GLMakie via Remote Desktop on Windows 11

Specific Domains Visualization
1

I’m running into an issue with GLMakie on Windows 11 when accessing via Remote Desktop. Here’s the situation:

  • On a Win10 machine, when I connect via RDP, I have no problems: I can run my code and GLMakie rendering is successful, even if I launch it and then I close the RDP session. The output of GLFW.GetMonitors() is always RDPUDD Chained DD Monitor. When I close RDP, the monitor remains visible, and my GLMakie visualization continues using the GPU correctly.

  • On another machine with Win11, with identical hardware of the previous, when I connect via RDP, GLFW sees a Microsoft Remote Display Adapter Monitor. My code runs perfectly if I remain connected to the session. But if I close the RDP session, no monitors are visible to GLFW and subsequent GLMakie functions fail.

  • I noticed that on Win10 this behavior can be fixed disabling “Use WDDM graphics display driver for Remote Desktop Connection” in the RDP Administrative Templates, that exposes directly the physical GPU to Makie, but for Win11 this option does not seem effective.

Questions:

  1. Is there a known way to force GLMakie / GLFW to use a specific display/GPU on Win11, even over RDP?

  2. Any recommended workflow for headless rendering with virtual displays on Windows? I would prefer to stick with GLMakie, since I am producing complex 3D mesh rendering.