# Launching pvserver with Nvidia Index and selecting the remote GPU to run on

**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/launching-pvserver-with-nvidia-index-and-selecting-the-remote-gpu-to-run-on/3628
**Category:** ParaView Support
**Created:** [February 21, 2020, 3:30pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/launching-pvserver-with-nvidia-index-and-selecting-the-remote-gpu-to-run-on/3628 "2020-02-21T15:30:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![XavierStuvw](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/xavierstuvw/32/2619_2.png) [@XavierStuvw](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/XavierStuvw)
#### Post date: [February 21, 2020, 3:30pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/launching-pvserver-with-nvidia-index-and-selecting-the-remote-gpu-to-run-on/3628/1 "2020-02-21T15:30:44Z")

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### Situation

I am setting up a reverse client-server connection connection using the Nvidia Index plugin. I use the plugin version 2.3 required for ParaView 5.7.0 according to the user’s guide taken from the [Paraview download area (pdf)](https://www.paraview.org/paraview-downloads/download.php?submit=Download&version=v5.7&type=data&os=Sources&downloadFile=NVIDIA-IndeX-ParaView-Plugin-Version-2.3-Users-Guide.pdf).  
The server installation has been compiled with EGL, so purely as a server machine.

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### Interpretation issue

Now, I have some difficulties in interpreting this line of the user’s guide using the information from `pvserver --help`:

> mpirun -bynode -np 1 pvserver -display :0.0 --use-offscreen-rendering

I will go from the simplest to the most difficult

- `-bynode` of mpi has been superseded by `--map-by node`; sorted
- `--use-off-screen` of paraview has been supersed by `--force-off-screen`; sorted
- what is then **`-display :0.0`**?

There is no similar option explained in the `pvserver --help`.

1. What is the syntax of that `:0.0`?
2. When can I get a description about this?

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### Action issues

Onto the practicalities: I do manage to open a working connection between client and server. At the server side I have **3 GPUs** : one lightweight and two heavyweights. I know that with my licence I can only activate one.

The system starts the process on the weakest device, though. In contrast, I would like to have one of the more powerful GPUs to work for me.

1. How do I tell the plugin-pvserver pair to use the GPU number 1 rather than number 0, for example? The numbering I am using here is the one of `nvidia-smi`, the management interface.

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Thanks for explaining this

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/mwestphal/32/17_2.png) [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2020, 4:04am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/launching-pvserver-with-nvidia-index-and-selecting-the-remote-gpu-to-run-on/3628/2 "2020-02-24T04:04:51Z")

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> What is the syntax of that `:0.0` ?

It is related to the DISPLAY variable a Xorg env var, which is different when using egl.

> <https://askubuntu.com/questions/432255/what-is-the-display-environment-variable>

With EGL, the syntax should be `pvserver --egl-device-index=1`

[https://blog.kitware.com/off-screen-rendering-through-the-native-platform-interface-egl/](https://blog.kitware.com/off-screen-rendering-through-the-native-platform-interface-egl/)

@danlipsa @lhofmann