XenApp and XenDesktop

OpenGL Software Accelerator

The OpenGL Software Accelerator is a software rasterizer for OpenGL applications such as ArcGIS, Google Earth, Nehe, Maya, Blender, Voxler, and CAD/CAM applications. Sometimes, the OpenGL Software Accelerator can eliminate the need to use graphics cards to deliver a good user experience when using OpenGL applications.

Important

We provide the OpenGL Software Accelerator as is and must be tested using all applications because it might not support some applications. If the Windows OpenGL rasterizer does not provide adequate performance, it is a solution to try . If the OpenGL Software Accelerator supports your applications, you can use it as a way to avoid the cost of GPU hardware.

The OpenGL Software Accelerator is provided in the support folder on the installation media, and is supported on all valid VDA platforms.

When to try the OpenGL Software Accelerator:

  • On servers without graphics processing hardware, and the performance of OpenGL applications running in virtual machines on XenServer or other hypervisors is an issue. For some applications, the OpenGL Accelerator outperforms the Microsoft OpenGL software rasterizer that is included in Windows because the OpenGL Accelerator uses SSE4.1 and AVX. OpenGL Accelerator also supports applications using OpenGL versions up to 2.1.
  • For applications running on a workstation, first try the default version of OpenGL support provided by the workstation graphics adapter. If the graphics card is the latest version, usually it delivers the best performance. If the graphics card is an earlier version or does not deliver satisfactory performance, try the OpenGL Software Accelerator.
  • 3D OpenGL applications that are not adequately delivered using CPU-based software rasterization might benefit from OpenGL GPU hardware acceleration. This feature can be used on bare metal or virtual machines.
OpenGL Software Accelerator

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