Monitor issues . IDD or svga driver? ( Horizon agent 2111.1 and VM Tools 11.3.5)

[Hmunning]

We have recently installed the latest version of the Horizon agent and VM Tools on all of our persistent vdi`s. With a small part of our users we now see a degradation in performance with all kinds of different monitor setups. For example on a full hd or qhd screen a lower resolution is presented. When display scaling is switched off it works , but that is not really a good solution. Or the performance on a 4k monitor is significantly degraded. The vast majority of our users (+/- 5000) do not report any complaints. These seem to be very specific cases.

From the Horizon pool settings we have not adjusted anything, yet more video memory (189.88 MB) is allocated to the vms. This was 128 MB. This no longer corresponds to the requirements of VMware itself.

https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Horizon/2111/horizon-architecture-planning/GUID-10ED49A9-56B6-4BD7...

On the next page it says the following:

https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2078739

"Starting with Horizon 2111, the VMware Indirect Display Driver (IDD) is the default graphics display driver and the VMware SVGA driver is not bundled as part of the Horizon Agent installer. This provides less dependency between specific VMware Horizon and VMware Tools versions going forward. Horizon admins may decide to use either the IDD or VMware Tools SVGA driver depending on user requirements. Both the IDD and VMware SVGA driver provided by a current VMware Tools installation or Windows Update are supported."

I had anticipated this in advance, but during testing I saw no difference at all in the IDD driver and the SVGA driver. Probably I still don't understand it completely. What are these different user requirements and in what situation do you use the IDD or the svga driver? I find this confusing . Does anyone have more information on this or similar complaints ?

OS : Windows 10 20H2
Horizon agent : 8.4.0(111.1-8.4.0-19066669)
VM Tools : 11.3.5
HW version : 18
vSphere: VMware ESXi, 7.0.3, 19193900

Horizon pool settings:

Default Display Protocol : VMware Blast
3D Renderer : Disabled
Maximum number of monitors: 3
Maximum Resolution of Any One Monitor : 3840x2160

[MrCheesecake]

Hi there!

i’m seeing similar issues but only with displays rotated 90 degrees in portrait mode (1200x1920)- this results in ghosted characters and a lot of lag and other quirks. 

I attempted removing the SVGA 3D driver tonight per the recent KB article but that didn’t help. 

tomorrow, I plan on reversing it where I trash the Horizon Indirect and only use the latest driver from the late January ESX patch/tools. 

[dylomc]

I'm basically in the same boat as far as setup, but I haven't really heard from anyone with unique monitors/setup regarding degradation in performance.  The only think I've got reports on is some intermittent freezing and using the IDD over SVGA appears to have helped.  It sounds like it has something to do with the SVGA provided in more recent Tools. This thread talks about that issue:
https://communities.vmware.com/t5/Horizon-Desktops-and-Apps/Outlook-2016-O365-freezes-VM-but-only-on...

I had a difficult time finding information on IDD vs SVGA as well, but it sounds like the IDD technology is the new direction that Horizon/VMware is looking to push forward on more.  I guess the additional functionality that IDD adds vs SVGA is that there is support for six monitors and allows the drivers to be used outside of vSphere.

I just tired this and I believe you can enforce the IDD driver to be used over SVGA by making the following registry change:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\VMware, Inc.\VMware Blast\Config
Create a new string of PixelProviderForceViddCapture and set value to 1.

[agreene1980]

Are you sure your utilizing the IDD vs the SVGA when testing?  In my experience I didn't have IDD enabled by default when running the 8.4 agent.  I had to enable the regkey to get it working on IDD.

For Blast

HKLM\Software\VMware, Inc.\VMware Blast\config

Name: PixelProviderForceViddCapture

Type: Reg_SZ

Value: 1

For PCOIP

HKLM\Software\VMware, Inc.\VMware SVGA DevTap

Name: ForceViddCapture

Type: Reg_SZ

Value: 1

I enabled debug logging for Blast and PCoIP to inspect the log and see if it indeed was using IDD over SVGA.  For Blast you can clearly see it change when you enable that regkey.  For PCoIP (which many of our users are still rolling) the debug log has no indication of what display driver it is using so no clue for testing purposes if PCoIP is actually using it or not.  If anyone can figure out how to tell that would be super helpful.

For Blast though, I have not really noticed a difference in performance itself.  What I have noticed is that if you have the 8.4 agent running and you have VMware SVGA Driver higher than 8.16.x you start to see issues.  We have been rolling back users with issues to the older tools since even on 8.4 agent they are still utilizing the SVGA driver installed.  Going to 8.16.x SVGA driver seems to stablize my users until we can make sure IDD is the way to go.  I am currently testing IDD so I will report back if I decide to give it a go and expand our user base with IDD.  Is there anyone out there rolling complete IDD in their environment yet?

[Hmunning]

I was not aware of this regkey. Will test this properly as well. When I was testing the IDD driver I had just uninstalled the SVGA driver, but then you also run into the problem of not being able to access a console session from vcenter properly. Besides non persistent vdi`s we also have persistent vdi`s. From a maintenance point of view you also want to be able to access these through a console.

[MikeC3964]

Hi @agreene1980 I'm curious to hear how your experience is currently with IDD vs. SVGA. I'm having similar display type issues since going to 2203 agent while on 11.3.5 of Tools and am debating either rolling VMware Tools back to a version prior 8.17 of the SVGA driver or setting the registry key to leverage IDD vs. SVGA.

Thanks,
Mike

[TrinityR]

Definitely interested to know if anyone has found this registry key works for PCoIP.  We have hundreds of users on Wyse terminals that only run PCoIP.  I would like to avoid IDD or SVGA because we use Remote Console to manage parent images.

[SchwarzC]

On the Windows Client, Right Click on the Desktop, Display Settings, scroll down to Advanced Display Settings, you can see which driver is used for which Display.

I am currently running a test pool with IDD only, not problems so far, will roll out to all next week, I can keep you guys posted.

[mhartstein]

Has anyone found a solution or workaround for vSphere console not playing nice with IDD? Consoling into an active Horizon session (with the proper policies allowing that in place) and even the VM thumbnails in the vSphere web client don't work for us when Indirect Display Driver is in use (works fine with the SVGA driver).

[mycogen]

I put in a feature request to add vSphere console support when using the Horizon Indirect Display Driver. Search for "Horizon Indirect Display Driver vCenter Console Support" and vote for it if you want. Here is a link on how to access the EUC feature request portal: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/84435

[bahsig]

I just don't get it. Why would we vote for a feature that's already there. If screen blanking (blast) or console access (pcoip) isn't working with idd, then it's a bug and no feature request. And this issue has to be solved. Since vmware is forcing you to use the idd then it's also their part to get it working.

IDD is somehow buggy it also adds an extra screen in windows display settings (88560). I know it's cosmetic but annoying, nevertheless.

[bahsig]

Testing vmware tools 12.1.0 with svga 3d version 9.17.4.1 on Horizon 2209 right now with uninstalled idd. So far everything is working.

vsphere console working and no extra screen in display settings on windows horizon session anymore. No unresponsive lockscreen as in earlier Horizon versions due to crappy svga 3d driver.