Linux production environments can now leverage Nvidia’s recently introduced GRID technology to power VMware’s Horizon 6 for Linux and provide visual effects and animation artists anywhere, on any device, with virtual Linux workstations running their familiar high-end applications. Nvidia’s VP of Enterprise Marketing Greg Estes showed a virtual workstation running simulations in Maya on the SIGGRAPH floor in Los Angeles with the application, processors and Nvidia’s GRID and CUDA technologies installed in a data center hundreds of miles away in Northern California.

Nvidia points out several advantages to this virtual configuration. Most visual effects workflows include typical Linux-only applications such as Autodesk’s Maya, The Foundry’s NUKE and MARI, and Side Effects’ Houdini. However, there is sometimes the need for Windows applications such as Adobe Photoshop or Autodesk 3ds Max.

As Will Wade wrote on the Nvidia Blog, “With access to virtual machines that support Linux and Windows, any user in a studio can run all their applications from the same device. With Nvidia GRID acceleration in VMware’s Horizon 6, users get the same performance as a desktop system. There’s no need to put two separate computers under their desk.”

GRID is also the technology behind Nvidia’s Cloud Gaming technology and GRID gaming service. It offers streaming of popular graphics intensive PC games to Nvidia Shield enabled devices that include Android smartphones and Android TV.