Lots of Lag using Remote Desktop Manager Free

Hello,

In embedded mode, we use FreeRDP to esatablish the remote connection. In external mode, we use Microsoft RDP.

Could you post a print screen of what you see when the RDP connection is establish in embedded mode.

Best regards,

Thanks for the quick reply. Just to confirm - you just want to see what a session looks like when in embedded mode?

Hello,

Yes, exactly.

Best regards,

I am not sure how to post an image in-line in the post itself, so I attached the screenshot to the post. Hopefully that is what you were looking for.

Hi Mark,

I have a couple of suggestions for you.

Some options might be the cause of your issues. I would like you to tell me the values of those settings:

Under your RDP session properties, what is set in RDP Engine (Microsoft Remote Desktop (RDP) -> General -> RDP Engine), what is set in Activate sandboxing (Microsoft Remote Desktop (RDP) -> Advanced -> Activate sandboxing) and what is set in Use OpenGL (Microsoft Remote Desktop (RDP) -> Advanced -> Use OpenGL)?

Under your RDM preferences, what are the corresponding values (RDP Engine, Activate sandboxing and Use OpenGL) under SessionType -> RDP -> General?

Making sure you use the RDP Engine V4 is currently the best way to ensure you get the best stability and performances. Using OpenGL should also improve performances (this will become default in the next release). Playing with the Codec level might also improve the situation.

This is an issue that sneaked into the app in the previous release and has been reported by another user. You won't have to worry about it in the next release.

Best regards,

Under your RDP session properties, what is set in RDP Engine (Microsoft Remote Desktop (RDP) -> General -> RDP Engine) (this was set to default - I changed it to V4), what is set in Activate sandboxing (Microsoft Remote Desktop (RDP) -> Advanced -> Activate sandboxing) (this is set to default - should it be changed?) and what is set in Use OpenGL (Microsoft Remote Desktop (RDP) -> Advanced -> Use OpenGL) (was set to no, I changed it to yes).

Under your RDM preferences, what are the corresponding values (RDP Engine (was set to 4),Activate sandboxing (set to true) and Use OpenGL (was unchecked so I checked the box) under SessionType -> RDP -> General?

I exited the program and restarted it, and opened the session that I made the changes to above. There may be a very slight improvement, but it still is laggy. However, now if I change the "experience" to "low-speed broadband," things seem to be as I would expect them to be performance-wise, where before I made the changes above it was still laggy even at this lower setting so that is an improvement. That setting of course removes a number of the niceties of the display, but it is workable since most of what I do is server administration that does not really require higher graphic capabilities. Bumping that setting up to "high speed broadband" then brings back the lag.

I can probably live with the lower experience setting if that is the best that can be done at this time. I am looking forward to being able to match the screen resolution so that I do not have to use scroll bars, which makes certain tasks more difficult.

Thanks for the help. If you have any more suggestions, please let me know.

This is intriguing. The FreeRDP control should provide you with far better performances than what you describe.

Would you be willing to export your session and send it to me (via private message) so I can examine the settings more in details (right click on the session, Export -> Export Selection (.rdm)...)? You can open the file in a text editor (this will be an XML file) to remove any sensitive information (e.g. passwords).

Best regards,

I sent the session information via PM, as well as the videos I created showing the lag via email. Let me know if you have other questions or need more info.

Thx.

Mark

Hi Mark,

I've looked at your session information and everything seems fine. I had optimal performance with the same settings connecting to one of our own server. The issue must lies elsewhere. Could you provide us with the log of one of your RDP session? This is usually more to monitor connection issues but it might contains relevant information nonetheless. You can do so by following those instructions: https://helpmac.remotedesktopmanager.com/howto_rdplogs.htm. Just send this to me directly instead of the support.

Out of curiosity, could you try the RDP Engine V5? This is still kind of a beta feature and might cause other problems, but I'd like to see if your issue might have been resolved in this Engine.

Best regards,

I know I am reviving an old thread but I've recently moved from an old windows laptop to a MacBook Pro M1 Max and I can barely render sessions sometimes. Typically when I open windows in the target server. I've switched between metal, opengl, and core graphics and to no avail. It's as if the RDM app can't render the remote animation properly. If I log in to any instance using MS RDP Version 10.7.6 I've no issue. I am using 2022.2.5.0.

It won't stop me from using it as I love the app but I would expect my £3000 laptop to have no issue. Is there a way to optimize for speed or disable foreign animations from being rendered?

Hi zsilverman,

Do you have multiple RDP entries? Do they all exhibit the same issue?

Could you generate a session log following the step described here: https://kb.devolutions.net/rdm_mac_enable_send_rdp_logs.html

And provide us with it?

Best regards,

Hello

Just to add to what my colleague already wrote, one thing you can try is switching the codec level to 8. You can configure this in the connection settings under Advanced > Codec; or you can set the default globally in Preferences > Types > RDP > General > Codec Level.

It might also help us to understand the problem if you can upload a screen capture of the specific issue. In case you're not aware, macOS has a built in screen recorder.

Thanks and kind regards,

I've tried codec 6,7,8 and Metal, core graphics and opengl. None these showed a discernable difference except for core graphics made the sessions nearly unusable as the session resolution converted to 4k resolution. I have a video however it's too large for the forum.

Hello again

Thanks for the update and the diagnostics.

Are all sessions are affected? If it's only some sessions, do you notice any kind of pattern with regard to server OS? You've likely already ruled out an issue with a specific renderer or codec version.

A screen capture would be helpful to show exactly what you're experiencing.

Thanks and kind regards,

OK, screen capture is at 8k so had to convert to 720p LOL - it is now attached. You can see it attempting to draw the session and draws it like my old Apple][e... hey I love this app so I will always use it but my 6 year old Dell laptop can render this in the windows version with no issues so I imagine it is how the code is designed for macOS or perhaps because of the ARM64 processor.

Hello again

Thanks for the update and screen capture.

Do you have an 8k screen connected to your Mac? It's a very high resolution, I'm not sure how well RDP works with such large resolutions (even over a fast local network). I don't think we've ever tried such a large resolution internally.

I would guess your old Dell has a 1080p or smaller screen? It's presumably requesting a much smaller resolution.

Try this: in RDM, under "Display", configure the Remote Desktop size to something smaller (e.g. 1920x1080 or smaller) and change the "Screen sizing mode" to "Smart sizing". Does performance improve?

Please let me know if something is not clear

Thanks and kind regards,

The native display of the MBP is at 8k. I've reduce the res to 1920x1080 in RDM as you've suggested and while it renders faster it is still slow on framerate and rendering. It's true max rez on my Dell is 1080HD it is still able to present itself what appears like 'realtime' session rendering on its 6 year old Nvidia gpu. Since other apps are able to take advantage of the 24 GPUs I'd say R&D would need to look at how you are leveraging the apple hardware drivers.

Well beyond that I love the app and appreciate your help.

Hello again

Thanks again for the update and positive feedback.

The optimal performance will probably be obtained by using codec level 8 and the Metal rendering engine, so ensure you have those configured.

You might also try disabling the sandboxing option (Advanced > Advanced > Active sandboxing) and see if you perceive any improvements. I would be surprised if there's a big difference, but additional overhead is introduced by using an external process. If not, I would leave it enabled as it's better for stability.

Further optimization is almost certainly possible on our side; it's likely to be in the core RDP protocol implementation or inside RDM itself rather than in the graphics acceleration. An interesting test might be to compare performance with RDM on your Windows machine - in the advanced connection settings, you can select "FreeRDP (latest)" as the RDP engine; this is the same engine used by RDM on macOS.

Thanks and kind regards,