Server 2012 Remote FX Gaming Experience

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RADRaze2KX

Weaksauce
Joined
Dec 20, 2012
Messages
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I'm going to begin testing a few games in RemoteFX on Server 2012 to see how the experience translates into an RDP session, or possibly USB Passthrough (even if 3rd party software is necessary). The objective is to see if it's feasible, using consumer-grade hardware, to host a 4-man LAN party of classic game titles off a high-end gaming-grade machine with moderate settings in each session. All VM's will be have identical specifications, made to simulate a typical budget gaming machine (tri-core, 4GB RAM). Specifications of the nodes will be random, usually dual-core laptops with integrated non-gaming graphics a la Intel HD)

Feel free to pitch in ideas, suggestions, or results of your own. Thanks

1.) Host Specifications
2.) Guest Specifications
3.) Benchmark Comparison
4.) Games Tested w/ Results
5.) Issues
- Current
- Resolved
- Resources
6.) Thoughts

1.) Host Specifications:
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X79-UP4
Processor: Intel i7 3930k
Memory: 64GB G.Skill RAM (8 x 8 @ 1866)
Graphics: Gigabyte HD7870
Primary Storage: 480GB RAID0
- 4 x 120GB Kingston HyperX 3K's
- HighPoint 2720SGL SAS @ 1327MBps Read / 623MBps Write
Data Storage: 2 x 1TB WD Black RAID0
- VM Storage
Backup Storage: 1 x 3TB Seagate External on USB 3.0 (Backup)
Network connection: 1 Gigabit
Operating System: Windows Server 2012 Standard


2.) RemoteFX VM:
Processors: 3
Memory: 4GB

3.) Benchmark Comparison
Benchmark Name............Host Score............RemoteFX Local............RemoteFX RDP
3dMark06
Heaven DX11

4.) Games Tested
- First Person Shooters:
Unreal Tournament 2004

- Other:
Dungeon Defenders - Working w/ game controller using USB Passthrough. Was able to load 1 instance on the host, and another in RemoteFX-connected client at decent framerate (30+). Did not test in depth, I need to come up with some repeatable test procedures...

5.) Issues
- First Person Shooters:
Mouse Hyper-sensitivity
Possible solution guidance:
http://communities.vmware.com/thread/174504
http://communities.vmware.com/thread/412434
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1428945
USB Redirectory from incentivespro

6.) So far so good... But if the mouse issue can't be resolved, that may kill 99% of this project.
 
Last edited:
I didn't notice mouse problems when I tested hyperv. Not sure why you're linking to vmware. Also, your video card is weak sauce
 
I'm aware my card is the weakpoint of my system. And this thread isn't about hyper-v alone, it's specifically about hosting games through RemoteFX. If you don't experience mouse issues doing RDP through remotefx, I'd definitely like to know what games and settings you're using! :)
 
I'm confused, you said RemoteFX, yet linked to a VMWare site? As far as I know RemoteFX became a solely Microsoft technology when they were bought. I believe VMWare has something similar, but I'm not sure what it's called.
 
@Jerky_san - I have not tried splashtop desktop. In fact, until your post I had never heard of it. I'll give it a shot when I get home, can you tell me more about it? Have you tested it for gaming purposes? I watched the video and it said it can stream at *up to* 30 FPS; i'm curious to know how this translates over remote and if the 30FPS is a software limit similar to vsync that would prevent the gfx card from rendering faster than it needs to, preserving horse power for the other clients

@BfA - the RDP mouse issue affects several platforms, there are workarounds posted for the different platforms all over the web. I'm just gathering the workarounds to test them one by one until I find one that works from RemoteFX. Hope this clarifies.

I have found that the issue doesn't occur when using a touchpad on the laptop, but it does when using an actual USB mouse. I also found that USB Redirection works after enabling the group policies but that the controller movements come in backwards. I'll need to check the settings tonight.
 
Couldn't find a solution to the mouse sensitivity issue with RemoteFX :( . Gaming worked well with a gamepad but for first-person shooters, it's unfair to mix controllers users with keyboard/mouse users. It works for Dungeon Defenders and other games that have controller users in-mind, but classics like Unreal Tournament 2004 or Counter Strike, it's just completely frustrating.

In light of this, I took the Hyper-V role off my server and installed VMWare Workstation 9. The mouse sensitivity issue is resolved when using it as a Virtual Machine (I couldn't even get that working right with RemoteFX), so now I need to find a way to stream over remote... perhaps Splashtop desktop as Jerky suggested.

Anybody have any suggestions on remoting software that locks the mouse to the window when gaming?
 
holden j caufield said:
I can't imagine gaming would be feasible without a lot of stuttering or lag.
Click to expand...

I tried it back with Server 2008 and gigabit LAN. CS:Source got around 30 fps without any delay on the mouse/keyboard.

Of course, the host got > 200 fps. But I hope they have improved this for 2012. In fact, I will probably try this out with Hyper-V 2012 this weekend.
 
I had switched to Vmware workstation temporarily because I was having issues with port forwarding to the hyper-v guests and was setting up game servers. I recently switched back to hyper-v and came to a very interesting realization:

even though windows 7 ultimate with rdp 8.0 and Windows 8 enterprise both support remotefx through server 2012, the performance of the games in a windows 8 client far surpasses the performance in Windows 7.

for some reason, the win 7 client has a pretty hefty lag and stutters even when doing rdp in the same machine. The win 8 client was far smoother with no noticeable lag at all.

I benchmarked both clients using passmark 8 and the difference in overall system performance was miniscule (~1275 vs 1407), and in fact the Windows 7 client appeared to render unbelievably faster, even cranked out far more frames per second to the naked eye, but the Windows 8 client just gave a better experience. The 2d/3d rating of the windows 8 client had better scores except in one area but my testing revealed windows 8 worked better.

This is, however, only for one game so far. I'll expand the drives and add some other games for testing but I'm wondering if the way network streaming in each OS may have something to do with it

Anybody have any suggestions for what games to test? I need free or cheap.
 
RADRaze2KX said:
I had switched to Vmware workstation temporarily because I was having issues with port forwarding to the hyper-v guests and was setting up game servers. I recently switched back to hyper-v and came to a very interesting realization:

even though windows 7 ultimate with rdp 8.0 and Windows 8 enterprise both support remotefx through server 2012, the performance of the games in a windows 8 client far surpasses the performance in Windows 7.

for some reason, the win 7 client has a pretty hefty lag and stutters even when doing rdp in the same machine. The win 8 client was far smoother with no noticeable lag at all.

I benchmarked both clients using passmark 8 and the difference in overall system performance was miniscule (~1275 vs 1407), and in fact the Windows 7 client appeared to render unbelievably faster, even cranked out far more frames per second to the naked eye, but the Windows 8 client just gave a better experience. The 2d/3d rating of the windows 8 client had better scores except in one area but my testing revealed windows 8 worked better.

This is, however, only for one game so far. I'll expand the drives and add some other games for testing but I'm wondering if the way network streaming in each OS may have something to do with it

Anybody have any suggestions for what games to test? I need free or cheap.
Click to expand...

Please report back if you find what is the cause of this experience.
 
Still unclear as to what the issue is. Also finding some issues with RemoteFX for the past 3 days; it almost seems like the driver isn't kicking in correctly - even though it's enabled correctly in the device manager, I can still get into the VM using the hyper-v console (it used to prompt that i HAD to use an RDP session). Unclear as to what's causing this; I tried rolling back my AMD catalyst driver from 13.2 beta to 12.10 because one of the VM's was kicking the remotefx gpu driver off and on (driver has been recovered). The crashing is less frequent now and only appears to be in the one virtual machine. if anybody else has experienced this issue, it would be nice to know how to fix it. Also considering trading my 7870 + cash for a 680... AMD has gotten on my nerves with the drivers as of late.
 
This may be a stupid thing to bring up... but if you are trying to run virtual machines why are you not using a processor that has full feature support for visualization? I would kinda like to know what drivers you are using as well since there are no support drivers that I have found for Windows Server 2012 for desktop graphics cards. If you want stability why are you running beta drivers? ATI released workstation cards to run multiple game streams although they are too expensive and negate the purpose of running zero client gaming platforms. If you want to run at maximum performance Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 have the least amount of overhead vs Windows 7 also support remotefx. Unfortunately only Windows 8 enterprise supports remotefx but you still get the reduced overhead with the other versions. Wish me luck with my remote game server build I have starting testing and will move towards my final end product after they unlock the remoteFX graphic RAM limitation.
 
zachtyler said:
This may be a stupid thing to bring up... but if you are trying to run virtual machines why are you not using a processor that has full feature support for visualization? I would kinda like to know what drivers you are using as well since there are no support drivers that I have found for Windows Server 2012 for desktop graphics cards. If you want stability why are you running beta drivers? ATI released workstation cards to run multiple game streams although they are too expensive and negate the purpose of running zero client gaming platforms. If you want to run at maximum performance Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 have the least amount of overhead vs Windows 7 also support remotefx. Unfortunately only Windows 8 enterprise supports remotefx but you still get the reduced overhead with the other versions. Wish me luck with my remote game server build I have starting testing and will move towards my final end product after they unlock the remoteFX graphic RAM limitation.
Click to expand...

The 3930k C2 stepping is a fully featured processor : http://ark.intel.com/products/63697
you can't enable RemoteFX without meeting all the virtualization requirements, afterall.

Windows Server 2012 is built with the same architecture that Windows 8 is built on, making it cross-compatible with any drivers that are fully Windows 8 64-bit compliant

Previous stability issue was actually caused by an MS update (thanks Microsoft!). Drivers are one leg of the table when it comes to stability, and "public release" drivers aren't necessarily any better than Beta drivers for stability, or performance... Take "Omega Drivers", for example, if you can recall... none of these were technically "public release" from ATi / nVidia, and even still they were faster and more stable... I've seen plenty of drivers, and public release updates and public release software hose a system's stability. I was running Beta drivers for increased performance ... stability wasn't an issue until MS decided to skin graft Server 2012 and were resolved by installing yet another beta driver.

I've been tested Windows 7 Enterprise's Remote FX performance against that of Windows 8 and they are both, so far, an overall equal experience. Windows 7 seems to render better but Windows 8 seems to handle packet transmission better. Depending on what you're doing, this could make or break your gaming experience.

I'm interested to see what your results will be like with your setup.
 
Interesting thread.

The Passmark result seems a little low, unless you assigned only ~2-3 VCPUs to your Windows guest.

About graphics cards: Your AMD card gives you the option to try a Xen hypervisor (or KVM) with VGA passthrough. Nvidia cards won't work, unless you buy the very expensive Quadro or similar professional cards.

As to Nvidia cards, if you are adventurous you might like this: http://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/hacking-nvidia-cards-into-their-professional-counterparts/
The above hack will also make Nvidia cards work with Xen (KVM).

I run Windows 7 Pro as a VM on my Linux PC with a Xen hypervisor, using VGA passthrough for native GPU performance under Windows. You could turn one PC into a server with 3 screens, keyboards and mice directly attached to the PC, each screen connected to its own graphics card. But that's not the same as you are trying to achieve.
 
With Xen, would I be able to use the same graphics card for multiple VMs or does it require one card per ?
 
RADRaze2KX said:
With Xen, would I be able to use the same graphics card for multiple VMs or does it require one card per ?
Click to expand...

I use one per guest, but using one card for multiple guests should be doable, but I don't know how exactly. I actually wonder how you are going to use the AMD card you got for multiple guests?

Are you currently able to use the AMD card to render pictures and then stream them to a remote guest/terminal? I would be surprised, as my guess is that the graphics rendering is done by the CPU now. But I'm totally unfamiliar with Hyper-V and RemoteFX.

My best bet would be an Nvidia Grid card or similar (or an AMD equivalent). This is why I posted the link to the thread discussing how to modify an ordinary Nvidia GTX 680 into a grid card. Of course, what the guy in that thread is doing voids all manufacturer warranty and holds the danger of bricking the card.

VMware is using PCoIP and some suppliers offer cards that render and encapsulate the graphics.

The Spice project under Linux also aims to provide a solution for video/graphics compression and encapsulation and transmission to remote desktops. Another possible option is NX. Xen will be supporting Spice in an upcoming release, IIRC.

I personally hope that Spice will offer a feasible alternative to the closed source and proprietary Microsoft and VMware / Teradici solutions. Aside from the hardware, the cost of the software licenses is prohibitive. For example, to run Windows in a VM you need to spend significantly more money than buying a PC with Windows preinstalled, as you need the expensive retail license while an OEM license is invalid for VM installation. VMware or similar will also not come cheap.
I'm just trying to point out the license issues and costs, which may be different for enterprise customers.

The Xen hypervisor and Linux OS I use are free and have no license restrictions (usually they are under the GPL license). With some restrictions such as maximum cable lengths for USB and HDMI (both are VERY restricted), my proposed Xen based solution with multiple graphics cards may be simpler and cheaper. One thing is certain: The Xen solution with VGA passthrough will get you the best performance. The number of LAN party seats will be restricted by the number of PCI slots for graphics cards and the number of cards themselves.
 
How are you getting Hyper-V to see that you have a support card? I have a 6850 and I can't a vm to see the card. Did you just use the Catalyst drivers?
 
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