Can XenDesktop 7.8 offload encoding to NVENC?

Virtual GPU Forums General Discussion
1

Hi All,

I thought that XenDesktop 7.8 could not officially offload encoding to NVENC. However, after reading the following Citrix blog, I am not completely clear.

https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2016/04/04/virtualize-linux-3d-applications-with-hdx-3d-pro-for-linux/

The blog says,"HDX 3D Pro support is available with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.2 on both Citrix XenServer and VMware vSphere, in GPU pass-through mode. In addition, enables NVIDIA GRID H.264 hardware encoding (which works especially well with the H.264 hardware decoding in the Citrix Receivers for Linux and Windows)."

Can anyone clarify if encode offload works only in Linux? Or does it work in Windows too? If it works in Linux, it must only work in pass-through as that’s the only graphics acceleration that works with Linux and XenDesktop.

Thanks!

Richard

2

Hi, Richard:
My understanding is that while HDX 3D Pro is supported on both Linux and Windows platforms, the H.264 encoding offload is currently only supported on the Linux VMs. See https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2016/04/07/whats-new-in-linux-virtual-desktop-1-2/ in which it states:

"The latest performance enhancements for HDX have been introduced in Linux VDA, ahead of their availability in the Windows VDA. It leverages NVIDIA GRID H.264 hardware encoding on GPU-enabled Linux-HDX-3D-Graphicsservers, for greater server scalability and rich graphics performance. On clients that have GPU available, H.264 hardware decoding complements the high definition experience, in the Citrix Receivers for Linux, Chrome OS and Windows."

4

I can confirm that currently it’s only the Linux VDA that supports NVENC in Citrix XenDesktop

For when it appears in the Windows VDA, you’ll have to ask Citrix…

5

Perfect. Thanks everyone! Very helpful.

-Richard

6

I would be careful about the offload to GPU if you have GRID 1.0. Apparently the K1 cards, per card, can only handle 12 H.264 1080p sessions. The newer GRID 2.0 cards, M60 can handle 36 H.264 1080p sessions. For right now, CPU is my best friend :).

7

Sorry, Double post.

8

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