Chinese modder runs GeForce RTX 4060 on Huawei Arm workstation via modified Nvidia driver

When Microsoft and Qualcomm launched the first Copilot+ PCs with Snapdragon X Elite processors, CPU performance was beyond reproach. However, due to immature software or underwhelming integrated hardware, GPU horsepower left much to be desired. The obvious solution—connecting a discrete GPU—had not been achieved publicly—until now.

An enterprising hacker in China has become the first person to publicly get an Nvidia GeForce RTX GPU running on an Arm-based platform using Windows 11, according to WindowsLatest. Notably, the system uses neither a Snapdragon nor an Nvidia CPU.

Background: Nvidia RTX Spark and Arm Drivers

We already knew that Nvidia RTX Spark processors used an integrated GPU directly derived from Nvidia's Blackwell technology, and that those machines would run Arm-based Windows 11. This meant an Nvidia client graphics driver for Arm Windows 11 existed—it was only a matter of time before someone put it to use.

That someone is "VoidTech" on BiliBili, who conducted the experiment—though not without pitfalls.

The Hardware Setup

VoidTech got an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4060 8GB graphics card working in a Huawei Qingyun W510 workstation. This machine does not use a Snapdragon processor; instead, it features Huawei's own Kunpeng 920 CPU, created by the HiSilicon division.

The Kunpeng 920 was considered a major milestone when introduced in 2019—a 7nm server CPU with up to 80 cores. However, the specific implementation in the Qingyun W510 has "only" 24 cores.

Performance Limitations

All those cores don't help much in gaming. CPU gaming performance depends primarily on single-threaded performance and system memory latency. The custom TaiShan v110 cores in the Kunpeng 920 offer only about one-sixth the single-core performance of something like a Ryzen 9 9700X (based on Passmark scores, with the usual caveats). Combined with relatively small caches and a DDR4 memory interface tuned for throughput rather than latency, the result is middling gaming performance—before even considering x86 emulation penalties.

Benchmark Comparison

| Benchmark | Qingyun W510 + GeForce RTX 4060 8GB | Ryzen 7 5800X + GeForce RTX 4060 8GB | |-----------|--------------------------------------|--------------------------------------| | Passmark ST / MT | 733 / 9,496 | 3,448 / 27,671 | | Genshin Impact 1080p High | ~25 FPS | 60 FPS (cap) | | Black Myth Wukong 1080p Medium | 21 FPS | 83 FPS | | 3DMark Speed Way | 2,252 | 2,682 | | 3DMark Time Spy Graphics | 6,369 | 10,939 | | 3DMark Time Spy CPU | 3,402 | 10,775 | | 3DMark Night Raid GPU | 43,530 | 61,080 | | 3DMark Solar Bay | 32,373 | 49,435 |

Did It Work? Mostly

The GeForce RTX 4060 performed about half of its job flawlessly. It ran advanced games like the Unreal Engine 5-based Black Myth Wukong and less demanding titles like Genshin Impact, as well as various 3DMark tests. Most software worked without issues, aside from overall weak performance due to the slow Kunpeng 920 CPU:

• Black Myth Wukong benchmark: 21 FPS
• Genshin Impact: struggled to break 25 FPS, with frequent stuttering

However, Arknights: Endfield refused to launch, likely due to incompatibility between its restrictive "Anti-Cheat Expert" package and the Prism translation layer required to run x86 Windows games on Arm Windows.

The Missing Half: No Video Output

The RTX 4060 failed at one critical task: VoidTech could not get a video signal out of the graphics card. The card was recognized, and the monitor was detected, but the system could not properly push pixels to the display.

This likely stems from the Nvidia Arm driver being built specifically for the RTX Spark, missing the necessary code to support the HDMI and DisplayPort encoders on desktop graphics cards.

To work around this, VoidTech used the Sunshine game streaming server and the Moonlight game streaming client (on another system) to run the Huawei machine headlessly. A janky solution, but it worked.

Additional Challenges

Because the workstation was designed for Linux, there are no Windows drivers for the network controller or other integrated devices, including audio. VoidTech also struggled to get Windows 11 to boot on the machine at all due to broken ACPI tables, and faced frustration with missing Windows 11 drivers for the HiSilicon Network Subsystem (HNS).

The video also shows VoidTech running a Blender Cycles render on the GeForce RTX 4060, along with several Nvidia RTX demos, including the Star Wars "Reflections" demo.