AndiMarv Posted July 30, 2012 Posted July 30, 2012 I am getting ready to buy my first Multipoint Server Hosts but am a little confused by the working of the USB clients specifically the video performance. Do the USB clients utilise the hosts GPU for graphics processing or is this done using the CPU? If the USB clients use the GPU then I will need to buy a system with a decent graphics processor but i cant find information online which makes this clear to me. Thanks.
tmcd35 Posted July 30, 2012 Posted July 30, 2012 The USB clients should have their own individual video cards in them, albeit very slow by modern gfx standards. That said the drivers for these things almost certainly offload most of the processing to the CPU. If your after "amazing" graphics performance you might be best using several dedicated graphics cards with multiple display outputs, but plugging your screens directly into the graphics cards obviously limits how far away they can be from the Multipoint host (as in USB over Ethernet is pointless).
AndiMarv Posted July 30, 2012 Author Posted July 30, 2012 This certainly changes things. The system is planned for our juniors and they use various flash sites and some YouTube videos. If I where to use direct connected stations I would need 6 hosts instead of two as there are 6 individual tables in the room.
tmcd35 Posted July 30, 2012 Posted July 30, 2012 (edited) If you spec the CPU and RAM well enough then the USB graphics adapters *should* cope with a bit of web based Flash and YouTube - but, I'd perhaps be concerned by the proposed station:host ratio - how many desks do you need? I'm sure someone would correct me if I'm wrong - but isn't VDI and RemoteFX designed for these kind of situations? Edited July 30, 2012 by tmcd35
AndiMarv Posted July 30, 2012 Author Posted July 30, 2012 I am replacing 21 physical computer stations and was looking to split this over two multipoint hosts. I have evaluated VDI-In-A-Box from Citrix but for the small scale purposes of replacing our junior classroom it seemed like a massive investment on servers and licensing where multipoint would suffice and can also be included in our EES agreement.
tmcd35 Posted July 30, 2012 Posted July 30, 2012 A lot depends on the spec of the host. My gut is 10:1 with USB graphics would struggle with running YouTube clips on all of them at the same time - but thats a gut instinct and nothing I've tested. Our "top spec" MultiPoint is a 3.4Ghz Quad-Core AMD with about 8Gb Ram. That runs 7 stations using USB graphics. Can't say we've had any complaints but then again they are only used for Word Processing and Wikipedia. Our main suite of MultiPoints run Quad-Core i5's with 6Gb Ram (HP MS6000's) on a 5:1 ratio. They are used with Solidworks (3D CAD) and Flash media. Unfortunately YouTube is blocked here so streaming video pretty much never gets used. 1
AndiMarv Posted July 30, 2012 Author Posted July 30, 2012 That is useful, thank you. Perhaps I should downscale the ratio of hosts to stations. At least with more stations I can be sure to include more direct connected stations and attempt to reduce the overhead the USB connections would impose.
tmcd35 Posted July 30, 2012 Posted July 30, 2012 My guess is that a fast quad core with 12-16Gb Ram would do what your after on a 7:1 ratio - but again that's a guess. The best piece of advise I can give with Multipoint is watch your USB connections. It's simpler if you use dedicated thinclients/KVM's from the likes of Axel or HP, but if you roll you own (as I do) then remember - 1 USB hub per station and no more than 4 USB ports per hub. Anything else will seriously confuse Windows! Also, for some reason, it doesn't like mixing USB graphics with dedicated graphics - try to use one or the other if possible. Most problems I've encountered have come from breaking those couple of rules.
plexer Posted July 30, 2012 Posted July 30, 2012 In our library I have an HP Z210 workstation running 7 HP T200's and 1 direct connected to the hosts onboard graphics. This is used for web/flash/office stuf. Ben 1
Axel Posted July 30, 2012 Posted July 30, 2012 AndiMarv To give you something "tangible" to test on the client side was can send you a free "ethernet" connected thin client. It would be an ex-demo device, supplied with no warranty, but yours to keep (no strings attached). With direct RDP connected devices you can connect the full compliment of 20 clients to one server (with the console that gives you your full 21 ?), and performance won't be severely impacted, as RDP puts much less load on the server CPU - but the performance won't be as high as a lower number of USB connected devices. It all depends on your performance expectations/requirements - This is what you can expect on the client end - not too bad for more "casual" users Multi-Media on RDP Thin client - YouTube PM me if you wish to accept the offer... 1
AndiMarv Posted July 30, 2012 Author Posted July 30, 2012 Thanks, Plexer, for detailing the setup in your library. I think with a little consideration made to the scaling I might get away with maybe three hosts in my environment. I dont expect there to be masses of multimedia content but I need to make sure it is acceptable quality should a class do anything involving videos. Thanks to Axel for the offer, I will have to consider this once I have a MP host in place
strawberry Posted September 10, 2012 Posted September 10, 2012 AndiMarv To give you something "tangible" to test on the client side was can send you a free "ethernet" connected thin client. It would be an ex-demo device, supplied with no warranty, but yours to keep (no strings attached). Multi-Media on RDP Thin client - YouTube PM me if you wish to accept the offer... @Axel , Would I be able to get a piece of this as well?
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