Microsoft® RemoteFX™ enables access to the RDS Host Server from a wide range of client devices including rich clients, thin clients, and ultrathin clients. It also ensures lower bandwidth than Windows Server® when transferring rich graphics applications. When used with a hardware-based application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), the server running Windows Server is capable of hosting more sessions than previous versions.
To take advantage of the GPU capabilities, you must install NVIDIA graphics drivers on each VM after deployment.
Connect by Remote Desktop to each N-series VM. Download, extract, and install the supported driver for your Windows operating system + NVIDIA Tesla drivers for NV VMs (Tesla M60)
Windows Server 2016 Download.
NOTE: check for the latest instructions available on the Azure Documentation Portal and NVIDIA website.
- Connect to the Session Host VM.
- We have to open the Device Manager, we'll notice that the driver for M60 video card will be missing.
- Install the NVIDIA GRID Drivers for VN VMs (Tesla M60).
- Reboot the VM.
On Azure NV VMs, a restart is required after driver installation. To query the GPU device state, run the nvidia-smi command-line utility installed with the driver.
- The following Group Policy settings allow you to configure RemoteFX within your environment. Note that when joining the server to the Session Host collection, you can get a warning indicating that the local group policies are different. You will need to setup these policies through the Group Policy Management console (GPMC) on the domain controller. Once that you have setup them, run the command "gpupdate" on a console on the local server to avoid waiting the automatic policiy refresh that happens every 5 minutes.
| Group Policy setting name | Location | Description | Default value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Use the hardware default graphics adapter for all Remote Desktop Services sessions | Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Remote Desktop Services\Remote Desktop Session Host \Remote Session Environment | If you enable this policy setting, all Remote Desktop Services sessions use the hardware graphics renderer instead of the Microsoft Basic Render Driver as the default adapter. | If you do not configure this policy setting, Remote Desktop Services sessions on the RD Session Host server use the Microsoft Basic Render Driver as the default adapter. |
| Limit number of monitors | Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Remote Desktop Services\Remote Desktop Session Host \Remote Session Environment | Set Maximum monitors to 1. If you enable this policy setting, you can specify the number of monitors that can be used to display a Remote Desktop Services session. You can specify a number from 1 to 16. | If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, the number of monitors that can be used to display a Remote Desktop Services session is not specified at the Group Policy level. |
| Use advanced RemoteFX graphics for RemoteApp | Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Remote Desktop Services\Remote Desktop Session Host \Remote Session Environment | Set to enable | This policy setting allows you to enable RemoteApp programs to use advanced graphics, including support for transparency, live thumbnails, and seamless application moves. This policy setting applies only to RemoteApp programs and does not apply to remote desktop sessions. If you enable or do not configure this policy setting, RemoteApp programs published from this RD Session Host server will use these advanced graphics. If you disable this policy setting, RemoteApp programs published from this RD Session Host server will not use these advanced graphics. You may want to choose this option if you discover that applications published as RemoteApp programs do not support these advanced graphics. |
| Configure H.264/AVC hardware encoding for Remote Desktop Connections | Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Remote Desktop Services\Remote Desktop Session Host \Remote Session Environment | Set to enable and with the prefered value Attempt only for RemoteFX vGPU virtual machines | This policy setting lets you enable H.264/AVC hardware encoding support for Remote Desktop Connections. When you enable hardware encoding, if an error occurs, we will attempt to use software encoding. If you disable or do not configure this policy, we will always use software encoding. If you set the encoding option to “Always Attempt”, Remote Desktop will always try to use H.264/AVC hardware encoding when available, be aware that, for Windows Server running Hyper-V with RemoteFX vGPU enabled, the policy has to be set on the Hyper-V host machine. If you set the encoding option to “Attempt only for RemoteFX vGPU virtual machines” be aware that, for Windows Server running Hyper-V with RemoteFX vGPU enabled, the policy has to be set on the Hyper-V host machine. If you set the encoding option to “Attempt only for non-RemoteFX vGPU scenarios”, Remote Desktop attempts to use hardware encoding for all scenarios except RemoteFX vGPU. |
| Configure image quality for RemoteFX Adaptive Graphics | Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Remote Desktop Services\Remote Desktop Session Host \Remote Session Environment | Optionally enable it, and setup value after experimenting with your bandwidth. | This policy setting allows you to specify the visual quality for remote users when connecting to this computer by using Remote Desktop Connection. You can use this policy setting to balance the network bandwidth usage with the visual quality that is delivered. If you enable this policy setting and set quality to Low, RemoteFX Adaptive Graphics uses an encoding mechanism that results in low quality images. This mode consumes the lowest amount of network bandwidth of the quality modes. If you enable this policy setting and set quality to Medium, RemoteFX Adaptive Graphics uses an encoding mechanism that results in medium quality images. This mode provides better graphics quality than low quality and uses less bandwidth than high quality. If you enable this policy setting and set quality to High, RemoteFX Adaptive Graphics uses an encoding mechanism that results in high quality images and consumes moderate network bandwidth. If you enable this policy setting and set quality to Lossless, RemoteFX Adaptive Graphics uses lossless encoding. In this mode, the color integrity of the graphics data is not impacted. However, this setting results in a significant increase in network bandwidth consumption. We recommend that you set this for very specific cases only. If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, RemoteFX Adaptive Graphics uses an encoding mechanism that results in medium quality images. |
| Allow RDP redirection of other supported RemoteFX USB devices from this computer | Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Remote Desktop Services\Remote Desktop Connection Client\RemoteFX USB Redirection | Set RemoteFX USB Redirection Access Rights to Administrators Only. If you enable this policy setting, you can choose to give the ability to redirect other supported RemoteFX USB devices over RDP to all users or only to users who are in the Administrators group on the computer. | If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, other supported RemoteFX USB devices are not available for RDP redirection by using any user account. |
| Do not allow supported Plug and Play device redirection | Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Remote Desktop Services\Remote Desktop Session Host \Device and Resource Redirection | If you disable this policy setting, users can redirect their supported Plug and Play devices to the remote computer. Users can use the More option on the Local Resources tab of Remote Desktop Connection to choose the supported Plug and Play devices to redirect to the remote computer. | By default, Remote Desktop Services does not allow redirection of supported Plug and Play and RemoteFX USB devices. |