NVIDIA vGPU M10 profiles & XenApp (2016 Desktops)\XenDesktop (Windows 10) Sizing

NVIDIA Virtual GPU Forums Virtual GPU XenApp
#1

Hi Folks,

I’m working on a requirement to deliver a “power user” experience for Citrix end-users. The workloads should be able to cater for high resolution video @1920 x 1080p across dual display heads and good multimedia experience when browsing etc.

Concurrency: 380 Users
HW: HPE RackMount with NVIDIA M10’s (this is our preferred option)

My initial thinking here was to assign FULL 8Gb frame buffer and carve out 4 XenApp VM’s capable of delivering a Server 2016 published desktop using the lowest M10 vGPU profile BUT apparently these don’t can’t deliver graphics above 1280 x 1080p resolution??

So should I be then be looking at Windows 10 Pooled desktops using XenDesktop with M10-1B (1GB) frame buffers instead?

My preference is for better balance between user density and experience rather than a “rolls-royce” solution as the users don’t require any CAD or 3D apps it’s just multimedia content. Any sizing pointers would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

cheers
VinScaler

#2

Hi VS

You can try the W2016 with XenApp option, but as you specifically mention dual screen HD video, I’m not sure that’s the way to go, especially if you start having a read through this forum, you’ll see that playing video on XenApp and getting desirable results is something a lot of people have trouble with. If dual screen HD video hadn’t been mentioned, and you were using general Office applications, then I’d have said XenApp was the best choice.

GRID 5 is available from Sept 1st and it has a lot of new features in it, so maybe XenApp performance will change due to what’s coming up … Best bet is to try it and see if you can get the performance you need. Get the single user performance first, then add density and see where the performance drops off. You can then decide whether you prefer XenApp or XenDesktop.

If you go down the XenApp route, how many users are you thinking per XenApp server? Of course, if you can’t get the desired video quality level, then XenApp may be a non-starter anyway.

If you go down the XenDesktop route, assuming you have 2x M10s per server, you’re looking at an absolute max of 64 concurrent users per physical server (with a 1B profile), however they will have a more consistent experience than those using XenApp. So that’s a minimum 6 physical servers, plus additional for resiliency.

Obviously, make sure you use the latest 7.15 LTSR version.

As I say to most people on here, the only way you will know for sure is to test. We can advise on basic specs, but no 2 deployments are the same and the load on each platform will always differ to some degree.

Regards

Ben

#3

Hi Vinscaler,
Your sizing is exactly what I would suggest. What do you mean with 1280x1024 resolution on XenApp? For XenApp (RDSH) we use an Offscreen buffer and no NVFBC so the resolution given in our documentation doesn’t matter. It depends on XenApp so 2xFull HD should be fine!!!

Regards

Simon