Video file playback issue

[PaulMurphyCO]

I'm trying to troubleshoot a video playback issue on our Windows 10 VMs. Video stutters when playing .wmv or .mov files on our Win10 vms using PCoIP or Blast, but playback is okay on our Win7 vms. Playback is okay when RDPing into the Win10 vms.

Environment:

- Horizon 7.3.2

- ESXI 6.5

- Connecting through connection server. Default protocol is PCoIP, but have same issue with BLAST.

- Win7 and Win10 VMs are on same subnet

- VMware Tools 10.1.15 are on all VMs

- Horizon pool settings are the same.

One difference is that the VMware OSOT tool was run on the parent Win10 vm, but I don't know if any of the settings applied would cause this performance issue.

VMs:

OS: Windows 7 (x64)

CPU: 1

Memory: 2 GB

Network Adapter:  VMXNET3

Video memory: 35.19 MB

Number of displays: 2

3D Graphics: Disabled

VMware hardware version:  11

OS: Windows 10 v1709 (x64)

CPU: 2

Memory: 3 GB

Network Adapter:  VMXNET3

Video memory: 35.19 MB

Number of displays: 2

3D Graphics: Disabled

VMware hardware version:  13

I've tried increasing the video memory, but issue remained.

I know video playback over PCoIP isn't great without a dedicated vGPU in the host, but the video playback on our Windows 7 VMs is satisfactory for our needs, but very poor on our Win10 vms.

Any help is appreciated. Thank you!

[PaulMurphyCO]

To add more information to the issue, on the Win10 VMs, video playback using the "Movies & TV" app is pretty good. Using Windows Media Player is when we have the problem.

Looking at ethernet throughput when playing a media file in Movies & TV, we get throughput between 10-25 Mbps consistently. Playing the same file in WIndows Media Player we get speeds jumping all over from 32 Kbps to 90 Mbps.

Any ideas?

[BenFB]

As a test can you enable the 3D renderer on one VM and see if that makes a difference. We've had issues with video playback in in the Office suite and VMWare asked that we try that. There was something different about the video driver in Windows 10 vs. Windows 7 that they needed to fix.

[PaulMurphyCO]

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried that, no luck. Tried various other attempts at a fix including

- On the VM, uninstalled VMware Tools 10.1.15, rebooted, uninstalled Horizon Agent 7.3.2, rebooted, reinstalled VMware Tools 10.1.15, rebooted, reinstalled Horizon Agent 7.3.2, rebooted. Issue remained.

- On the VM, uninstalled VMware Tools 10.1.15, rebooted, uninstalled Horizon Agent 7.3.2, rebooted, installed VMware Tools 10.2.1, rebooted, reinstalled Horizon Agent 7.3.2, rebooted. Issue remained.

- In the pool, set "3D Renderer" to Software and set VRAM to 256 MB. Refreshed VMs. Playback in Windows Media Player results in audio only, there is no video being displayed - the WMP screen is black.

- On the pool, left 3D Renderer option to disabled. On the vm hardware settings, modified video card settings to enable 3D Renderer and set to software. Shutdown and then powered up vm. Playback in Windows Media Player results in video being very choppy, audio is okay.

- On the pool, left 3D Renderer option to disabled. On the vm hardware settings, change NIC to E1000E. Playback in Windows Media Player results in video being very choppy, audio is okay.

- I've tried increasing the video memory, but issue remained.

We don't have the "Movies & TV" app installed on our production VMs, just on a test machine and video playback is decent. I may open a ticket with VMware and look at rebuilding the parent VMs to include the "Movies & TV" app for now.

[bjohn]

Did you have any luck with this issue?