Troubleshoot Graphic Performance and Quality Issues – Implement and Manage Networking for Azure Virtual Desktop

Troubleshoot Graphic Performance and Quality Issues

You as an admin must know how to detect and troubleshoot experience quality issues with your remote desktop sessions. Counters are offered under the “RemoteFX Graphics” section of Performance Monitor. Below question assists you in identifying and resolving graphics-related performance bottlenecks during Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) sessions using these counters.

•\    How Do I Find the Remote Session Name?

It is important to find the remote session name to find the graphics performance counters. Follow these steps to identify your instance of each counter:

\ 1.\ First open the Windows command prompt from your remote session and then run the qwinsta command and find your session name.

If your session is hosted in a multisession virtual machine (VM), your instance of each counter is suffixed by the same number that suffixes your session name, such as rdp-tcp 37.

If your session is hosted in a VM that supports virtual graphics processing units (vGPUs), your instance of each counter is stored on the server instead of in your VM. Your counter instances include the VM name instead of the number in the session name, such as “Win8 Enterprise VM.”

•\    How Do I Access Performance Counters?

Once you have decided your remote session name, then perform these steps to collect the RemoteFX Graphics performance counters for your remote session:

\  1.\  First click Start ➤ Administrative Tools ➤ Performance Monitor.

\ 2.\ In the Performance Monitor dialog box, expand Monitoring Tools, select Performance Monitor, and then select Add.

\  3.\  In the Add Counters dialog box, from the Available Counters

list, expand the section RemoteFX Graphics. Then choose the counters to be monitored.

\ 4.\ In the “Instances of selected object” list, select the specific instances to be monitored for the selected counters and then select Add. To select all the available counter instances, select All instances, and then after adding the counters, select OK.

Finally, the chosen performance counters will appear on the Performance Monitor screen.

•\    How Do I Diagnose the Graphics-Related Performance Issues?

Remember, the graphics-related performance problem normally fall into four types:low frame rate, random stalls, high input latency, and poor frame quality.

To address low frame rate, random stalls, and high input latency, first check the Output Frames/Second counter. This measures the number of frames made available to the client. If this value is less than the Input Frames/Second counter, frames are being skipped. To identify the bottleneck, use the Frames Skipped/Second counters. There are three types of Frames Skipped/Second counters.

•\   Frames Skipped/Second (Insufficient Server Resources)

•\   Frames Skipped/Second (Insufficient Network Resources)

•\   Frames Skipped/Second (Insufficient Client Resources)

A high value for any of the Frames Skipped/Second counters implies that the problem is related to the resource the counter tracks. If the Output Frames/Second counter matches the Input Frames/Second counter, you will still notice unusual lag or stalling, and Average Encoding Time may be the culprit. Encoding is a synchronous process that occurs on the server in the single-session (vGPU) scenario and on the VM in the multisession scenario. Average Encoding Time should be less than 33 ms.

Since RDP supports an Average Encoding Time value of 33 ms, it supports an input frame rate up to 30 frames/second. Note that 33 ms is the maximum supported frame rate. In many cases, the frame rate experienced by the user will be lower, depending on how often a frame is provided to RDP by the source.

•\    How to Check the Poor Frame Quality?

Make use of the Frame Quality counter to diagnose frame quality issues. This counter expresses the quality of the output frame as a percentage of the quality of the source frame. The quality loss may be due to RemoteFX, or it may be inherent to the graphics source. If RemoteFX caused the quality loss, the issue may be a lack of network or server resources to send higher-fidelity content.