cuBLAS)

• NVENC for video encoding and NVDEC for video decoding

• Windows-only APIs: DirectX, Direct2D, DirectX Video Acceleration, DirectX Raytracing

Available drivers by instance type

The following table summarizes the supported NVIDIA drivers for each GPU instance type.

Instance type	Tesla driver	GRID driver	Gaming driver
G3	Yes	Yes	No
G4dn	Yes	Yes	Yes
G5	Yes	Yes	Yes
G6	Yes	Yes	No
Gr6	Yes	Yes	No
P2	Yes	No	No
P3	Yes	No	No

¹ This Tesla driver also supports optimized graphics applications specific to the ARM64 platform

Installation options

Use one of the following options to get the NVIDIA drivers required for your GPU instance.

Options

• Option 1: AMIs with the NVIDIA drivers installed
• Option 2: Public NVIDIA drivers
• Option 3: GRID drivers (G6, Gr6, G5, G4dn, and G3 instances)
• Option 4: NVIDIA gaming drivers (G5 and G4dn instances)

Option 1: AMIs with the NVIDIA drivers installed

AWS and NVIDIA offer different Amazon Machine Images (AMI) that come with the NVIDIA drivers installed.

• Marketplace offerings with the Tesla driver

• Marketplace offerings with the GRID driver

• Marketplace offerings with the Gaming driver

To review considerations that are dependent on your operating system (OS) platform, choose the tab that applies to your AMI.

Linux

To update the driver version installed using one of these AMIs, you must uninstall the NVIDIA packages from your instance to avoid version conflicts. Use this command to uninstall the NVIDIA packages:

The CUDA toolkit package has dependencies on the NVIDIA drivers. Uninstalling the NVIDIA packages erases the CUDA toolkit. You must reinstall the CUDA toolkit after installing the NVIDIA driver.

Windows

If you create a custom Windows AMI using one of the AWS Marketplace offerings, the AMI must be a standardized image created using Sysprep to ensure that the GRID driver works.

Option 2: Public NVIDIA drivers

The options offered by AWS come with the necessary license for the driver. Alternatively, you can install the public drivers and bring your own license. To install a public driver, download it from the NVIDIA site as described here.

Alternatively, you can use the options offered by AWS instead of the public drivers. To use a GRID driver on a P3 instance, use the AWS Marketplace AMIs as described in Option 1. To use a GRID driver on a G6, Gr6, G5, G4dn, or G3 instance, use the AWS Marketplace AMIs as described in Option 1 or install the NVIDIA drivers provided by AWS as described in Option 3: GRID drivers (G6, Gr6, G5, G4dn, and G3 instances).

To download a public NVIDIA driver

Log on to your Windows instance and download the 64-bit NVIDIA driver appropriate for the instance type from http://www.nvidia.com/Download/Find.aspx. For Product Type, Product Series, and Product, use the options in the following table.

Instance	Product Type	Product Series	Product
G3	Tesla	M-Class	M60
G4dn	Tesla	T-Series	T4
G5 ¹	Tesla	A-Series	A10
G6 ³	Tesla	L-Series	L4
Gr6 ³	Tesla	L-Series	L4
P2	Tesla	K-Series	K80
P3	Tesla	V-Series	V100
P54	Tesla	H-Series	H100

¹ G5 instances require driver version 470.00 or later

² G5g instances require driver version 470.82.01 or later. The operating systems is Linux aarch64

³ G6 and Gr6 instances require driver version 525.0 or later.

⁴ P5 instances require driver version 530 or later.

To install the NVIDIA driver on Windows

1. Open the folder where you downloaded the driver and launch the installation file. Follow the instructions to install the driver and reboot your instance as required.

2. Disable the display adapter named Microsoft Basic Display Adapter that is marked with a warning icon using Device Manager. Install these Windows features: Media Foundation and Quality Windows Audio Video Experience.

   Important

   Don't disable the display adapter named Microsoft Remote Display Adapter. If Microsoft Remote Display Adapter is disabled your connection might be interrupted and attempts to connect to the instance after it has rebooted might fail.

3. Check Device Manager to verify that the GPU is working correctly.

4. To achieve the best performance from your GPU, complete the optimization steps in Optimize GPU settings on Amazon EC2 instances.

Option 3: GRID drivers (G6, Gr6, G5, G4dn, and G3 instances)

These downloads are available to AWS customers only. By downloading, in order to adhere to requirements of the AWS solution referred to in the NVIDIA GRID Cloud End User License Agreement (EULA), you agree to use the downloaded software only to develop AMIs for use with the NVIDIA L4, NVIDIA A10G, NVIDIA Tesla T4, or NVIDIA Tesla M60 hardware. Upon installation of the software, you are bound by the terms of the NVIDIA GRID Cloud End User License Agreement. For information about the version of the NVIDIA GRID driver for your operating system, see the NVIDIA® Virtual GPU (vGPU) Software Documentation on the NVIDIA website.

Considerations

• G6 and Gr6 instances require GRID 17 or later.

• G5 instances require GRID 13.1 or later (or GRID 12.4 or later).

• G3 instances require AWS provided DNS resolution for GRID licensing to work.

• IMDSv2 is only supported with NVIDIA driver version 14.0 or greater.

• For Windows instances, if you launch your instance from a custom Windows AMI, the AMI must be a standardized image created using Sysprep to ensure that the GRID driver works.

• NVIDIA GRID driver releases 17.0 and later do not support Windows Server 2019.

• NVIDIA GRID driver releases 14.2 and later do not support Windows Server 2016.

Amazon Linux and Amazon Linux 2

To install the NVIDIA GRID driver on your instance

1. Connect to your Linux instance.

2. Install the AWS CLI on your Linux instance and configure default credentials. For more information, see Installing the AWS CLI in the AWS Command Line Interface User Guide.

   Important

   Your user or role must have the permissions granted that contains the AmazonS3ReadOnlyAccess policy. For more information, see AWS managed policy: AmazonS3ReadOnlyAccess in the Amazon Simple Storage Service User Guide.

3. Install gcc and make, if they are not already installed.

   [ec2-user ~]$ sudo yum install gcc make

4. Update your package cache and get the package updates for your instance.

   [ec2-user ~]$ sudo yum update -y

5. Reboot your instance to load the latest kernel version.

   [ec2-user ~]$ sudo reboot

6. Reconnect to your instance after it has rebooted.

7. Install the gcc compiler and the kernel headers package for the version of the kernel you are currently running.

   [ec2-user ~]$ sudo yum install -y gcc kernel-devel-$(uname -r)

8. Download the GRID driver installation utility using the following command:

   [ec2-user ~]$ aws s3 cp --recursive s3://ec2-linux-nvidia-drivers/latest/ .

   Multiple versions of the GRID driver are stored in this bucket. You can see all of the available versions using the following command.

   [ec2-user ~]$ aws s3 ls --recursive s3://ec2-linux-nvidia-drivers/

9. Add permissions to run the driver installation utility using the following command.

   [ec2-user ~]$ chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64*.run

10. Run the self-install script as follows to install the GRID driver that you downloaded. For example:

    [ec2-user ~]$ sudo /bin/sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64*.run

    Note

    If you are using Amazon Linux 2 with kernel version 5.10, use the following command to install the GRID driver.

    [ec2-user ~]$ sudo CC=/usr/bin/gcc10-cc ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64*.run

    When prompted, accept the license agreement and specify the installation options as required (you can accept the default options).

11. Confirm that the driver is functional. The response for the following command lists the installed version of the NVIDIA driver and details about the GPUs.

    [ec2-user ~]$ nvidia-smi -q | head

12. If you are using NVIDIA vGPU software version 14.x or greater on the G4dn, G5, or G5g instances, disable GSP with the following commands. For more information, on why this is required visit NVIDIA’s documentation.

    [ec2-user ~]$ sudo touch /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf

    [ec2-user ~]$ echo "options nvidia NVreg_EnableGpuFirmware=0" | sudo tee --append /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf

13. Reboot the instance.

    [ec2-user ~]$ sudo reboot

14. (Optional) Depending on your use case, you might complete the following optional steps. If you do not require this functionality, do not complete these steps.

    1. To help take advantage of the four displays of up to 4K resolution, set up the high-performance display protocol NICE DCV.

    2. NVIDIA Quadro Virtual Workstation mode is enabled by default. To activate GRID Virtual Applications for RDSH Application hosting capabilities, complete the GRID Virtual Application activation steps in Activate NVIDIA GRID Virtual Applications on your Amazon EC2 GPU-based instances.

CentOS 7 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7

To install the NVIDIA GRID driver on your instance

1. Connect to your Linux instance. Install gcc and make, if they are not already installed.

2. Update your package cache and get the package updates for your instance.

   [ec2-user ~]$ sudo yum update -y

3. Reboot your instance to load the latest kernel version.

   [ec2-user ~]$ sudo reboot

4. Reconnect to your instance after it has rebooted.

5. Install the gcc compiler and the kernel headers package for the version of the kernel you are currently running.

   [ec2-user ~]$ sudo yum install -y gcc kernel-devel-$(uname -r)

6. Disable the nouveau open source driver for NVIDIA graphics cards.

   1. Add nouveau to the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf blacklist file. Copy the following code block and paste it into a terminal.

      [ec2-user ~]$ cat << EOF | sudo tee --append /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
      blacklist vga16fb
      blacklist nouveau
      blacklist rivafb
      blacklist nvidiafb
      blacklist rivatv
      EOF

   2. Edit the /etc/default/grub file and add the following line:

      GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="rdblacklist=nouveau"

   3. Rebuild the Grub configuration.

      [ec2-user ~]$ sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

7. Download the GRID driver installation utility using the following command:

   [ec2-user ~]$ aws s3 cp --recursive s3://ec2-linux-nvidia-drivers/latest/ .

   Multiple versions of the GRID driver are stored in this bucket. You can see all of the available versions using the following command.

   [ec2-user ~]$ aws s3 ls --recursive s3://ec2-linux-nvidia-drivers/

8. Add permissions to run the driver installation utility using the following command.

   [ec2-user ~]$ chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64*.run

9. Run the self-install script as follows to install the GRID driver that you downloaded. For example:

   [ec2-user ~]$ sudo /bin/sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64*.run

   When prompted, accept the license agreement and specify the installation options as required (you can accept the default options).

10. Confirm that the driver is functional. The response for the following command lists the installed version of the NVIDIA driver and details about the GPUs.

    [ec2-user ~]$ nvidia-smi -q | head

11. If you are using NVIDIA vGPU software version 14.x or greater on the G4dn, G5, or G5g instances, disable GSP with the following commands. For more information, on why this is required visit NVIDIA’s documentation.

    [ec2-user ~]$ sudo touch /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf

    [ec2-user ~]$ echo "options nvidia NVreg_EnableGpuFirmware=0" | sudo tee --append /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf

12. Reboot the instance.

    [ec2-user ~]$ sudo reboot

13. (Optional) Depending on your use case, you might complete the following optional steps. If you do not require this functionality, do not complete these steps.

    1. To help take advantage of the four displays of up to 4K resolution, set up the high-performance display protocol NICE DCV.

    2. NVIDIA Quadro Virtual Workstation mode is enabled by default. To activate GRID Virtual Applications for RDSH Application hosting capabilities, complete the GRID Virtual Application activation steps in Activate NVIDIA GRID Virtual Applications on your Amazon EC2 GPU-based instances.

    3. Install the GUI desktop/workstation package.

       [ec2-user ~]$ sudo yum groupinstall -y "Server with GUI"

CentOS Stream 8 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8

To install the NVIDIA GRID driver on your instance

1. Connect to your Linux instance. Install gcc and make, if they are not already installed.

2. Update your package cache and get the package updates for your instance.

   [ec2-user ~]$ sudo yum update -y

3. Reboot your instance to load the latest kernel version.

   [ec2-user ~]$ sudo reboot

4. Reconnect to your instance after it has rebooted.

5. Install the gcc compiler and the kernel headers package for the version of the kernel you are currently running.

   [ec2-user ~]$ sudo dnf install -y make gcc elfutils-libelf-devel libglvnd-devel kernel-devel-$(uname -r)

6. Download the GRID driver installation utility using the following command:

   [ec2-user ~]$ aws s3 cp --recursive s3://ec2-linux-nvidia-drivers/latest/ .

   Multiple versions of the GRID driver are stored in this bucket. You can see all of the available versions using the following command.

   [ec2-user ~]$ aws s3 ls --recursive s3://ec2-linux-nvidia-drivers/

7. Add permissions to run the driver installation utility using the following command.

   [ec2-user ~]$ chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64*.run

8. Run the self-install script as follows to install the GRID driver that you downloaded. For example:

   [ec2-user ~]$ sudo /bin/sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64*.run

   When prompted, accept the license agreement and specify the installation options as required (you can accept the default options).

9. Confirm that the driver is functional. The response for the following command lists the installed version of the NVIDIA driver and details about the GPUs.

   [ec2-user ~]$ nvidia-smi -q | head

10. If you are using NVIDIA vGPU software version 14.x or greater on the G4dn, G5, or G5g instances, disable GSP with the following commands. For more information, on why this is required visit NVIDIA’s documentation.

    [ec2-user ~]$ sudo touch /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf

    [ec2-user ~]$ echo "options nvidia NVreg_EnableGpuFirmware=0" | sudo tee --append /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf

11. Reboot the instance.

    [ec2-user ~]$ sudo reboot

12. (Optional) Depending on your use case, you might complete the following optional steps. If you do not require this functionality, do not complete these steps.

    1. To help take advantage of the four displays of up to 4K resolution, set up the high-performance display protocol NICE DCV.

    2. NVIDIA Quadro Virtual Workstation mode is enabled by default. To activate GRID Virtual Applications for RDSH Application hosting capabilities, complete the GRID Virtual Application activation steps in Activate NVIDIA GRID Virtual Applications on your Amazon EC2 GPU-based instances.

    3. Install the GUI workstation package.

       [ec2-user ~]$ sudo dnf groupinstall -y workstation

Rocky Linux 8

Ubuntu and Debian

To install the NVIDIA GRID driver on your instance

1. Connect to your Linux instance. Install gcc and make, if they are not already installed.

2. Update your package cache and get the package updates for your instance.

   $ sudo apt-get update -y

3. (Ubuntu) Upgrade the linux-aws package to receive the latest version.

   $ sudo apt-get upgrade -y linux-aws

   (Debian) Upgrade package to receive the latest version.

   $ sudo apt-get upgrade -y

4. Reboot your instance to load the latest kernel version.

   $ sudo reboot

5. Reconnect to your instance after it has rebooted.

6. Install the gcc compiler and the kernel headers package for the version of the kernel you are currently running.

   $ sudo apt-get install -y gcc make linux-headers-$(uname -r)

7. Disable the nouveau open source driver for NVIDIA graphics cards.

   1. Add nouveau to the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf blacklist file. Copy the following code block and paste it into a terminal.

      $ cat << EOF | sudo tee --append /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
      blacklist vga16fb
      blacklist nouveau
      blacklist rivafb
      blacklist nvidiafb
      blacklist rivatv
      EOF

   2. Edit the /etc/default/grub file and add the following line:

      GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="rdblacklist=nouveau"

   3. Rebuild the Grub configuration.

      $ sudo update-grub

8. Download the GRID driver installation utility using the following command:

   $ aws s3 cp --recursive s3://ec2-linux-nvidia-drivers/latest/ .

   Multiple versions of the GRID driver are stored in this bucket. You can see all of the available versions using the following command.

   $ aws s3 ls --recursive s3://ec2-linux-nvidia-drivers/

9. Add permissions to run the driver installation utility using the following command.

   $ chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64*.run

10. Run the self-install script as follows to install the GRID driver that you downloaded. For example:

    $ sudo /bin/sh ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64*.run

    When prompted, accept the license agreement and specify the installation options as required (you can accept the default options).

11. Confirm that the driver is functional. The response for the following command lists the installed version of the NVIDIA driver and details about the GPUs.

    $ nvidia-smi -q | head

12. If you are using NVIDIA vGPU software version 14.x or greater on the G4dn, G5, or G5g instances, disable GSP with the following commands. For more information, on why this is required visit NVIDIA’s documentation.

    $ sudo touch /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf

    $ echo "options nvidia NVreg_EnableGpuFirmware=0" | sudo tee --append /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf

13. Reboot the instance.

    $ sudo reboot

14. (Optional) Depending on your use case, you might complete the following optional steps. If you do not require this functionality, do not complete these steps.

    1. To help take advantage of the four displays of up to 4K resolution, set up the high-performance display protocol NICE DCV.

    2. NVIDIA Quadro Virtual Workstation mode is enabled by default. To activate GRID Virtual Applications for RDSH Application hosting capabilities, complete the GRID Virtual Application activation steps in Activate NVIDIA GRID Virtual Applications on your Amazon EC2 GPU-based instances.

    3. Install the GUI desktop/workstation package.

       $ sudo apt-get install -y lightdm ubuntu-desktop

Windows operating systems

To install the NVIDIA GRID driver on your Windows instance

1. Connect to your Windows instance and open a PowerShell window.

2. Configure default credentials for the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell on your Windows instance. For more information, see Getting Started with the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell in the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell User Guide.

   Important

   Your user or role must have the permissions granted that contains the AmazonS3ReadOnlyAccess policy. For more information, see AWS managed policy: AmazonS3ReadOnlyAccess in the Amazon Simple Storage Service User Guide.

3. Download the drivers and the NVIDIA GRID Cloud End User License Agreement from Amazon S3 to your desktop using the following PowerShell commands.

   $Bucket = "ec2-windows-nvidia-drivers"
   $KeyPrefix = "latest"
   $LocalPath = "$home\Desktop\NVIDIA"
   $Objects = Get-S3Object -BucketName $Bucket -KeyPrefix $KeyPrefix -Region us-east-1
   foreach ($Object in $Objects) {
       $LocalFileName = $Object.Key
       if ($LocalFileName -ne '' -and $Object.Size -ne 0) {
           $LocalFilePath = Join-Path $LocalPath $LocalFileName
           Copy-S3Object -BucketName $Bucket -Key $Object.Key -LocalFile $LocalFilePath -Region us-east-1
       }
   }

   Multiple versions of the NVIDIA GRID driver are stored in this bucket. You can download all of the available Windows versions in the bucket by removing the -KeyPrefix $KeyPrefix option. For information about the version of the NVIDIA GRID driver for your operating system, see the NVIDIA® Virtual GPU (vGPU) Software Documentation on the NVIDIA website.

   Starting with GRID version 11.0, you can use the drivers under latest for both G3 and G4dn instances. We will not add versions later than 11.0 to g4/latest, but will keep version 11.0 and the earlier versions specific to G4dn under g4/latest.

   G5 instances require GRID 13.1 or later (or GRID 12.4 or later).

4. Navigate to the desktop and double-click the installation file to launch it (choose the driver version that corresponds to your instance OS version). Follow the instructions to install the driver and reboot your instance as required. To verify that the GPU is working properly, check Device Manager.

5. (Optional) Use the following command to disable the licensing page in the control panel to prevent users from accidentally changing the product type (NVIDIA GRID Virtual Workstation is enabled by default). For more information, see the GRID Licensing User Guide.

   PowerShell

   Run the following PowerShell commands to create the registry value to disable the licensing page in the control panel. The AWS Tools for PowerShell in AWS Windows AMIs defaults to the 32-bit version and this command fails. Instead, use the 64-bit version of PowerShell included with the operating system.

   New-Item -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global" -Name GridLicensing
   New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\GridLicensing" -Name "NvCplDisableManageLicensePage" -PropertyType "DWord" -Value "1"

   Command Prompt

   Run the following registry command to create the registry value to disable the licensing page in the control panel. You can run it using the Command Prompt window or a 64-bit version of PowerShell.

   reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global\GridLicensing" /v NvCplDisableManageLicensePage /t REG_DWORD /d 1

6. (Optional) Depending on your use case, you might complete the following optional steps. If you do not require this functionality, do not complete these steps.

   1. To help take advantage of the four displays of up to 4K resolution, set up the high-performance display protocol, NICE DCV.

   2. NVIDIA Quadro Virtual Workstation mode is enabled by default. To activate GRID Virtual Applications for RDSH Application hosting capabilities, complete the GRID Virtual Application activation steps in Activate NVIDIA GRID Virtual Applications on your Amazon EC2 GPU-based instances.

Option 4: NVIDIA gaming drivers (G5 and G4dn instances)

These drivers are available to AWS customers only. By downloading them, you agree to use the downloaded software only to develop AMIs for use with the NVIDIA A10G, and NVIDIA Tesla T4 hardware. Upon installation of the software, you are bound by the terms of the NVIDIA GRID Cloud End User License Agreement.

Considerations

• G3 instances require AWS provided DNS resolution for GRID licensing to work.

• IMDSv2 is only supported with NVIDIA driver version 495.x or greater.

Amazon Linux and Amazon Linux 2

To install the NVIDIA gaming driver on your instance

1. Connect to your Linux instance.

2. Install the AWS CLI on your Linux instance and configure default credentials. For more information, see Installing the AWS CLI in the AWS Command Line Interface User Guide.

   Important

   Your user or role must have the permissions granted that contains the AmazonS3ReadOnlyAccess policy. For more information, see AWS managed policy: AmazonS3ReadOnlyAccess in the Amazon Simple Storage Service User Guide.

3. Install gcc and make, if they are not already installed.

   [ec2-user ~]$ sudo yum install gcc make

4. Update your package cache and get the package updates for your instance.

   [ec2-user ~]$ sudo yum update -y

5. Reboot your instance to load the latest kernel version.

   [ec2-user ~]$ sudo reboot

6. Reconnect to your instance after it has rebooted.

7. Install the gcc compiler and the kernel headers package for the version of the kernel you are currently running.

   [ec2-user ~]$ sudo yum install -y gcc kernel-devel-$(uname -r)

8. Download the gaming driver installation utility using the following command:

   [ec2-user ~]$ aws s3 cp --recursive s3://nvidia-gaming/linux/latest/ .

   Multiple versions of the gaming driver are stored in this bucket. You can see all of the available versions using the following command:

   [ec2-user ~]$ aws s3 ls --recursive s3://nvidia-gaming/linux/

9. Extract the gaming driver installation utility from the downloaded .zip archive.

   [ec2-user ~]$ unzip latest-driver-name.zip -d nvidia-drivers

10. Add permissions to run the driver installation utility using the following command:

    [ec2-user ~]$ chmod +x nvidia-drivers/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64*-grid.run

11. Run the installer using the following command:

    [ec2-user ~]$ sudo ./nvidia-drivers/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64*.run

    Note

    If you are using Amazon Linux 2 with kernel version 5.10, use the following command to install the NVIDIA gaming drivers.

    [ec2-user ~]$ sudo CC=/usr/bin/gcc10-cc ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64*.run

    When prompted, accept the license agreement and specify the installation options as required (you can accept the default options).

12. Use the following command to create the required configuration file.

    [ec2-user ~]$ cat << EOF | sudo tee -a /etc/nvidia/gridd.conf
    vGamingMarketplace=2
    EOF

13. Use the following command to download and rename the certification file.

    • For version 460.39 or later:

      [ec2-user ~]$ sudo curl -o /etc/nvidia/GridSwCert.txt "https://nvidia-gaming.s3.amazonaws.com/GridSwCert-Archive/GridSwCertLinux_2023_9_22.cert"

    • For version 440.68 to 445.48:

      [ec2-user ~]$ sudo curl -o /etc/nvidia/GridSwCert.txt "https://nvidia-gaming.s3.amazonaws.com/GridSwCert-Archive/GridSwCert-Linux_2020_04.cert"

    • For earlier versions:

      [ec2-user ~]$ sudo curl -o /etc/nvidia/GridSwCert.txt "https://nvidia-gaming.s3.amazonaws.com/GridSwCert-Archive/GridSwCert-Linux_2019_09.cert"

14. If you are using NVIDIA driver version 510.x or greater on the G4dn, G5, or G5g instances, disable GSP with the following commands. For more information, on why this is required visit NVIDIA’s documentation.

    [ec2-user ~]$ sudo touch /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf

    [ec2-user ~]$ echo "options nvidia NVreg_EnableGpuFirmware=0" | sudo tee --append /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf

15. Reboot the instance.

    [ec2-user ~]$ sudo reboot

16. (Optional) To help take advantage of a single display of up to 4K resolution, set up the high-performance display protocol NICE DCV.

CentOS 7 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7

To install the NVIDIA gaming driver on your instance

1. Connect to your Linux instance. Install gcc and make, if they are not already installed.

2. Update your package cache and get the package updates for your instance.

   [ec2-user ~]$ sudo yum update -y

3. Reboot your instance to load the latest kernel version.

   [ec2-user ~]$ sudo reboot

4. Reconnect to your instance after it has rebooted.

5. Install the gcc compiler and the kernel headers package for the version of the kernel you are currently running.

   [ec2-user ~]$ sudo yum install -y unzip gcc kernel-devel-$(uname -r)

6. Disable the nouveau open source driver for NVIDIA graphics cards.

   1. Add nouveau to the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf blacklist file. Copy the following code block and paste it into a terminal.

      [ec2-user ~]$ cat << EOF | sudo tee --append /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
      blacklist vga16fb
      blacklist nouveau
      blacklist rivafb
      blacklist nvidiafb
      blacklist rivatv
      EOF

   2. Edit the /etc/default/grub file and add the following line:

      GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="rdblacklist=nouveau"

   3. Rebuild the Grub configuration.

      [ec2-user ~]$ sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

7. Download the gaming driver installation utility using the following command:

   [ec2-user ~]$ aws s3 cp --recursive s3://nvidia-gaming/linux/latest/ .

   Multiple versions of the gaming driver are stored in this bucket. You can see all of the available versions using the following command:

   [ec2-user ~]$ aws s3 ls --recursive s3://nvidia-gaming/linux/

8. Extract the gaming driver installation utility from the downloaded .zip archive.

   [ec2-user ~]$ unzip vGPUSW-*vGaming-Linux-Guest-Drivers.zip -d nvidia-drivers

9. Add permissions to run the driver installation utility using the following command:

   [ec2-user ~]$ chmod +x nvidia-drivers/Linux/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64*-grid.run

10. Run the installer using the following command:

    [ec2-user ~]$ sudo ./nvidia-drivers/Linux/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64*.run

    When prompted, accept the license agreement and specify the installation options as required (you can accept the default options).

11. Use the following command to create the required configuration file.

    [ec2-user ~]$ cat << EOF | sudo tee -a /etc/nvidia/gridd.conf
    vGamingMarketplace=2
    EOF

12. Use the following command to download and rename the certification file.

    • For version 460.39 or later:

      [ec2-user ~]$ sudo curl -o /etc/nvidia/GridSwCert.txt "https://nvidia-gaming.s3.amazonaws.com/GridSwCert-Archive/GridSwCertLinux_2023_9_22.cert"

    • For version 440.68 to 445.48:

      [ec2-user ~]$ sudo curl -o /etc/nvidia/GridSwCert.txt "https://nvidia-gaming.s3.amazonaws.com/GridSwCert-Archive/GridSwCert-Linux_2020_04.cert"

    • For earlier versions:

      [ec2-user ~]$ sudo curl -o /etc/nvidia/GridSwCert.txt "https://nvidia-gaming.s3.amazonaws.com/GridSwCert-Archive/GridSwCert-Linux_2019_09.cert"

13. If you are using NVIDIA driver version 510.x or greater on the G4dn, G5, or G5g instances, disable GSP with the following commands. For more information, on why this is required visit NVIDIA’s documentation.

    [ec2-user ~]$ sudo touch /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf

    [ec2-user ~]$ echo "options nvidia NVreg_EnableGpuFirmware=0" | sudo tee --append /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf

14. Reboot the instance.

    [ec2-user ~]$ sudo reboot

15. (Optional) To help take advantage of a single display of up to 4K resolution, set up the high-performance display protocol NICE DCV. If you do not require this functionality, do not complete this step.

CentOS Stream 8 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8

To install the NVIDIA gaming driver on your instance

1. Connect to your Linux instance. Install gcc and make, if they are not already installed.

2. Update your package cache and get the package updates for your instance.

   [ec2-user ~]$ sudo yum update -y

3. Reboot your instance to load the latest kernel version.

   [ec2-user ~]$ sudo reboot

4. Reconnect to your instance after it has rebooted.

5. Install the gcc compiler and the kernel headers package for the version of the kernel you are currently running.

   [ec2-user ~]$ sudo yum install -y unzip gcc kernel-devel-$(uname -r)

6. Download the gaming driver installation utility using the following command:

   [ec2-user ~]$ aws s3 cp --recursive s3://nvidia-gaming/linux/latest/ .

   Multiple versions of the gaming driver are stored in this bucket. You can see all of the available versions using the following command:

   [ec2-user ~]$ aws s3 ls --recursive s3://nvidia-gaming/linux/

7. Extract the gaming driver installation utility from the downloaded .zip archive.

   [ec2-user ~]$ unzip vGPUSW-*vGaming-Linux-Guest-Drivers.zip -d nvidia-drivers

8. Add permissions to run the driver installation utility using the following command:

   [ec2-user ~]$ chmod +x nvidia-drivers/Linux/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64*-grid.run

9. Run the installer using the following command:

   [ec2-user ~]$ sudo ./nvidia-drivers/Linux/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64*.run

   When prompted, accept the license agreement and specify the installation options as required (you can accept the default options).

10. Use the following command to create the required configuration file.

    [ec2-user ~]$ cat << EOF | sudo tee -a /etc/nvidia/gridd.conf
    vGamingMarketplace=2
    EOF

11. Use the following command to download and rename the certification file.

    • For version 460.39 or later:

      [ec2-user ~]$ sudo curl -o /etc/nvidia/GridSwCert.txt "https://nvidia-gaming.s3.amazonaws.com/GridSwCert-Archive/GridSwCertLinux_2023_9_22.cert"

    • For version 440.68 to 445.48:

      [ec2-user ~]$ sudo curl -o /etc/nvidia/GridSwCert.txt "https://nvidia-gaming.s3.amazonaws.com/GridSwCert-Archive/GridSwCert-Linux_2020_04.cert"

    • For earlier versions:

      [ec2-user ~]$ sudo curl -o /etc/nvidia/GridSwCert.txt "https://nvidia-gaming.s3.amazonaws.com/GridSwCert-Archive/GridSwCert-Linux_2019_09.cert"

12. If you are using NVIDIA driver version 510.x or greater on the G4dn, G5, or G5g instances, disable GSP with the following commands. For more information, on why this is required visit NVIDIA’s documentation.

    [ec2-user ~]$ sudo touch /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf

    [ec2-user ~]$ echo "options nvidia NVreg_EnableGpuFirmware=0" | sudo tee --append /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf

13. Reboot the instance.

    [ec2-user ~]$ sudo reboot

14. (Optional) To help take advantage of a single display of up to 4K resolution, set up the high-performance display protocol NICE DCV.

Rocky Linux 8

To install the NVIDIA gaming driver on your instance

1. Connect to your Linux instance. Install gcc and make, if they are not already installed.

2. Update your package cache and get the package updates for your instance.

   [ec2-user ~]$ sudo yum update -y

3. Reboot your instance to load the latest kernel version.

   [ec2-user ~]$ sudo reboot

4. Reconnect to your instance after it has rebooted.

5. Install the gcc compiler and the kernel headers package for the version of the kernel you are currently running.

   [ec2-user ~]$ sudo dnf install -y unzip gcc make elfutils-libelf-devel libglvnd-devel kernel-devel-$(uname -r)

6. Download the gaming driver installation utility using the following command:

   [ec2-user ~]$ aws s3 cp --recursive s3://nvidia-gaming/linux/latest/ .

   Multiple versions of the gaming driver are stored in this bucket. You can see all of the available versions using the following command:

   [ec2-user ~]$ aws s3 ls --recursive s3://nvidia-gaming/linux/

7. Extract the gaming driver installation utility from the downloaded .zip archive.

   [ec2-user ~]$ unzip vGPUSW-*vGaming-Linux-Guest-Drivers.zip -d nvidia-drivers

8. Add permissions to run the driver installation utility using the following command:

   [ec2-user ~]$ chmod +x nvidia-drivers/Linux/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64*-grid.run

9. Run the installer using the following command:

   [ec2-user ~]$ sudo ./nvidia-drivers/Linux/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64*.run

   When prompted, accept the license agreement and specify the installation options as required (you can accept the default options).

10. Use the following command to create the required configuration file.

    [ec2-user ~]$ cat << EOF | sudo tee -a /etc/nvidia/gridd.conf
    vGamingMarketplace=2
    EOF

11. Use the following command to download and rename the certification file.

    • For version 460.39 or later:

      [ec2-user ~]$ sudo curl -o /etc/nvidia/GridSwCert.txt "https://nvidia-gaming.s3.amazonaws.com/GridSwCert-Archive/GridSwCertLinux_2023_9_22.cert"

    • For version 440.68 to 445.48:

      [ec2-user ~]$ sudo curl -o /etc/nvidia/GridSwCert.txt "https://nvidia-gaming.s3.amazonaws.com/GridSwCert-Archive/GridSwCert-Linux_2020_04.cert"

    • For earlier versions:

      [ec2-user ~]$ sudo curl -o /etc/nvidia/GridSwCert.txt "https://nvidia-gaming.s3.amazonaws.com/GridSwCert-Archive/GridSwCert-Linux_2019_09.cert"

12. If you are using NVIDIA driver version 510.x or greater on the G4dn, G5, or G5g instances, disable GSP with the following commands. For more information, on why this is required visit NVIDIA’s documentation.

    [ec2-user ~]$ sudo touch /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf

    [ec2-user ~]$ echo "options nvidia NVreg_EnableGpuFirmware=0" | sudo tee --append /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf

13. Reboot the instance.

    [ec2-user ~]$ sudo reboot

14. (Optional) To help take advantage of a single display of up to 4K resolution, set up the high-performance display protocol NICE DCV.

Ubuntu and Debian

To install the NVIDIA gaming driver on your instance

1. Connect to your Linux instance. Install gcc and make, if they are not already installed.

2. Update your package cache and get the package updates for your instance.

   $ sudo apt-get update -y

3. Upgrade the linux-aws package to receive the latest version.

   $ sudo apt-get upgrade -y linux-aws

4. Reboot your instance to load the latest kernel version.

   $ sudo reboot

5. Reconnect to your instance after it has rebooted.

6. Install the gcc compiler and the kernel headers package for the version of the kernel you are currently running.

   $ sudo apt-get install -y unzip gcc make linux-headers-$(uname -r)

7. Disable the nouveau open source driver for NVIDIA graphics cards.

   1. Add nouveau to the /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf blacklist file. Copy the following code block and paste it into a terminal.

      $ cat << EOF | sudo tee --append /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
      blacklist vga16fb
      blacklist nouveau
      blacklist rivafb
      blacklist nvidiafb
      blacklist rivatv
      EOF

   2. Edit the /etc/default/grub file and add the following line:

      GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="rdblacklist=nouveau"

   3. Rebuild the Grub configuration.

      $ sudo update-grub

8. Download the gaming driver installation utility using the following command:

   $ aws s3 cp --recursive s3://nvidia-gaming/linux/latest/ .

   Multiple versions of the gaming driver are stored in this bucket. You can see all of the available versions using the following command:

   $ aws s3 ls --recursive s3://nvidia-gaming/linux/

9. Extract the gaming driver installation utility from the downloaded .zip archive.

   $ unzip vGPUSW-*vGaming-Linux-Guest-Drivers.zip -d nvidia-drivers

10. Add permissions to run the driver installation utility using the following command:

    $ chmod +x nvidia-drivers/Linux/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64*-grid.run

11. Run the installer using the following command:

    $ sudo ./nvidia-drivers/Linux/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64*.run

    When prompted, accept the license agreement and specify the installation options as required (you can accept the default options).

12. Use the following command to create the required configuration file.

    $ cat << EOF | sudo tee -a /etc/nvidia/gridd.conf
    vGamingMarketplace=2
    EOF

13. Use the following command to download and rename the certification file.

    • For version 460.39 or later:

      $ sudo curl -o /etc/nvidia/GridSwCert.txt "https://nvidia-gaming.s3.amazonaws.com/GridSwCert-Archive/GridSwCertLinux_2023_9_22.cert"

    • For version 440.68 to 445.48:

      $ sudo curl -o /etc/nvidia/GridSwCert.txt "https://nvidia-gaming.s3.amazonaws.com/GridSwCert-Archive/GridSwCert-Linux_2020_04.cert"

    • For earlier versions:

      $ sudo curl -o /etc/nvidia/GridSwCert.txt "https://nvidia-gaming.s3.amazonaws.com/GridSwCert-Archive/GridSwCert-Linux_2019_09.cert"

14. If you are using NVIDIA driver version 510.x or greater on the G4dn, G5, or G5g instances, disable GSP with the following commands. For more information, on why this is required visit NVIDIA’s documentation.

    $ sudo touch /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf

    $ echo "options nvidia NVreg_EnableGpuFirmware=0" | sudo tee --append /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia.conf

15. Reboot the instance.

    $ sudo reboot

16. (Optional) To help take advantage of a single display of up to 4K resolution, set up the high-performance display protocol NICE DCV. If you do not require this functionality, do not complete this step.

Windows operating systems

Before you install an NVIDIA gaming driver on your instance, you must ensure that the following prerequisites are met in addition to the considerations mentioned for all gaming drivers.

• If you launch your Windows instance using a custom Windows AMI, the AMI must be a standardized image created using Sysprep to ensure that the gaming driver works.

• Configure default credentials for the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell on your Windows instance. For more information, see Getting Started with the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell in the AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell User Guide.

• Your users or role must have the permissions granted that contains the AmazonS3ReadOnlyAccess policy. For more information, see AWS managed policy: AmazonS3ReadOnlyAccess in the Amazon Simple Storage Service User Guide.

To install the NVIDIA gaming driver on your Windows instance

1. Connect to your Windows instance and open a PowerShell window.

2. Download and install the gaming driver using the following PowerShell commands.

   $Bucket = "nvidia-gaming"
   $KeyPrefix = "windows/latest"
   $LocalPath = "$home\Desktop\NVIDIA"
   $Objects = Get-S3Object -BucketName $Bucket -KeyPrefix $KeyPrefix -Region us-east-1
   foreach ($Object in $Objects) {
       $LocalFileName = $Object.Key
       if ($LocalFileName -ne '' -and $Object.Size -ne 0) {
           $LocalFilePath = Join-Path $LocalPath $LocalFileName
           Copy-S3Object -BucketName $Bucket -Key $Object.Key -LocalFile $LocalFilePath -Region us-east-1
       }
   }

   Multiple versions of the NVIDIA GRID driver are stored in this S3 bucket. You can download all of the available versions in the bucket if you change the value of the $KeyPrefix variable from "windows/latest" to "windows".

3. Navigate to the desktop and double-click the installation file to launch it (choose the driver version that corresponds to your instance OS version). Follow the instructions to install the driver and reboot your instance as required. To verify that the GPU is working properly, check Device Manager.

4. Use one of the following methods to register the driver.

   Version 527.27 or above

   Create the following registry key with the 64-bit version of PowerShell, or the Command Prompt window.

   key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\nvlddmkm\Global

   name: vGamingMarketplace

   type: DWord

   value: 2

   PowerShell

   Run the following PowerShell command to create this registry value. The AWS Tools for PowerShell in AWS Windows AMIs defaults to the 32-bit version and this command fails. Instead, use the 64-bit version of PowerShell included with the operating system.

   New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\nvlddmkm\Global" -Name "vGamingMarketplace" -PropertyType "DWord" -Value "2"

   Command Prompt

   Run the following registry command to create this registry value. You can run it using the Command Prompt window or a 64-bit version of PowerShell.

   reg add "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\nvlddmkm\Global" /v vGamingMarketplace /t REG_DWORD /d 2

   Earlier versions

   Create the following registry key with the 64-bit version of PowerShell, or the Command Prompt window.

   key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global

   name: vGamingMarketplace

   type: DWord

   value: 2

   PowerShell

   Run the following PowerShell command to create this registry value. The AWS Tools for PowerShell in AWS Windows AMIs defaults to the 32-bit version and this command fails. Instead, use the 64-bit version of PowerShell included with the operating system.

   New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global" -Name "vGamingMarketplace" -PropertyType "DWord" -Value "2"

   Command Prompt

   Run the following registry command to create this registry key with the Command Prompt window. You can also use this command in the 64-bit version of PowerShell.

   reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\NVIDIA Corporation\Global" /v vGamingMarketplace /t REG_DWORD /d 2

5. Run the following command in PowerShell. This downloads the certification file, renames the file GridSwCert.txt, and moves the file to the Public Documents folder on your system drive. Typically, the folder path is C:\Users\Public\Documents.

   • For version 461.40 or later:

     Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://nvidia-gaming.s3.amazonaws.com/GridSwCert-Archive/GridSwCertWindows_2023_9_22.cert" -OutFile "$Env:PUBLIC\Documents\GridSwCert.txt"

   • For version 445.87:

     Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://nvidia-gaming.s3.amazonaws.com/GridSwCert-Archive/GridSwCert-Windows_2020_04.cert" -OutFile "$Env:PUBLIC\Documents\GridSwCert.txt"

   • For earlier versions:

     Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "https://nvidia-gaming.s3.amazonaws.com/GridSwCert-Archive/GridSwCert-Windows_2019_09.cert" -OutFile "$Env:PUBLIC\Documents\GridSwCert.txt"

6. Reboot your instance.

7. Verify the NVIDIA Gaming license using the following command.

   C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nv_dispswi.inf_*\nvidia-smi.exe -q

   The output should be similar to the following.

   vGPU Software Licensed Product
       Product Name              : NVIDIA Cloud Gaming
       License Status            : Licensed (Expiry: N/A)

8. (Optional) To help take advantage of the single display of up to 4K resolution, set up the high-performance display protocol NICE DCV. If you do not require this functionality, do not complete this step.

Install an additional version of CUDA

After you install an NVIDIA graphics driver on your instance, you can install a version of CUDA other than the version that is bundled with the graphics driver. The following procedure demonstrates how to configure multiple versions of CUDA on the instance.

To install the CUDA toolkit

1. Connect to your Windows instance.

2. Open the NVIDIA website and select the version of CUDA that you need.

3. For Installer Type, select exe (local) and then choose Download.

4. Using your browser, run the downloaded install file. Follow the instructions to install the CUDA toolkit. You might be required to reboot the instance.