By default the VMware View PCoIP protocol dynamically optimizes for the best user experience for the given resource constraints. In the majority of environments, this is the desired approach. However, there can be times where individual users or group administrators are interested in different resource utilization policies and in past blogs and whitepapers we have discussed in detail how to configure PCoIP to optimize for constrained resource consumption. In this post, I just wanted to provide a concise summary of these recommendations by highlighting 4 simple optimizations that our extensive internal testing has shown yield significant benefits:
- Disable build-to-lossless: setting enable_build_to_lossless to 0 delivers about a 1.3X reduction in bandwidth for typical office workloads. And, PCoIP still builds to a high quality lossy image that is virtually indistinguishable from fully lossless for office workloads.
- Optimize video frame-rate: setting maximum_frame_rate to 15 reduces video bandwidth by almost 1.7X in many situations, yet continues to deliver a smooth motion experience.
- Optimize audio bandwidth: setting audio_bandwidth_limit to 100 reduces audio bandwidth by around 5X, while continuing to deliver good quality sound.
- In-guest optimization: setting Windows visual settings to "optimize for performance" reduces bandwidth by over 1.1X for typical office workloads. Additionally, disabling ClearType reduces bandwidth by a further 1.05X. Disabling desktop wallpaper, and setting the screen saver to none, can also deliver bandwidth savings, although the new client image caching support in View 5 often significantly reduces the additional bandwidth traditionally associated with these options. Finally, disabling Windows update, Super-fetch and Windows index significantly reduces redo-log growth, minimizing storage requirements. Full details of in-guest optimizations can be found here.
[N.B. the PCoIP settings can be set via the Windows registry, or via GPO.]
These simple changes significantly decrease bandwidth consumption, increase consolidation ratios, have minimal impact on typical user experiences and represent good defaults in many environments.