Windows 2012 R2 RDP slowness

[netlite]

I've recently installed on an updated Proxmox host a single Windows 2012 R2 server dedicated to RDP session on a HP blade with 16CPU and 64Gb RAM on a fibrechannel RAID 5 multipath SAN.
I used LVM container on a SAN Lun and virtio network adapter and disk controller.

I noticed that:
- network latency is not constant with increasing server load (spikes of 100ms or more)
- rdp sessions, even on the same network, are really slow and redrawing is terrible with scattering especially on multimedia or documents

TCP tuning on guest didn't solve the problem.
CPU load is normal.
IO on SAN is below normal.
RDP connections are 20/30.

Tried last 2.6 kernel and last 3.10.

# pveversion -v
proxmox-ve-2.6.32: not correctly installed (running kernel: 3.10.0-7-pve)
pve-manager: 3.4-1 (running version: 3.4-1/3f2d890e)
pve-kernel-3.10.0-7-pve: 3.10.0-27
pve-kernel-2.6.32-33-pve: 2.6.32-138
pve-kernel-2.6.32-37-pve: 2.6.32-147
pve-kernel-2.6.32-34-pve: 2.6.32-140
lvm2: 2.02.98-pve4
clvm: 2.02.98-pve4
corosync-pve: 1.4.7-1
openais-pve: 1.1.4-3
libqb0: 0.11.1-2
redhat-cluster-pve: 3.2.0-2
resource-agents-pve: 3.9.2-4
fence-agents-pve: 4.0.10-2
pve-cluster: 3.0-16
qemu-server: 3.3-20
pve-firmware: 1.1-3
libpve-common-perl: 3.0-24
libpve-access-control: 3.0-16
libpve-storage-perl: 3.0-31
pve-libspice-server1: 0.12.4-3
vncterm: 1.1-8
vzctl: 4.0-1pve6
vzprocps: 2.0.11-2
vzquota: 3.1-2
pve-qemu-kvm: 2.1-12
ksm-control-daemon: 1.1-1
glusterfs-client: 3.5.2-1

May LAN multiqueue (and kernel 3.10) helps?

It's a vga rendering problem or a network stack issue?

Thanks

andrea

 

[sumsum]

I dont have a similar Setup like you, but I identified the same behavior in our updated Dev Server with Windows 2012 R2 and 8.1 .
RDP is pretty slow and network seems to be not that stable as before.

 

[MeyrNL]

We have similar setup and experiencing also the same issues. One of our important issues is this: http://forum.proxmox.com/threads/21139-Live-migration-of-VM-network-issue.
Currently we have ~70 Windows instances running, 20 of them are migrated to 3 hypervisors with version 3.3, and the issues disappeared.

 

[sumsum]

I'm not sure if this might improved the performance only on my site, but I identified that I used an older virtio driver on the windows guests - Dated back in November 2014.
Now I just figured, that there is a newer available, dated mid of January 2015. After I updated the virtio drivers I have the feeling the behavior of the Guests systems are more snappier than before.
I might be wrong or just tired

 

[wahmed]

We have similar setup and experiencing also the same issues. One of our important issues is this: http://forum.proxmox.com/threads/21139-Live-migration-of-VM-network-issue.
Currently we have ~70 Windows instances running, 20 of them are migrated to 3 hypervisors with version 3.3, and the issues disappeared.

Could you please clarify what did you mean by the problem dissapeared? You can watch video for example Youtube without stuttering? Graphics heavy webpage loads fast?

We have several RDP networks on Proxmox platform. All of them have slow graphics issue. By doing some tweaks and policy configuration we are finally able to play youtube video through RDP without stuttering but only with Firefox browser. All other browser has stuttering audio/video issue. large PDF or heavy graphics website scrolling far from being smooth. All our setup were on Proxmox 3.3 and now 3.4 with same issue. Virtio driver we are using is version 0.1-94. Going to give new 0.1-100 and see if there is any difference.

I was told without RemoteFX, we will never see local machine performance on virtualized RDP sessions.

 

[netlite]

We did some tests on a freshly installed Windows 2012R2 on an updated Proxmox Host based on a i7 930, 8 Core, 24Gb ram and RAID10 disks.
Last virtio drivers and last redhat official drivers tested.

No matters which vga card is emulated (Default, VGA, VMWARE, QLX) with just one RDP session using Chrome to see one Youtube video the CPU goest at 70%, video is still fluent but with two sessions or heavytest running in background eatich all CPU power, video start to stutter.
It seems not a bandwidth problem.
Loosk like emulated GPU rendering is the bottleneck.

The same installation on a vmware host with the same hardware is not so CPU hungry, one Youtube session eats 15/20% of CPU.

Using Firefox CPU usage is (a lot) lower but however too high compared with vmware.

Tested on Proxmox Vanilla and Proxmox with 3.10 kernel with no difference.

Do you have any evidence ofusing passtrough of a decent VGA card may solve the bottleneck?

andrea

 

[findfast]

We did some tests on a freshly installed Windows 2012R2 on an updated Proxmox Host based on a i7 930, 8 Core, 24Gb ram and RAID10 disks.
Last virtio drivers and last redhat official drivers tested.
andrea

I can suggest to make a test on Windows 2012R2 but not just after full startup. Let Windows to keep runnig for at least 1-3 hours.
I've experience with Windows 2008R2 here and something similar with Windows 2012R2.
The conclution: Windows is selfoptimizing after heavy load or after long idle state, this optimizing helps Windows to adjust windows core to run more smoothly on virtual environment. Espesially in Proxmox (maybe KVM in general).
For vmware this is not same because some reasons probably.

Second, if it would be possible for RDP, just remove network card in VM helps to get proper performance, but I didn't test it for youtobe. Only for system latency and interrupts.