How to run Nx Desktop in limited GPU environments

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Affected Roles: System Owner • System Administrator
Related Nx VMS Apps: Nx Desktop
Complexity: Medium
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The Problem: Nx Desktop will not run on my machine

The Nx Witness Desktop app requires a computer (real or virtual) with support for OpenGL 2.1 or higher.

Typically this is not an issue but in some cases a need arises to launch Nx Desktop on computers with limited graphics options. A virtual machine (VMWare, VirtualBox) or a Server PC with limited graphics capabilities are typical examples where OpenGL 2.1 may not be supported.

The Solution: Emulate GPU (graphics processing unit) using the CPU (central processing unit).

To resolve this issue the Nx team has introduced a way to emulate necessary graphics functions over CPU which allows running client on any hardware set if Server is installed on any Windows x64 OS version.

Warnings:

1. When using this method what you are really doing is transferring the computing load that would normally be done by a GPU (graphical processing unit) to the CPU. This will cause your CPU usage to go up significantly.
2. We do not recommend using this method unless it is absolutely required.
3. Remember to close the Client application as soon as you are finished to return your CPU load to normal.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Download the OpenGL 2.1 emulation library (via Google Drive)
2. Copy and paste the downloaded opengl32.dll file to the folder/directory where the Nx Desktop executable is located. Usually it's C:\Program Files\Network Optix\Nx Witness\Client\<Version number>
3. Run Nx Desktop