Throughout the life of XenApp and XenDesktop, the combination of many factors such as the architecture of the base operating system, graphics device drivers and network bandwidth have been a determining factor in the overall end-user experience from a graphics quality standpoint. Citrix’s HDX protocol has made many enhancements in this area using such technologies as advanced compression methods and features such as Progressive Display and Adaptive Display. In addition, many HDX features (for example HDX MediaStream, HDX RichGraphics, HDX Optimization Pack for Google Earth) are provided to enhance the experience with certain types of content by offloading certain processes onto the client endpoint when possible.
However, because of limitations in current technologies, many Citrix environments do hit certain points where customers must make some amount of trade-off between end user-experience and session performance. The most prevalent example of this is improving session performance over lower bandwidth/WAN connections by reducing graphics quality using image compression. As Citrix continues to make further innovations in this area, there are some features added within the existing product versions that are often overlooked or misconfigured that can greatly improve current graphics related performance in certain environments. For example, some settings within an environment can be tweaked to try and avoid screen refresh issues sometimes seen with certain types of applications, or with scrolling issues that have also been reported amongst customers in the past. This article serves to point out some of these overlooked or misconfigured settings. Continue reading “Overview of often overlooked or misconfigured settings to improve graphics performance”