Google Sketchup 8 poor performance on VDI environment

[superatticman]

Hiya

 

We're having some serious performance issues with this piece of software! We're currently running VDI in a Citrix/Xen Desktop environment with most other apps running fairly smoothly.

 

Has anyone else on here played around with Google Sketchup 8 in VDI?

 

Cheers

[SkreeM1980]

I looked at the hardware requirements for sketchup, and then advised staff that we were unable to put it onto the VDI environment.

 

•Recommended hardware

◦2+ GHz processor.

◦2+ GB RAM.

◦500 MB of available hard-disk space.

◦3D class Video Card with 512+ MB of memory or higher. Please ensure that the video card driver supports OpenGL version 1.5 or higher and up to date.

SketchUp's performance relies heavily the graphics card driver and it's ability to support OpenGL 1.5 or higher. Historically, people have seen problems with Intel based cards with SketchUp. We don't recommend using these graphics cards with SketchUp at this time.

◦3 button, scroll-wheel mouse.

◦Some SketchUp features require an active internet connection.

 

 

there is no way my VDI has that type of GFX performance, without even thinking about the processor caps etc

[stephen1977]

@ Superatticman

 

I'm afraid VDI on standard server platforms is going to struggle to run programs such as sketchup. You will have to invest (heavily) in blade servers with onboard gfx chip emulation to provide applications such as these through VDI. You will then find direct3d/openGL performance will be possible, although the performance will be similair to that of most 2006 era entry level 256mb Geforce Video cards. Reasonable, but nothing to really impress anyone.

 

Please don't tell me you've made the classic mistake of taking the 'VDI for everything' approach then realising a number of applications that most frontline school IT environments require don't actually work very well, or at all!

 

You have have you not? But rest assured, I did exactly the same and fell for the salesman's pitch.

 

VDI has a place in Education and is the way forward, but just be very, very careful before choosing your infrastructure as it will soon end up costing more than standard IT kit.

[SkreeM1980]

@ Superatticman

 

VDI has a place in Education and is the way forward.

 

Absoloutley, VDI is a fantastic solution, but as with most IT solutions it's not a fit for everything. We have a large VDI deployment, but when we started deploying it I knew that it would not fit into every location. We now have 300+ Thin Client devices connecting to the VDI, but i also still have about 100 traditional desktop PC's in IT Suites/Open Access areas to cope with the "more demanding" applications Such as 2D/3D CAD & Video/Photo Editing and with the technology where it is i wouldn't consider changing this. My next step is to start using VDI in staff offices, but again it will be a mixed/balanced deployment to allow/ensure flexibility.

 

Talking about falling for the salesman's pitch, yes I did fall for it, but not in terms of thinking it could do everything, just some of the multimedia performance and managability side, not following updates from VMWare and out TC manufacturer I'm where i expected to be, but that is nearly 2 years down the line from our initial deployment.

 

Skr