VMware Horizon Indirect Display Driver

[Rsasjol]

Hi,

My company is working in healthcare industry. And as such, we're dealing with Medical Imaging Software.
We want to implement those software with our existing Horizon Environment (2206). And it brings two questions : 

1. According to Vmware recommendations, we've moved from SVGA to Indirect Display Driver.
   Problem is : Windows seems to configure, and I think uses as its primary GPU, Microsoft Video Basic Renderer.
   Worse : I have both of them in my device manager
   
   I've crawled Internet to grab as many informations as I could get,
   - It may mean that my VMware Tools install is faulty.
   - It may also mean that my sessions (Windows 10-based, instant-clones) may use this driver due to the manner that I use to connect. (Horizon Client, encapsulating RDP I suppose).
   
   Strangely, on my golden image, I also find these two adapters,
   VM's hardware has only one adapter defined on it, but two displays are defined.
   
   Is it correct to let it like this ? If not, should I : 
   
   - Use bEnumerateHWBeforeSW registry key to favor VMware's Indirect Driver ?
   - Re-install my VMware Tools ? 
   - Remove one the two displays ? 
   
   
2. These medical imaging software, as you may imagine requires GPU power and VRAM.
   Memory is not an issue, but we lack GPU in our infrastructure. We can rely only on our CPUs for that.
   
   My question is : As we decide to go without dedicated GPU cards for the moment, should we upgrade our VRAM configuration for our instant clones ?
   We're actually use a 32Mo standard, which is mostly what VMware recommends for VRAM Monitor overhead.
   
   What are your best practices with those kind of software ? 
   
   Thanks

[jc296]

Rsasjol, some good guidance here ref Drivers and Tools. Have you done these checks? I use vGPU at work and have very little issues so can't really comment on sVGA or Indirect drivers.

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

[Rsasjol]

Hi,

Thanks for your answer, but according to this documentation, I deduce that I should have only one display adapter.

On your infrastructure, when your VM has no GPU assignement, what are the display adapters available on session  ?
 

[jc296]

I'll check tomorrow when in office. On my VM within  a nested ESXi host on Workstation Pro17 I can see 2 display adapters: SVGAa and IDD - if that helps.

[KenSong]

1. It's expected. SVGA is from VMware Tool and IDD is from Horizon agent. If both are installed, SVGA will be used by default

2. You can find more info about VRAM from this page - https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Horizon/2206/horizon-architecture-planning/GUID-10ED49A9-56B6-4BD7.... In a word, the VRAM size requirement depends on the display resolution and number of monitors configured for end users.

Without GPU, there would be additional CPU overhead, they'd better try first to see if their programs are sluggish or not performing as expected before large-scale deployments.

[Rsasjol]

Hi Ken, 

Thanks for the answer, but one question remains.
In order to have a fully fonctionnal, fully vmware-compliant golden image, should I have either : 

• IDD and Microsoft Basic Display Adapter
• IDD and VMware SVGA 

Thanks

[KenSong]

It should be VMware IDD and VMware SVGA. And if they have display issues with SVGA, then they can switch to IDD

[kanid99]

I have a similar question and Im not understanding the answer.

VM using nvidia VGPU and Horizon IDD. When tools is installed, we skip the SVGA driver per guidance. When I look at device manager I have MS Basic adapter, nvidia adapter and vmware IDD - but why? 

The question on why this is how it is is because we have performance issues such as sometimes the second display 'drops'/freezes unless the session is disconnected/reconnected , most notably this happens when we launch horizon client within the session but it has also happened to other users using adobe acrobat and Zoom.