PCoIP Ultra - Troubleshooting

Technical Requirements

When attempting to enable the PCoIP Ultra protocol enhancements certain platform specific requirements must be met.

• Clients and hosts must support the AVX2 instruction set. The PCoIP Ultra enhancements will require the Teradici software client running on a modern AVX2 capable client device.
• Intel 8th Generation Core i5/i7 processors  with dual memory banks are required to achieve 4K30 FPS performance. An example of this includes NUC10i5FNH (Intel Corei5-10210U processor).
• PCoIP Ultra with GPU optimizations uses software based H.264 decoding for Windows clients and hardware based H.264 decoding for Linux clients, supporting resolutions up to 2560x1600 at 30 FPS. Teradici recommends Intel 8th Generation Core i5/i7 processors with dual memory banks.
• In the host environment to achieve the best results for 4K/UHD display topology, at least 4 CPU cores are required in addition to cores required for the user applications.
• In the host environment to achieve the best results for FHD topology, at least 2 CPU cores are required.
• You can set processor affinity for the PCoIP Server process if you want to partition encoding from the application workload. Teradici recommends at least 4 CPU cores for the PCoIP Server process with 4K/UHD, and 2 CPU cores for FHD.
• For H.264 support with GPU encode acceleration it requires an NVIDIA GPU that supports NVENC and the NVIDIA capture SDK:
  • https://developer.nvidia.com/video-encode-decode-gpu-support-matrix
  • http://developer.download.nvidia.com/designworks/capture-sdk/docs/7.1/NVIDIA_Capture_SDK_7_1_Release_Notes.pdf
• The vGPU profiles used must support CUDA as without this support H.264 will not work. The following page lists what vGPU profiles support CUDA:
  • https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/vGPU/index.html
• A GRID 8.0 or newer environment is required for NVIDIA RTX support on the host side.
• For H.264 support with GPU encode acceleration, single 2560x1600 or dual 1920x1080 display topologies will operate at highest performance. While 4K/UHD displays are supported, frame rate performance may be limited.

PCoIP Ultra Prerequisites

When attempting to enable the PCoIP Ultra protocol enhancements certain system prerequisites must be met to achieve optimal performance.

• Enable PCoIP Ultra CPU optimization or PCoIP Ultra GPU optimization as per Windows GPO or Linux pcoip-agent.conf setting.
• For CPU optimization, confirm the blue indicator at the bottom left hand side of the display.
• For GPU optimization, confirm the magenta indicator at the bottom left hand side of the display.
• Establish a PCoIP session using a supported client from the table below.

Checking for AVX2 Support

There are two troubleshooting options available when checking for AVX2 support:

• Check the PCoIP Agent and Client logs for the AVX2 instruction set compatibility statement on both Agents and Clients. A PCoIP session must have been successfully established first on your system. The example below outlines a log line to look for when determining if the Agent/Client supports AVX2:

• Check the CPU info does not require HP Anyware to be installed or a session to be established prior to confirming support for AVX2 instruction set:
  • Linux: > grep avx2/proc/cpuinfo
  • Windows: Open Device Manager > Look at the machines processors > Search the processor model online and determine its AVX2 compatibility.

PCoIP Ultra Supported Clients

PCoIP Ultra CPU Optimization - Blue indicator not visible

If the blue indicator is not visible for CPU optimization then you should check the PCoIP Agent and Client logs for the AVX2 instruction set compatibility statement on both Agents and Clients:

• Server logs for the Windows Agent can be found at C:\ProgramData\Teradici\PCoIPAgent\logs
• Server logs for the Linux Agent can be found at :/var/log/pcoip-agent
• Check the Agent logs for PCoIP Video Protocol 4 support negotiation:
  • Agent log message: 2019-04-12T22:39:19.958Z af9a9b80-4cfa-1fed-928f-2cf0ee216ba4 > LVL:2 RC: 0 PSDP :Video encoding pcoip_video_4 supported (0=unsupported) - negotiated: 1

PCoIP Ultra GPU Optimization - Magenta indicator not visible

If the magenta indicator is not visible for GPU optimization then you can review NVENC compatibility of the GPU on the host and check if the correct NVIDIA driver (Grid 8 for HP Anyware 19.08 beta) is running and review the Agent log message. Ensure the NVIDIA GPU supports NVENC.

Check if the correct NVIDIA driver is running:

• Agent log message: 2019-04-12T22:39:13.072Z af9a9b80-4cfa-1fed-928f-2cf0ee216ba4 > LVL:3 RC: 0 IMG_ENCODER :TeradiciH264Codec::H264Codec::H264Codec NVENC interface unavailable. Current Driver Version does not support this NvEncodeAPI version, please upgrade driver

Check the Agent logs for PCoIP Video Protocol 4 support negotiation:

• Agent log message:2019-04-12T22:39:19.958Z af9a9b80-4cfa-1fed-928f-2cf0ee216ba4 > LVL:2 RC: 0 PSDP :Video encoding pcoip_video_4 supported (0=unsupported) - negotiated: 1

Client Performance Troubleshooting

To check the clients performance you need to review the client logs.

• Windows client: review client logs at %LOCALAPPDATA%\Teradici\PCoIPClient\logs
• Linux client: review logs at /tmp/Teradici/<user>/PCoIPClient/logs
• Mac OS X client: review logs at ~/Library/Logs/Teradici/PCoIPClient/

PCoIP Ultra Compatible x86 Clients

The following table lists some x86 clients that can leverage PCoIP Ultra, including guidance on the type of use case appropriate for each. This is not an exhaustive list, and other x86 clients will work.

Experiencing Packet Loss

If you do not have a high-bandwidth clean network and adhere to the prerequisites outlined above, then the client may experience sufficient packet loss to limit throughput to approximately 150Mbps.

Windows Client

In some instances, UDP throughput might be adversely affected by system reconfiguration caused by Windows updates and/or NIC driver updates. 
To limit the packet loss: 

• Ensure that the latest drivers from the manufacturer are in use. 
• Ensure that Flow Control and Interrupt Moderation are enabled for the NIC used to establish a PCoIP Session, and that the Receive Buffers exceeds 500.
• Ensure the Receive buffer size, sometimes called RX buffer, is increased to the maximum supported value by the device. 

These settings can be found within the NIC's Advanced Properties tab within the Windows Device Manager.

Linux Client 

To limit the packet loss on a Linux client, execute the following command after installing the PCoIP Linux client: