Getting Started with RemoteFX in Windows Embedded Compact 7 Writers: Randy Ocheltree, Ryan Wike Technical Reviewer: Windows Embedded Compact RDP Team Applies To: Windows Embedded Compact 7 Published: January 2012 Abstract This implementation overview of Microsoft RemoteFX on a Windows Embedded Compact powered thin client provides the following information: A description of both the server and client features of RemoteFX Hardware recommendations for thin client devices Design guidelines for display drivers Implementation fundamentals for display drivers Licensing requirements © 2012 Microsoft. All rights reserved. Contents Introduction to Using RemoteFX in Windows Embedded Compact 7 ..................................................... 3 RemoteFX Overview ............................................................................................................................ 3 Windows Server RemoteFX Support ................................................................................................. 4 Windows Server RemoteFX Features ............................................................................................ 4 Windows Embedded Compact 7 Remote Desktop Client RemoteFX Support .................................... 5 Windows Embedded Compact 7 RemoteFX Features .................................................................... 5 Client-Side Software Decoding for RemoteFX ............................................................................. 5 Client-Side Hardware-Accelerated Decoding for RemoteFX ........................................................ 5 Differences Between RemoteFX Support in Windows 7 and Windows Embedded Compact 7 ........... 6 Recommendations and Requirements .................................................................................................. 7 Remote FX Hardware Requirements ................................................................................................. 7 Windows Server Hardware Requirements ...................................................................................... 7 Windows Embedded Compact 7 Thin Client Hardware Recommendations ..................................... 7 RemoteFX Software Requirements ................................................................................................... 8 Designing and Implementing a Thin Client RemoteFX Display Driver .................................................... 8 Using a Coprocessor for Hardware Acceleration................................................................................ 9 Display Driver Design Guidelines .................................................................................................... 10 Display Driver Design Choice: Window-Frame or Full-Screen Display Mode ................................ 10 Performance Optimization for the RemoteFX Thin-Client Display Driver ....................................... 12 Implementing a Thin-Client RemoteFX Display Driver ..................................................................... 13 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 14 Additional Resources ......................................................................................................................... 15 © 2012 Microsoft. All rights reserved. Getting Started with RemoteFX in Windows Embedded Compact 7 3 Introduction to Using RemoteFX in Windows Embedded Compact 7 Microsoft RemoteFX adds new functionality to both the server and client sides of the Remote Desktop experience. RemoteFX is a new feature in Windows Server 2008 R2 with Service Pack 1 (SP1) and also in the Windows Embedded Compact 7 (Compact 7) implementation of the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) 7.1. RemoteFX introduces a set of enhancements to RDP that benefit the users of your clients. These enhancements provide a full desktop environment over a local area network (LAN) to users of a range of client devices, which include rich clients, thin clients, and ultrathin clients. A Compact 7 thin client with RemoteFX support provides a full remote desktop experience when you use your thin client together with a RemoteFX-enabled Windows server. RemoteFX uses complete server-side rendering of a Remote Desktop session, which allows a RemoteFX-enabled client that runs on Compact 7 to provide users with a full RDP experience, such as high-quality full-screen video and the Windows Aero theme. With Compact 7, you can use the new RemoteFX enhancements for RDP to build a low-cost RemoteFX-enabled thin-client device. This article describes what you need to start developing a RemoteFX-enabled thin client by giving you the following information: An overview of the RemoteFX technology in RemoteFX Overview. The necessary hardware, software, and licensing requirements for using RemoteFX in Recommendations and Requirements. Guidance on developing a display driver for your thin client in Designing and Implementing a Thin Client RemoteFX Display Driver. When you use RemoteFX and Compact 7 to build a thin client, you receive these benefits: 1. Client-side hardware acceleration. 2. Minimal hardware requirements for the client device, which provides the opportunity for a new category of extremely low-cost clients. 3. Easy integration into existing Microsoft network infrastructures, for example, integration into a secure enterprise network. 4. The ability to create customized device-based software. RemoteFX Overview Microsoft RemoteFX introduces a set of user experience enhancements in RDP that enable a full, local- like desktop environment for remote desktops. RDP is designed to provide remote display and input capabilities over network connections for Windows-based applications that run on a server. © 2012 Microsoft. All rights reserved. Getting Started with RemoteFX in Windows Embedded Compact 7 4 By using advanced codecs and virtual graphic resources on a server that runs Windows Server 2008 R2 with SP1, RemoteFX adds support for most types of graphical applications, which include three- dimensional (3-D), and also adds rich multimedia support for virtual desktops. RemoteFX technology is different from traditional software-only codecs because it uses the hardware on servers that run Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 to efficiently encode data before the data is sent to a client. The RemoteFX codec was designed to efficiently compress data, a software design that satisfies the goals of high quality and low latency while it uses a modest amount of computer resources. Windows Server RemoteFX Support When using RemoteFX for Windows Server 2008 R2 with SP1, you can deploy centralized Windows virtual desktops that are hosted by a Hyper-V server. RemoteFX-enabled clients can provide a full, high-fidelity user experience. RemoteFX uses server hardware to encode data from either the RD Virtualization Host or the RD Session Host (a role service in Remote Desktop Services) before the data is sent to a client. RemoteFX supports scalable virtual desktop deployments by using graphics processing units (GPUs) and GPU virtualization. RemoteFX for Windows server provides other RDP performance enhancements that are listed in the following section. Windows Server RemoteFX Features RemoteFX for Windows Server 2008 R2 with SP1 reduces the workload on RemoteFX-enabled RDP clients by using these features: 1. Host-side rendering, which uses the Windows host server, not the RDP client, to render graphics. 2. Graphics processing unit (GPU) virtualization, which shares GPU hardware resources on the host server with RDP clients. GPU virtualization only works with virtual machines running on a Hyper-V server. 3. Intelligent screen capture, which checks screen content between frames and transmits for encoding, only the changes that the user made to the screen. It also tracks and adjusts network speed according to available bandwidth. 4. RemoteFX encoder, which encodes bitmaps for transfer from the RD Session Host or RD Virtualization Host server to the RDP client. The RemoteFX encoder compresses screen data by using the host CPU or GPU, or other dedicated hardware, such as an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). For more information about RemoteFX features in Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, see Microsoft RemoteFX (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=208193). © 2012 Microsoft. All rights reserved. Getting Started with RemoteFX in Windows Embedded Compact 7 5 Windows Embedded Compact 7 Remote Desktop Client RemoteFX Support RemoteFX on Compact 7 supports both hardware-accelerated decoding and software decoding. Hardware-accelerated decoding offers the best performance, especially on low-end hardware. We recommend that you use hardware decoding on your thin clients. Software decoding requires a CPU processor that is enabled with the Streaming SIMD Extensions 2 (SSE2) instruction set and a large amount of system memory. Ultrathin clients typically do not have the required processing power to achieve a quality remote access experience with RemoteFX software decoding. We recommend that you use hardware-accelerated decoding when developing your thin client. Windows Embedded Compact 7 RemoteFX Features The following features on the Compact 7 RemoteFX-enabled client, work together with a server that runs Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 with RemoteFX features to provide a full remote computing experience: RemoteFX decoding, which decodes the bitmaps that are transferred from the virtual desktop on the client computer by using software