Video performance is bad when using PCoIP

[Jacky_Chu]

Hi All,

I am new to VMware View and trying to compare the performance between View and XenDesktop. I followed the administrator guide to build a testing environment including AD/DHCP/DNS, View Connection Server, vCenter, ESXi 5.0 Update 1. For the golden image, I followed Windows 7 Optimization Guide non-personal management script to tune the values and install necessary software/patch. I also created a VDA template and guest customization in ESXi for dedicated autmated pool deployment. After reading the PCoIP optimization guide, I have imported and updated the PCoIP policy to AD policy management and tweak the following parameter.

- Disable Turn off Build-to-Lossless feature

- Configure the PCoIP session audio bandwidth limit: 100

- Configure PCoIP client image cache size policy: 300

I try to connect the VDA from the client machine via latest version of View Client with PCoIP protocol. When I play the default Windows 7 video Wildlife in HD, it run very badly. However, if I change the protocol to RDP, it plays smoothly as same as the local machine. My question is if any missing item I have during the testing? Here is the server and OS platform I used in the testing. Any suggestion would be higly appreciate.

Server OS: VM Guest, Windows 2008 R2, 1 CPU, 2GB RAM

VM Host: ESXi 5, XEON 5600, 5xSAS HDD,32GB RAM

VDA: Windows 7 SP1, 2 CPU, 2GB RAM

Remote Client Machine: Windows 7 SP1, 4CPU, 8GB RAM

All of them are running internal LAN network without any security device control. No AV, IPS are installed on all machines.

Rgds,

Jacky

[Linjo]

What version of View are you running?

What is the size of video are you running (fullscreen?)

What hardware version does the virtual desktop have?

How many monitors does the client have?

How does the cpu-utilisation look like when playing the video? What is consuming cpu?

Is the primary usecase to watch videos?

// Linjo

[Jacky_Chu]

Hi Linjo,

Please find the information below. Thanks.

What version of View are you running? Version 5.1.0 (704644)

What is the size of video are you running (fullscreen?) Full screen 1280x1024

What hardware version does the virtual desktop have? 2 * CPU, 2GB RAM, VMXNET 3 Network Adaptor, LSI Logic SAS, SCSI Hard Disk

How many monitors does the client have? 1

How does the cpu-utilisation look like when playing the video? What is consuming cpu? Please find the usage from the following screenshot.

Rgds,

Jacky

[Linjo]

The hardware version is either version 4, 7 or 8. You should be able to see that on the vm information in vCenter.

Is the screenshot from the virtual desktop or the client?

Is the video running smoothly if you have a smaller window?

Could you try another player like VLC?

// Linjo

[Jacky_Chu]

Hi Linjo,

We are using hardware version 7. However, I just upgrade one of our testing VDA to version 8 and test the performance with PCoIP. Unfortunately it has the same result. Here please find the rest of the answer of your question.

Is the screenshot from the virtual desktop or the client? It is from virtual desktop, sorry I did not mention it.

Is the video running smoothly if you have a smaller window? It runs better when I use 50% screen size and the performance between RDP and PCoIP are almost same.

Could you try another player like VLC? I tried to run on VLC 2.02. The PCoIP performance is as bad as WMV player. In RDP session, it just shows the black screen while playing the video. Thanks.

Rgds,

Jacky

[vmblogza]

Hi,

what is the virtual Machines Video Settings? Should be 2 Monitors 128MB ram and Enable 3D support.

Please confirm?

[Jacky_Chu]

Hi vmblogza,

I tried to change the virtual machine video setting in VMware View administrator console as 2 monitors, 128MB ram and enable 3D support. However the result is same and as you can see the CPU usage is higher than RDP during my testing. Thanks.

Rgds,

Jacky

[vmblogza]

Nope I am talking in the vSphere you must edit the machine settings. SO if you are using linked clones edit the parent image.

Changing the settings in view administrator will not help.

rgs

Pete

[Jacky_Chu]

Hi Vmblogza,

Sorry have not been updating the post. I tried to change virtual machine setting in ESXi but seem it also does not help. Finally, I attempt to run the Quest vWorkspace Desktop Optimizer again but this time I select all parameter tuning excluding Disable Base Filtering Engine, Disable Themes, Disable move to Recycle Bin. Finally, the performance of video is much better. I believe it may be resolved by the tuned parameter "Lower Terminal Server Client and interval from default value 100ms to 10ms". However, the CPU usage is still little bit higher than the RDP protocol. Thanks.

Rgds,

Jacky