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RemoteFX Overview (Windows Embedded Compact 7)

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Microsoft RemoteFX adds new functionality to both the server and client sides of the Remote Desktop experience. RemoteFX introduces a set of enhancements to RDP that benefit the users of your clients. These enhancements provide a full desktop environment over a local area network (LAN) to users of a range of client devices, which include rich clients, thin clients, and ultrathin clients.

RemoteFX is a new feature in Windows Server 2008 R2 with Service Pack 1 (SP1) and also in the Windows Embedded Compact 7 (Compact 7) implementation of the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) 7.1. RemoteFX technology is different from traditional software-only codecs because it uses the hardware on servers that run Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 to efficiently encode data before the data is sent to a client. The RemoteFX codec was designed to efficiently compress data, a software design that satisfies the goals of high quality and low latency while it uses a modest amount of computer resources.

In this article:

RemoteFX Benefits and Features in Compact 7

RemoteFX uses complete host-side rendering of graphics, which enables a low-cost client device that runs on Compact 7 to provide a full RDP experience, such as high-quality full-screen video and the Windows Aero theme.

RemoteFX on Compact 7 supports both hardware-accelerated decoding and software decoding. Hardware-accelerated decoding typically offers the best performance, especially on low-end hardware.

  • RemoteFX software decoding, which decodes the bitmaps that are transferred from the virtual desktop on the client computer by using software in the CPU or by using a hardware decoder. The flexibility to use the CPU or a hardware decoder helps provide a RemoteFX experience to a variety of client devices that range from rich clients to ultrathin clients.
  • Hardware-accelerated decoding, which uses coprocessor hardware such as ASIC on the RemoteFX RDP client device to decompress RemoteFX-compressed data. The coprocessor hardware does the work instead of the client CPU, which increases client CPU performance.

Client-Side Software Decoding for RemoteFX

Software decoding requires a CPU processor that is enabled with an SSE2 instruction set and a large amount of system memory. When you use software decoding, the client CPU handles RemoteFX data decompression. Software decoding does not require any additional processors or driver interfaces.

RemoteFX software decoding uses the SSE2 instruction set for acceleration of signal-processing operations. Because of this feature design, software decoding of RemoteFX data can only be performed on a CPU that supports this instruction set.

Client-Side Hardware-Accelerated Decoding for RemoteFX

RemoteFX hardware-accelerated decoding offloads data decompression to a coprocessor, which reduces the workload on the CPU of the client device. By using hardware-accelerated decoding, you can develop a Compact 7 thin client that uses less powerful hardware compared to the typical thin clients that are used with a remote server.

For example, the client receives drawing commands from the remote computer and then processes these commands to accurately decode what is being sent from the server. When you use hardware-accelerated decoding, the client can simply pass along a compressed bitmap that is received from the server to specialized RemoteFX hardware. The RemoteFX-enabled hardware decompresses the data and displays it, pixel-for-pixel, as it is seen on the remote computer. Hardware acceleration, by using a coprocessor to display RemoteFX data, can significantly reduce the cost of remote-experience thin clients because relatively less-powerful processors and less RAM are required.

RemoteFX in Compact 7 Wiki Pages

  • RemoteFX System Recommendations
  • RemoteFX Known Issues

See Also