I hit the search engines in earnest and found that these problems were prevalent across a fairly wide range of graphics cards. We enlisted Dell’s help and they told us that they do not certify that Hyper-V will work on any laptops. More precisely, they clarified the primary support concern is that future driver releases may not work with Hyper-V even if we find a model that works with today’s drivers. At this point we were considering a pricier Precision model and they put us in touch with their Precision product team in Texas. They were most helpful but we were told that Dell themselves do not use Hyper-V on laptops except for demonstration purposes and they simply use it as a server for connected workstations, so they would never experience the same graphics issues. Dell kindly offered to let us test our development build on various models at their campus if we agreed to share the results with them, but before we could arrange that visit, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta* was released and I upgraded my machine in order to test out Dynamic Memory.

As I was installing it I had a chat with my colleague (and serial early adopter) Lambros Vasiliou to gauge his impressions. He mentioned his favourite improvement is that the known Hyper-V host graphics performance issues are either gone or greatly mitigated. This is an issue that’s been repeatedly discussed in our organisation since we moved from a hotchpotch of virtualisation technologies to Hyper-V as our standard development build last year. It’s probably the single thing that irritates our users of this system more than anything else.

I did some testing myself with videos playing and moving windows about with Windows Key + Arrow hot keys. The results were fairly impressive – without doubt a big improvement. One thing that still behaved poorly on my Dell XPS M1330 (with NVIDIA GeForce 8400GS) is full-screen YouTube, Vimeo, etc. The CTRL+ALT+DEL redraw operation seems a bit sluggish still as well. I noticed that my PowerPoint Presenter View was better, but still not 100% responsive.

I also tested on the Dell Latitude E6410 (with NVIDIA NVS 3100M). Not only is the previously-mentioned blue screen fixed and the graphics generally improved in the same ways as on the XPS, but the full-screen in-browser video and CTRL+ALT+DEL are instantaneous. One possible explanation for this different experience is that the Latitude has a processor with SLAT, but I can’t validate that at all yet… because I can’t find any information whatsoever about why/how this has changed!

I think it’s unlikely that these changes are related to RemoteFX (since the XPS M1330 does not have a processor with SLAT and I never enabled it on the Latitude E6410). I would expect RemoteFX to improve the experience connecting to the guests, not the Hyper-V root partition (although it’s possible that this improvement is somehow related). I’ve tried pinging Virtual PC Guy and posted this query on the SP1 Beta TechNet forum but so far the community can only confirm that this is indeed working on a number of different models including a Mac (drill down in the links on the TechNet thread for more information). One way or the other this is great news, but I’m finding the lack of information about these changes quite maddening given the amazing detail that’s been produced for the Dynamic Memory launch. I’d really appreciate further insights if anyone can reveal the internals.

* A few notes regarding the Service Pack 1 Beta installation process:

1. The links on the SP1 Beta page are a bit confusing. You should be aware that if you click the “Evaluate Windows Server 2008 R2 and SP1 Beta” link you will be taken to a page with a “Download Windows Server 2008 R2 Trial Software” section at the top. “Download SP1 Beta Software” is beneath that section. This is what you want. If you click the first link you will initiate a download of the full Windows Server 2008 R2 (SP0) installer. If you “upgrade” your system using that installer you’ll wind up with a nice new trial version of SP0. AGH. Starting again from the links in the right section I was able to run a small installer that presents the updates to Windows Update and that has all worked fine, so I’d recommend that route. Alternately the Service Pack can be downloaded stand-alone. I did that for my second install and it worked fine too. Also note the Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta Reviewer’s Guide, “to evaluate the core features of Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta release in your environment”.
2. If you use Forefront you will need to uninstall it in order to install SP1 Beta, so make sure to remember to reinstall it afterwards.
3. When I installed the Service Pack my screen went black for about ten minutes following the first reboot. Be prepared for this. You’ll see plenty of ongoing disk activity but nothing on the screen. Fairly disconcerting, but perhaps this is all a part of these same video changes.

• It’s not an issue on processors with SLAT, but these are only just hitting the market in laptops in the near future
• It’s not an issue with the SVGA driver
  • I’ve asked if the SVGA driver might ever offer multi-monitor support. He’s looking in to it. This might be a great compromise until processors with SLAT become ubiquitous
• This same problem occurs in all native Hypervisors
  • Virtual PC and VMWare Workstation do not have the same problem but they are Type 2 hypervisors and do not offer the same performance as Hyper-V

So… there’s still no conclusive solution but it’s good to have the full context of the problem. For more background on why this matters for SharePoint see my previous post on the matter. ]]> http://tristanwatkins.com/index.php/the-definitive-word-on-hyper-v-high-end-graphics-performance/feed/ 1 http://tristanwatkins.com/index.php/building-a-sharepoint-20072010-development-environment-part-iii-host-image-build-and-performance-benchmarks/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=building-a-sharepoint-20072010-development-environment-part-iii-host-image-build-and-performance-benchmarks http://tristanwatkins.com/index.php/building-a-sharepoint-20072010-development-environment-part-iii-host-image-build-and-performance-benchmarks/#comments Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:29:40 +0000 Tristan Watkins http://tristanwatkins.com/?p=503

Having agreed the project objectives and designed the system, I turned my attention to the Hyper-V host image build. This is a high-level build guide with start-up time and baseline memory consumption benchmarks at key milestones. These benchmark figures were taken from the Windows Server 2008 R2 Release Candidate build and are admittedly a bit imprecise. However, they do provide an overall indication of system performance as things were added to and removed from the installation. Although I do not have precise figures on RTM improvements, I spot-checked a few of these benchmarks when I rebuilt the system on RTM. Start-up times improved slightly at each milestone. In fact, the final benchmarks came in at 100MB less idle memory used in the RTM release.

Capturing a virtual image

For the pilot and the benchmark figures listed below, the image was built on hardware and captured with Windows Deployment Services (WDS). Since then, we’ve rebuilt the system as a Hyper-V guest and we’re capturing the image by PXE booting the SysPrep’d virtual machine from a legacy network adapter. We take a snapshot before SysPrep as a rollback point for future updates to the image. Virtual PC Guy explains this approach in more detail in his geeking out with WDS post post, which I’ve linked here previously. I’ll also be discussing the Windows Server 2008 R2 WDS build and the new version of WAIK in more detail in the next post in this series.

System specification

Dell XPS M1330

• Intel Core 2 Duo T8100 2.1 GHz
• 4.00 GB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM
• 7200 RPM 320GB SATA HDD
• nVidia GeForce 8400M GS graphics card
• Windows Server 2008 R2 Build 7100 (RC)

Host build

Initial OS optimisations

I installed the system from a USB pen drive (I had to try this given how easy it is now). On first login I started optimising the system as follows:

• Write-caching is enabled in the physical hard disk hardware policy
  • Buffer flushing is turned off
  • We are comfortable with this risk since laptops run from battery or with battery backup at all times
• IPv6 is turned off on host network adapters per SharePoint’s Hyper-V performance and capacity guidance
  • This is optional, and should not be turned off if you have IPv6 requirements
• IE Enhanced Security Configuration (ESC) is turned off for administrators
  • Again, depending on security requirements, this may not be acceptable
• The following services are disabled (all optional):
  • Certificate Propagation
  • Desktop Window Manager Session Manager
    • Leave this enabled if using Aero Glass
    • In our pilot experience, we identified that Aero Glass suffers from Hyper-V graphics performance degradation enough that it worsens the overall experience
  • IP Helper
    • Leave this enabled if using IPv6
  • Remote Registry
  • Windows Remote Management (WS-Management)

For more information on Windows service hardening, see Black Viper’s site. This list of services could possibly be extended, but at the time of testing service hardening information for the new operating system was harder to come by than it is presently. It should be noted that the Windows Server model of turning services on if needed means that a new system is already considerably harder than a new Windows 7 system.

Next I booted the system, logged in and let it rest for at least fifteen minutes to capture the idle memory benchmark.

Benchmarks

Memory benchmark: as low as 525 MB idle.

Start up time to logon: 37 seconds.

Time to desktop: 52 seconds.

BIOS settings

I installed BIOS A15 (includes alleged performance improvements) and made the following BIOS modifications:

• NIC settings = Enabled with PXE (required for image capture)
• HDD Acoustic Mode = Performance
• Virtualization = Enabled
• Internal Cellular = Off
• Wireless Switch = Wi-Fi + BT

Note: if you have internal cellular and use it, don’t turn it off in the BIOS and adjust the last setting accordingly. Also note, BIOS A14+ is required if exceeding 4GB RAM.

Next I booted the system, logged in and let it rest for at least fifteen minutes to capture the idle memory benchmark.

Benchmarks

Memory benchmark: as low as 525 MB idle.

Start up time to logon: 37 seconds.

Time to desktop: 48 seconds.

Adding drivers and features

Drivers

• SigmaTel Audio driver
• UPEK driver for TouchChip fingerprint Coprocessor (WBF advanced mode)
• nVidia GeForce 8400M GS driver
  • Note: on one occasion this driver install forced a reboot despite requesting that it be postponed – be careful
• Intel and Ricoh chipset drivers (Intel may not be necessary)
• There is still one device without a driver:
  • BCM2045 (Bluetooth)
  • This is because Windows Server 2008+ does not have the Bluetooth stack

Features

• Enabled the desktop experience and WLAN featurs
  • Requires .NET Framework 3.5 and Ink and Handwriting support

Next I rebooted the system to complete the driver installations. On reboot, I set the Windows Audio service to Automatic and started it up. I tested Audio and the wireless network adapter.

Install Windows Search

I chose not to index any drives. This is primarily installed so that Outlook Search can be turned on with little hassle if desired

Other OS modifications

Disabled Shutdown Event Tracker, as developers seem to hate it and it isn’t really necessary on a laptop

Following these changes I rebooted, logged in again and let the system rest for an extended period so that I could capture the next idle memory benchmark.

Benchmarks

Memory benchmark: as low as 622 MB idle.

Start up time to logon: 50 seconds.

Time to desktop: 1 minute  12 seconds.

Installing Microsoft Office client tools

• Office 2007 (defaults, including InfoPath and OneNote)
• Visio 2007
• Office Communicator 2007 R2
• Patched current

Benchmark with Office turned off and Communicator closed

Memory benchmark: as low as 708 MB idle when first launched, idling at closer to 760 MB after a couple of minutes. Proper benchmarks after lengthy idle were not captured here unfortunately. The next set are more useful/reliable.

Start up time to logon: 56 seconds.

Time to desktop: 1 minute 18 seconds.

Installing other client software

I installed the latest versions of all majors browsers, JRE 6, PDF X-Change Reader, Royal TS, browser plugins like Flash/Silverlight and browser debugging tools like Fiddler and Firebug. Some users of the build have specific license requirements that are accommodated manually after the system is deployed.

Benchmarks

Memory benchmark: as low as 740 MB idle.

Start up time to logon: 56 seconds.

Time to desktop: 1 minute 20 seconds.

Summary

That’s it! We met our stated goal to keep the build as lightweight and uncluttered as possible in order to improve performance and reduce the support burden of laptop rebuilds. This system is not much more than a hypervisor, office client applications, web debugging tools and browsers. Keep in mind that I have been building an image that will be captured by WDS. A number of settings will be applied with an unattend file and some additional configuration will be taken care of by script, or manually post-deployment.

Acute observers will note that I haven’t actually added the Hyper-V role. That’s because Hyper-V doesn’t get along well with SysPrep. We account for that with WAIK and scripting, as revealed in more detail in my next post.

The new Hyper-V also adds performance enhancements that increase virtual machine performance and power consumption. Hyper-V now supports Second Level Address Translation (SLAT), which uses new features on today’s CPUs to improve VM performance while reducing processing load on the Windows Hypervisor and new Hyper-V VMs will also consume less power by virtue of the new Core Parking feature implemented into Windows Server 2008 R2.

VitualizationAdmin.com adds a bit more to that:

Using NPT or EPT, AMD-V and Intel VT processors can maintain and perform the two levels of address space translations required for each virtual machine in hardware, reducing the complexity of the Windows Hypervisor and the context switches needed to manage virtual machine page faults. As a result, Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V provides better scalability of Hyper-V servers.

But what’s really important is that this solves the Hyper-V graphics performance problem for new laptops.  Scott Havens summed up the graphics issue nicely. Actually it was his comments on the Virtual PC Guy blog entries that first drew my attention to this caveat. Here’s his take on the same issue as it regards laptops and he fleshes out some more of the complexities around this issue – but as I say, Dell has announced the new laptops today, so we aren’t far off!

For those of us who are unlikely to get new laptops any time soon, it’s worth reviewing my original assessment. One thing that Scott’s articles pointed out for me that hadn’t really sunk in for me yet is that this isn’t just an issue for SharePoint 2010 – but for Windows Server 2008 R2 full-stop, as it is also x64-only. Oh, and it’s worth considering a Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V dual-boot if you’ll be doing anything massively graphics-intensive. This is actually how Virtual PC Guy describes his laptop setup.

Until the other day I had always chalked this up to something about this driver (an NVIDIA GeForce 8400 M GS on a Dell XPS M1330) and the Hyper-V role or Server 2008 R2 itself (since we didn’t have this problem with the same driver on Windows 7). However, one of our technical architects got a bit more annoyed by this than me and identified that it’s a known issue for almost every graphics driver on 64-bit-capable laptops. With a bit more time and impetus I tracked down the authoritative Virtual PC Guy blog entry on the matter. It points out that the issue was originally unveiled in this Technet thread and he revisited the issue later in August in response to the Microsoft is Forcing Me to use VMWare post. While the “buy another server” response would go exactly nowhere in my flat, I think he spells out the Microsoft position fairly succinctly and clearly. I’m curious to see what the “options available” will be and hope the follow-up post comes out soon. In the mean time, these are the best Microsoft work-arounds I’ve found:

• Replace the graphics card with a lower-end one
• Use the VGA.sys driver (and live without multi-monitor support)
• Find a 64-bit XP driver that will install successfully on Windows Server 2008 R2 (not likely)
• Upgrade the system/processor to something that supports SLAT (a big request)

I suppose the magnitude of this problem is going to vary based on how people work. It’s not that problematic for me. So far all of the developers that we have using this system seem to be happier with it than they would be without it. Beyond that, I suspect the productivity benefits of snapshots (including the ability to import/export them) and the performance benefits of using Hyper-V for operations that aren’t graphics intensive still stack up in Hyper-V’s favour overall.

It will be interesting to see how the beta of SharePoint 2010 will influence this discussion, as there aren’t that many 64-bit-capable virtualisation solutions. Unfortunately this information is not very visible to new adopters of Hyper-V and I expect a number of people will adopt Hyper-V for SharePoint 2010 development/testing/demos. This could reflect poorly on SharePoint 2010 and/or Hyper-V.

I also wonder if this pill could be sweetened by finding a way to get multi-monitor support on the VGA.sys driver. Would that be enough? It would be for me, but I’m not a developer.