Hello everyone!
We are currently in deployment with new UD2 M250C Terminals (FW 11.04.240 & 11.04.215; CWA = default) for Citrix Desktops over Terminal Sessions (WS2016; Citrix LTSR 1912CU1; GPU: RTX8000). H264 Compression is activated on both, client- and server-side.
I notice a big performance difference between random Windows clients and our Igel devices. On a Windows 10 client system and all Citrix Workspace App Versions run perfectly smooth with default Citrix Videocodec Policy (“Use Videocodec when preferred”). This enables Codec “For actively changing regions” in the user session. For my understanding, compression is only used for non-static display parts. Our Test with RD Analyzer shows active Hardware Encoding on the client device, if motion content like carvisualizer.plus360degrees.com/threejs/ is on the screen. vGPU is active. Thats all fine and expected.
But running the same test on our Igel Terminals shows massive performance problems. With Codec enabled for actively changing regions, the session is very laggy. A simple selection in Excel has a display delay for about one second. Also, h264 Hardware Encoding is not active when moving content (see link above) is running. Are my expectations wrong, that m250c is capable of h264 hardware encoding and what could be the reason of our performance problems?
Hello Tobias,
I‘m not a big vGPU HW Acceleration expert but I could share a few thoughts before adding the real experts to the talk…
1) which resolution and how many screens are we speaking about?
2) if you use a UD Pocket or convert a PC with same Firmware, does it work there?
3) I learned that vGPUs also have profiles that need to be assigned, which one are you using?
Hello Sebastien,
thank you very much for your quick reply.
1. We are using single and dual monitor setups, each with 1920×1080 resolution.
2. Not yet tested. Would be worth a try.
3. Active vGPU Profile is RTX8000-4A (Application profile with 4GB video ram per vGPU).
Hostsystem is a Citrix Hypervisor 8.2 fully patched to date. As Workaround we are using at the moment the citrix policy for fullscreen video codec. With that configuration the lag issues in Excel and other applications are gone, but the screen picture and especially text is sometimes blurry. Maybe fullscreen compression needs more server ressources.
You are welcome!
Thank you! Would wait gor other Citrix vgpu pros and your UD Pocket test.
I don’t have any experience with vGPUs. Is that something @member can help with?
i am pretty sure @member confuses me here with someone – maybe with @member?
I apologize @member you are correct, I meant @member.
Would like to add @member (if you have time to jump in) into that discussion too, since he has a great knowledge on Hardware Acceleration.
One thing that came to my mind… @member you are not using a Starter license, right?
Only WorkspaceEdition licenses hold a MMCP.
A UD2 is not the right hardware for that for sure.
The main problem is:
Do you want to do the Acceleration with the vGPU or with the endpoint GPU – that is not the same
We have an active Workspace Edition Maintenance for every Terminal. Checked that in UMS.
Please correct me, if I am wrong: Graphics content (WebGL oder HTML5 Video on Youtube) on the hostserver is rendered by Nvidia (v)GPU like on normal workstations with local Displays attached. Then, the virtual “display output” – not the rendering itself – can be h264 encoded via vGPU and sent to the ICA-client, which hw-decodes the display information. This should reduce CPU load on server side. This works great in our case with Windows 10 clients, but unfortunately not on Igel M250C. In the latter case the Hostserver CPU seems to use some compatibility fallback which causes high server cpu-load and ICA latency. The knowledgebase articles kb.igel.com/igelos-11.04/en/codec-32870910.html and kb.igel.com/igelos/en/setting-up-citrix-sessions-with-hardware-accelerated-h-264-deep-compression-codec-23500477.html describe a “hardware-accelerated decoding with H.264”. So, I would expect the same behaviour as we can reproduce on Windows 10 clients.
Please be aware, that youtube dont use H264 codec, they have their own codec in place.
hardware accelerated decoding with H264 means on IGEL, that we do the encoding without a server GPU directly on the endpoint
The right hardware for that is IGEL UD7
You know the video from @member: virtualbrat.com/2020/08/18/quake-ii-rtx-on-igel-ud3-4k/
Hi Tobias, how about the hardware specs on the windows 10 machine, is it using a equivalent cpu as the UD2? Here is what you can expect of the current UD2: virtualbrat.wordpress.com/2019/05/03/accelerated-graphics-on-brand-new-igel-ud2-lx50-can-it-be-done/
And by the way, avoid the policy ”for active changing regions” when using linux endpoints..
Your Link to virtualbrad.com virtualbrad.com helped me a lot! Finally, our Graphical codec configuration in UMS was the root cause. Unchecked “Text tracking” and “small frames feature” and Hardware Encoding is now active. Host cpu load is much lower, desktop experience and response times are great! 🙂
Thanks, @member. You can see the W10 hardware specs on my screenshots above. It’s a standard three year old mid-range cpu with integrated graphics – nothing special.
That was our experience for policy settings, too. But these are the recommended (default) settings from Citrix…
I would appreciate, if IGEL could clarify or also recommend these citrix policy settings in use with their devices in the official documentation.
Hi Tobias, cool! There are docs on kb.igel.com for h.264..
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