Poor graphic performance in Terminal Server VM

[jstrydom]

I've seen some conflicting posts regarding improving graphic performance for a Terminal Server VM and was wondering if anyone has had the same kind of issues and possibly resolved or managed to improve the performance.

My main problem is that PDF's and Flash is extremely slow on the Terminal Server with Adobe Reader taking up to a minute to render the PDF document properly. I've read a suggestion that installing a high-end graphics card might improve performance but then again another post reported that ESX does not have any graphics acceleration and it should in theory not make a difference.

Any comment or suggestions will be appreciated.

[weinstein5]

Welcome tot he forums and virtualization - first question do you have VMware tools installed? That will install a virtualized video driver that provides the best video performance. In terms of adding of a high end graphics to your ESX server - this will have no impact on the performance of video with in you VM because the video is completely virtualized -

[jstrydom]

Thanks for the reply, and to answer your question - Yes vmtools has been installed, hardware acceleration set to full and best performance selected under the Performance Options in System Properties.

I have my doubts about the graphics as well but as I've mentioned, according to this post it did make a difference which prompted me to ask anyway.

[Texiwill]

Hello,

A few things we need to clarify. I am in agreement with Weinstein5, but only if you are trying to use Adobe and Flash from the remote console. If you are using this over RDP, then the local virtualized graphics adapter is not involved. So a few questions:

From where do you see this performance issue? When using RDP, or when using the Remote Console?

If it is Remote Console, is this over webAccess, or using the VIC?

How many vCPUs are assigned to the Terminal Server?

How much Memory?

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

[jstrydom]

We are solely using RDP access and currently the server has 1 vCPU and 4Gb of memory allocated.

[Texiwill]

Hello,

How many simultaneous users on the terminal server? You may have to increase to two vCPUs but not 100% sure. When running your tests look at the VIC performance graphs for the VM in question. YOu want to look at CPU, Network, and Disk I/O. I doubt memory is the issue.

ALso, what else is running on the Host? (# of VMs)

How many pCPUs and pCores on the host?

How much memory on the Host?

Remember performance tuning within a virtual environment involves every other VM on the system as well. You can not just look at one (unless there is only one).

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

CIO Virtualization Blog: http://www.cio.com/blog/index/topic/168354

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

[jstrydom]

Hi, I will try to answer your questions in order but unfortunately today is a bit busy and I cannot provide the performance data at present.

a. Average 30 users running simultaneously

b. 18 VM's running on host at present

c. 2 x Quad Core 2.6GHz CPU's (Physical)

d. 32Gb Memory (Physical)

I will have a look at the performance data when possible and update this post.

[JoJoGabor]

I'm currently setting up a VDI demo for a client and the VM performance is great in everything apart from Flash pages within a browser. Here the CPU goes flat out at 100%. I have configured a 2Ghz CPU reservation, 800Mb memory and the ESX hosts are not particularly overloaded. I also tried using a Citrix broker to use ICA to see if that made a difference but no.

Any ideas why the CPU is using so muchfor flash? Or at least how I can mask it?

[cforger]

I've noticed pretty poor graphic performance in ESX 3i 3.5 as well. I have all the settings set correctly as per this thread. I have 16 gb ram, 2 quad core Xeon 2.0Ghz, and it's Windows Server 2008 64 Bit in Terminal Server mode.

Only running a 2008 Server core (1 gig ram) and a 2003 server (1 gig ram) that does nothing on the same ESX box.

It's not my local machine - My physical 2003 box's RDP menus snap up crisply. My 2008 and 2003 boxes slowly pop up like I'm running a 486. It's usable, but I figured with this much power behind it, it would snap properly.

Would love to know what others are experiencing.

[ncsnetwork]

Did VMWare get back to you on how to resolve slow Adobe PDF and Adobe Flash?

Everything that I have read says it is due to the RDP protocol and currently only Provision Networks (Quest) is capable of altering the RDP protocol by using their connection broker.

It would be nice not to have to pay for another 3rd party solution to get a proper Desktop user experience.

[Texiwill]

Hello,

Moved to Virtual Machine and Guest OS forum.

I think this may be a network/CPU related issue. Perhaps the load for graphics should be split between several TS instances.... Graphics tend to be the most CPU and Network intensive applications. I would also investigate the load on the TS itself and see if there is anything you can tweak there to get better performance.

I know one company that manipulates JPGs in TS based VMs, they have 5 TS servers spread over their 3 nodes and limit access to no more than 15 or so users per TS unless there is a down TS VM. I think things need to be better balanced based on use of the TS instances. Perhaps add more TS memory or even more vCPU.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

Blue Gears and SearchVMware Pro Blogs: http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Blog_Roll

Top Virtualization Security Links: http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Top_Virtualization_Security_Links

[ncsnetwork]

The server is a dedicated dual quad core sun x4150 running Xeon processors.

The machine was running Native Windows 2008 32bit no HyperV with Terminal Server and also tested on Native Windows 2003 R2 32bit with Terminal Server.

Client tested: Mac with latest RDP client, Windows XP Pro with latest RDP client, Windows Vista with latest RDP.

All platforms showed slow Adobe PDF viewing when containing graphics.

All platforms showed unusable Flash Player 10 performance, long audio delay used for User Training built on flash.

So it all points to the RDP protocol, does VM have any enhancements to make RDP smoother?

[Texiwill]

Hello,

So it all points to the RDP protocol, does VM have any enhancements to make RDP smoother?

None. HP has a protocol that may work better but so far I have not seen anything.... Even going to physical flash over RDP is very slow for me....

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

Blue Gears and SearchVMware Pro Blogs: http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Blog_Roll

Top Virtualization Security Links: http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Top_Virtualization_Security_Links

[williambishop]

Ed, do you know if the wyse multimedia redirect does flash? I know for videos and such, it is virtually the same as physical hardware....That may be an option for people out there, it creates a channel outside the RDP stream.

[Texiwill]

Hello,

I have not tried the wyse multimedia redirect but would also be interested in anyone's findings.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

Blue Gears and SearchVMware Pro Blogs: http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Blog_Roll

Top Virtualization Security Links: http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Top_Virtualization_Security_Links

[williambishop]

I'll test it after lunch, it does most everything else, but I haven't thought to try flash....Personally, I love it (I like my iTunes).

[ncsnetwork]

I look forward to your results, and also test Adobe PDF with graphics in it and see how smooth its scrolls.

Cheers!

[wila]

Well I think you are nailing it by stating that flash and pdf viewing is not performant. Sorry if I sounds like an adobe basher, but that's what your culprit is.

Try using an alternative PDF viewer.. Unfortunately there's not that much of an alternative for flash... although more players are coming out these days.

There is a report in the forums on Thinapp and adobe where there was slow performance due to a bug in thinapp, but that doesn't appear to be your problem now as I've not heard it being mentioned. One thing that might help is to look into the current redirections on the printer. Disable it and see if that helps.

Good luck tweaking adobe software!

--

Wil

_____________________________________________________

Visit the new VMware developers wiki at http://www.vi-toolkit.com

[meistermn]

There are several hints, that several vendor will replace rdp protocoll.

Second, VMware needs to improve DVM graphics on

endpoint devices. For this, the company has announced it will be

working with manufacturer Teradici Corp. to further develop Teradici's

PC-over-IP protocol to replace the default Remote Desktop Protocol

(RDP) built into Windows and to improve graphics control.

vClient Initiative - Future Display Protocol Direction

http://communities.vmware.com/blogs/virtualdesktop/tags/rdp

VMware View Reference Architecture

In addition to RDP, VMware View also supports protocols provided by thin client manufacturers, such as the Sun Microsystems Appliance Link Protocol™ (ALP) used in Sun Ray™ thin client implementations, and Pano Logic’s Console Direct.

Pano logic solution:

But their latest release, Pano Virtual Desktop Solution (VDS) 2.5,

eliminates that dependency on RDP as well as the dependency on

Microsoft Terminal Services technology.

VDIWorks

Support for a wide a variety of connection types:

• RDP for off-the-shelf thin clients

• Wyse® V10L and V90L

• PC-over-IP™ thin clients

• TDX Protocol-based thin clients

Cisco Solution for Optimizing Virtual Desktop Delivery

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/solutions/collateral/ns340/ns517/ns224/ns377/white_paper_c11-494994.pdf

Comparing VDI Features

http://www.vdiworks.com/vdi/?q=node/40/=

[ncsnetwork]

In reference to the Sun Ray ALP protocol, are you saying that this new release of VMware View has fixed all the multimedia and performance issues related to Adobe PDF and Adobe Flash Player plus other graphic related multimedia issues?

[meistermn]

From the website and docs I came to the conclusion, that the vdi industry has much more to develop, since to get close to real desktop functions, performance.

For me graphic is the fifth core . ( The core four cpu, mem , disk and nic io are although not finished).

So in the end we have to virtualise in steps. Before 2010/2011 I do not see higher virtualization ratio's , without having higher risks for the end user.

Maybe vmware shows vmware view 3.1 at vmware world europe 2009?

[ncsnetwork]

Apparently VMware View 3.1 will support flash.

Does anyone out there know the approximate release date for this?