5.4.54-5.4.62 - new graphics for 2012R2
Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2016 3:07 pm
Unlike "RemoteFX" buzzword, that appears everywhere, Microsoft didn't invent any buzzword for this graphic codec. This codec is fantastic. Microsoft finished lossy codec from RemoteFX for photo/video, added cashes and lossless codec, that were not included in RemoteFX.
Codec is embedded into 2012R2 and Windows 10. It's turned on by default, no need to specially turn on anything. Whether it works or not - depends on the client.
If WTware starts with this codec you'll se in the log:
One tile thread runs for each processor kernel.
In addition: in 5.4.58 new graphics is turned on for x86 and uefi. It won't work for old processors without SSE. Color depth bpp=32 bit is now by default, unless another value is specified in config. For old x86 computers and to work with 2008 server, i.e. where there's no new graphics, it's better to specify bpp=16 in config.
With new graphics even Pi 2 shows youtube in browser default size smoothly (default youtube size is less then quarter of screen, do not expect fullscreen video!). Photo view also became more smooth.
If new codec runs, WTware automatically turns on font smoothing and Desktop Composition (graphic=fg).
With this codec difference between 16- and 32-bit color became significant. With 16-bit color - looks bad, steps and twitches on smooth gradients in video. And a problem appeared: very clever codec sometimes slightly changes background color for text pieces. In browsers you may see areas with a little different background color. That's why by default 32-bit color is set. Slightly slower, but nice. Color depth on Raspberry may be changed in config.txt on SD.
Full-screen video on Raspberry is still slow. And it's not comfortable: it slowly reacts to keyboard/mouse. Heavily loaded by big video playback queues on server and in WTware become full. WTware immediately send command for mouse key click to server and server immediately executes it. But result will be shown on the screen only when command queues will be empty and executed. We saw lags up to 3 seconds. Right now I see no ways how to fix it. Just don't hurry, while watching big video on the screen.
Sound sometimes fails. Will be fixed. When processes will calm down, sound works ok, but at new video start several times it will click.
Codec is embedded into 2012R2 and Windows 10. It's turned on by default, no need to specially turn on anything. Whether it works or not - depends on the client.
If WTware starts with this codec you'll se in the log:
One tile thread runs for each processor kernel.
In addition: in 5.4.58 new graphics is turned on for x86 and uefi. It won't work for old processors without SSE. Color depth bpp=32 bit is now by default, unless another value is specified in config. For old x86 computers and to work with 2008 server, i.e. where there's no new graphics, it's better to specify bpp=16 in config.
With new graphics even Pi 2 shows youtube in browser default size smoothly (default youtube size is less then quarter of screen, do not expect fullscreen video!). Photo view also became more smooth.
If new codec runs, WTware automatically turns on font smoothing and Desktop Composition (graphic=fg).
With this codec difference between 16- and 32-bit color became significant. With 16-bit color - looks bad, steps and twitches on smooth gradients in video. And a problem appeared: very clever codec sometimes slightly changes background color for text pieces. In browsers you may see areas with a little different background color. That's why by default 32-bit color is set. Slightly slower, but nice. Color depth on Raspberry may be changed in config.txt on SD.
Full-screen video on Raspberry is still slow. And it's not comfortable: it slowly reacts to keyboard/mouse. Heavily loaded by big video playback queues on server and in WTware become full. WTware immediately send command for mouse key click to server and server immediately executes it. But result will be shown on the screen only when command queues will be empty and executed. We saw lags up to 3 seconds. Right now I see no ways how to fix it. Just don't hurry, while watching big video on the screen.
Sound sometimes fails. Will be fixed. When processes will calm down, sound works ok, but at new video start several times it will click.