Adding hardware video acceleration to server?

[mr_yellow]

Hey Guys,

Not really sure where i should post this so I'll start here...

I've been using an HP Proliant ML310e server as a NAS (windows server 2012 r2) for the past year as well as running some Win10 VMs for testing. I've noticed the RDP sessions to these VMs are incredibly laggy (while the RDP into the server's console is decent) so I'm curious if it's because the server is lacking some sort of hardware to support video acceleration since the server doesn't really have a video card (embedded matrox G200 chip) and the Xeon processor doesn't have a GPU (E3-1220V3). The VMs (VMware Workstation) have the latest VMware tools so driver wise, I assume I should be okay there.

Would this problem be solved if I stick a PCI video card into the server or is the RDP lag more of a symptom of something else (network bandwidth/vmware driver support?)?

Thanks,

 

[Jeggs101]

I know in the Windows world (Hyper-V) you can do this with RemoteFX as an example. VMware can do too but it isn't as simple as just adding a card on ESXi or Hyper-V IIRC.

 

[Deslok]

Why are you using VMware on windows server 2012 to host windows hosts when hyper-v is built in? Also VMware emulates a gpu there are settings for how much video memory to allocate that would be easier to test than adding a gpu to the system first, however your problem sounds more Network related in regards to bandwith. Are you remoting to the system and then opening a console session or remoting directly to the system?

 

[Diavuno]

I wonder if video ram and esxi's page are connected.

I know on my vmware box all windows VM's get 32MB of video (for higher res support if it's ever needed.)

 

[Deslok]

I wonder if video ram and esxi's page are connected.

I know on my vmware box all windows VM's get 32MB of video (for higher res support if it's ever needed.)

I don't think it's connected I've never used ESXI on a system with a real gpu... although i do wonder if these can be dedicated to a vm either on hyper-v or ESXI they offer an interesting propisition (I know they're not on nvidia's support list for that kind of thing this wouldnt be the first unsupported hardware to work in pratice though)
NVIDIA’s Partners Roll-Out GeForce GT 710 to Fight Integrated Graphics

 

[mr_yellow]

Hey Guys,

Thanks for the responses... To answer questions:

1) I'm using VMware Workstation because I tried Hyper-V but I ran into the issue where the VM would hang everytime I try to shutdown a VM requiring a full reboot of the server. The OS was fully patched so I gave up trying to troubleshoot it after I couldn't find the hotfix that was supposed to fix it and used VMware Workstation instead. That was last year so I can't say whether it's been fixed or not. Plus Windows Server won't let me add Hyper-V as a role while VMware workstation is installed

2) All I'm trying to do is RDP into the Win10 VM directly from another client (iPad, Laptop, etc...). Performance is slightly improved if I RDP into the Host first, then go through the VMware workstation console (but it's still "slow").

3) I've tried increasing the video memory to the max (2GB) and it had no effect.

4) I've also tried turning off all the aero effects and animations and fades but things are still laggy. (several second delay between mouse clicks and GUI response)

So "adding" HW acceleration isn't really that straight forward... I just figured that "enable HW accleration" checkbox in the VM options required a real GPU to actually do something.

 

[Diavuno]

VMware workstation is not very fast, It's an issue I dealt with too.

are you overcommitting resources? It really shouldn't be too slow anyway you slice it.

Finally, have you tried other methods of remoting in? I found VNC isn't very good with visuals and full color, teamviewer was better. RPD is hit and miss.

 

[mr_yellow]

VMware workstation is not very fast, It's an issue I dealt with too.

are you overcommitting resources? It really shouldn't be too slow anyway you slice it.

Finally, have you tried other methods of remoting in? I found VNC isn't very good with visuals and full color, teamviewer was better. RPD is hit and miss.

when you say VMware workstation is not fast, are you implying if it was an ESX server, it'd be faster? or are you saying hyper-V would be faster?

I'm not overcommitting resources so it's not that. I'll try VNC or teamviewer. Thanks,

 

[Deslok]

when you say VMware workstation is not fast, are you implying if it was an ESX server, it'd be faster? or are you saying hyper-V would be faster?

I'm not overcommitting resources so it's not that. I'll try VNC or teamviewer. Thanks,

Both hyper-v and ESXI operate at a lower level than vmware workstation and would be faster.

 

[Diavuno]

when you say VMware workstation is not fast, are you implying if it was an ESX server, it'd be faster? or are you saying hyper-V would be faster?

I'm not overcommitting resources so it's not that. I'll try VNC or teamviewer. Thanks,

workstation just feel slower, and benchmarks back it up.

 

[izx]

RDP on a Workstation VM has nothing whatsoever to do with the physical graphics hardware of the host. Are you on the latest Workstation 12 Pro and have the latest VMWare tools installed?

As numerous others have advised, the key is in the "Workstation". If you're running multiple simultaneous VMs for an extended period of time use Hyper-V or a bare-metal hypervisor.

 

[Mr. F]

1) I'm using VMware Workstation because I tried Hyper-V but I ran into the issue where the VM would hang everytime I try to shutdown a VM requiring a full reboot of the server. The OS was fully patched so I gave up trying to troubleshoot it after I couldn't find the hotfix that was supposed to fix it and used VMware Workstation instead. That was last year so I can't say whether it's been fixed or not. Plus Windows Server won't let me add Hyper-V as a role while VMware workstation is installed.

Are you up-to-date with the HP drivers for the hardware in your ML310e? I have the same server and I have experienced Hyper-V crashing issues (on this and other Gen8s) when using the Windows inbox drivers for the NICs in conjunction with the Hyper-V extensible VSwitch. Installed HP's drivers and everything was fine. Easiest to just use Service Pack for Proliant.

Also, if you add a dedicated GPU to this server that isn't from HP you will probably cause the fans to run at maximum speed.