Citrix DaaS

Graphics

March 22, 2022

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Citrix HDX graphics include an extensive set of graphics acceleration and encoding technologies that optimizes the delivery of rich graphics applications from Citrix DaaS (formerly Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops service). The graphic technologies provide the same experience as using a physical desktop when working remotely with virtual applications that are graphics intensive.

You can use software or hardware for graphics rendering. Software rendering requires a third-party library called software rasterizer. For example, Windows includes the WARP rasterizer for DirectX based graphics. Sometimes, you might want to use an alternative software renderer. Hardware rendering (hardware acceleration) requires a graphics processor (GPU).

HDX Graphics offers a default encoding configuration that is optimized for the most common use cases. By using Citrix policies, IT administrators can also configure various graphics-related settings to meet different requirements and provide the desired user experience.

Thinwire

Thinwire is the Citrix default display remoting technology used in Citrix DaaS.

Display remoting technology allows graphics generated on one machine to be transmitted, typically across a network, to another machine for display. Graphics are generated as a result of user input, for example, keystrokes or mouse actions.

HDX 3D Pro

The HDX 3D Pro capabilities in Citrix DaaS enable you to deliver desktops and applications that perform best using a graphics processing unit (GPU) for hardware acceleration. These applications include 3D professional graphics applications based on OpenGL and DirectX. The standard VDA supports GPU acceleration of DirectX only.

GPU acceleration for Windows Single-session OS

By using HDX 3D Pro, you can deliver graphically intensive applications as part of hosted desktops or applications on Single-session OS machines. HDX 3D Pro supports physical host computers (including desktop, blade, and rack workstations) and GPU Passthrough and GPU virtualization technologies offered by XenServer, vSphere, and Hyper-V (passthrough only) hypervisors.

Using GPU Passthrough, you can create VMs that have exclusive access to dedicated graphics processing hardware. You can install multiple GPUs on the hypervisor and assign VMs to each of these GPUs on a one-to-one basis.

Using GPU virtualization, multiple virtual machines can directly access the graphics processing power of a single physical GPU.

GPU acceleration for Windows Multi-session OS

HDX 3D Pro allows graphics-heavy applications running in Windows Multi-session OS sessions to render on the server graphics processing unit (GPU). By moving OpenGL, DirectX, Direct3D, and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) rendering to the server GPU, graphics rendering doesn’t slow down the server CPU. Also, the server is able to process more graphics because the workload is split among the CPU and GPU.

Framehawk

Important:

As of Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 7 1903, Framehawk is no longer supported. Instead, use Thinwire with adaptive transport enabled.

Framehawk is a display remoting technology for mobile workers on broadband wireless connections (Wi-Fi and 4G/LTE cellular networks). Framehawk overcomes the challenges of spectral interference and multipath propagation and delivers a fluid and interactive user experience to users of virtual apps and desktops.

Text-based session watermark

Text-based session watermarks help to deter and enable tracking data theft. This traceable information appears on the session desktop as a deterrent to those using photographs and screen captures to steal data. You can specify a watermark that is a layer of text. The watermark can display over the entire session screen without changing the content of the original document. Text-based session watermarks require VDA support.

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Graphics

March 22, 2022

Contributed by:

March 22, 2022

Contributed by:

Graphics

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