I have a HP Zbook G3 15. It has a Quadro M2000M GPU which is fine for my monitors but where it lacks is in the WSL/Linux department. To get GPU acceleration within WSL I need a card with WDDM 2.9 support. Unfortunately the M2000M is WDDM 2.7. This particular models was baked in 2015.
Looking online it appears that a Quadro P3000 might fit (MXM-B vs MXM-A). This is a card from 2017. I am trying to find if this card has WDDM 2.9 support.
Does it have WDDM 2.9 support?
Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) is a function of the Windows version that you're using in which the graphics driver is installed.
WDDM is not dependent upon the card or upon the driver, as the driver needs to conform to its operating environment.
WDDM 2.9 was an intermediate version that was included in Windows 10 Insider Preview "Iron", which was a precursor to Windows 11. Windows 11 RTM Final Retail release (version 21H2) already included WDDM 3.0.
The Intel article Understanding the Intel Graphics Driver Version Number summarizes the WDDM versions in the following table:
| Identifier | Operating System (WDDM version) |
|---|---|
| 31 | Windows 11* - WDDM 3.1 |
| 30 | Windows 11* - WDDM 3.0 |
| 27 | Windows® 10 May 2020 Update - WDDM 2.7 |
| 26 | Windows® 10 May 2019 Update - WDDM 2.6 |
| 25 | Windows® 10 October 2018 Update - WDDM 2.5 |
| 24 | Windows® 10 April 2018 Update - WDDM 2.4 |
| 23 | Windows® 10 Fall Creators Update - WDDM 2.3 |
| 22 | Windows® 10 Creators Update - WDDM 2.2 |
| 21 | Windows® 10 Anniversary Update - WDDM 2.1 |
| 20 | Windows® 10 - WDDM 2.0 |
| 10 | Windows 8.1* - WDDM 1.3 |
| 9 | Windows 8* - WDDM 1.2 |
| 8 | Windows 7* - WDDM 1.1 |
Unfortunately, with a notebook GPU, and a Quadro at that, you may find driver support to be slow. However, it would appear that the latest available driver for the Quadro M2000M is in fact a WDDM 3.1 driver. Maybe upgrading the driver is enough.
WSLg is supposedly available on Windows 10. I recommend you ask a new question specifically about getting it to work, with the exact steps you performed and the exact error messages you encountered. Make sure to check the official guide.
WDDM (Windows Display Driver Model) is an interface between the graphics driver and the operating system. It is not a hardware property (WDDM 2.7 is already 5 years more recent than your GPU) and a driver is not necessarily using the latest version.
You can read about how the driver signals this version here:
[…] To be consistent with the prevailing file versioning requirements for legacy operating systems, file version formatting must follow an AA.BB.CCCCC.DDDDD pattern where:
- AA indicates the driver model version of the most capable device listed in the .inf
- […]
[…] Values for AA field:
Driver Model AA value WDDM v2.1 21 WDDM v2.0 20 WDDM v1.3 10 WDDM v1.2 9 WDDM v1.1 8 WDDM v1.0 7 XDDM 6
More recent versions are unfortunately not listed. However, on Windows 11 with WDDM 3.1 (according to dxdiag), I have major version 31, so its probably just following the scheme.
What the driver uses and what the operating system supports can differ. There’s probably more sophisticated negotiation when the driver is initialized.
