Running Revit on a Citrix Server

[mlong]

We are trying to give a few remote users access to Revit 2014 via a citrix server. We have Revit installed on the citrix server but the performance of Revit on the citrix server is so slow that it is unusable. Are there any tips on Revit configuration or citrix configuration to get better performance when running on a citrix server? The current citrix server is a virtual server that runs 4 CPU cores and 6gb of memory. A user also noticed that revit gives an error saying that "hardware acceleration disabled. Software emulation mode is in use." Does this error have anything to do with the performance issues we have been seeing?

[CoreyDaun]

Hello, and welcome to the Discussion Groups!

It seems that others have had this issue - I searched this and the Revit Architecture boards for "Citrix", and there were a number of threads that came up. Try performing your own search here and see if you can find some useful info. If not, then I suggest opening a Support Case if you are on Subscription.

[adam.jw]

I've done a lot of personal research on Citrix Xen (a proprietary solution of the FLOSS xen hypervisor) and VM Ware's virtualization solutions.

The problem lies in taking the GPU in the HOST machine and connecting it to the GUEST operating system.

VMWare has really really really made strides in making guest OS's that demand high performance graphics really fly. Here's some fun video of VMWare's player in action, running Counter Strike using "PCoIP"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPPSS3TSsGQ&feature=plcp

This video was from late 2012, so they've no doubt improved things, but it's still very new technology.

However, regardless of whether the solution is VMWare or Citrix ---- you need serious, SERIOUS horsepower to make your virtual opearting systems run Revit and other 3d programs effectively.

In the video I linked, the host machine was running a beta version of VMWare ESXi with a Quadro 6000! (I think which at the time cost about $4000!)

So do not expect good 3d performance in your guests unless you are willing to spend big bucks on your host machine's hardware.

[DarrenP]

6 gigs for citrix and revit is not enough

considering the OS is taking at least 2 gigs memory

[Dave_Mangham]

Hi All,

I have been configuring our Citrix server (Desktops) for approx 1 year now & It's all still a steep learning curve. As usual, no training course so fumbling in the dark somewhat.

We recently engaged with a vendor who configured our Hypervisor to run Apps as well as desktops.

Some key things to remember when running Revit on a virtual desktop / server / App

Revit needs to 'create a copy of a model to local'

If your C drive is not 'redirected' to the same location where your main model is located then you will experience performance issues.

This is because you are passing data from server to local & back again.

Also, ensure your policies are configured in the delivery group to use Lossless for the graphics.

For an app deployment, we have found this to be a very tricky one.

On startup of the app Revit references an xml file (AdskHardwareCertificationReport) located:-

Local disk (C:)\Program Files\Autodesk\Revit 2015 (6) (7)

This checks to confirm your graphics card availability.

Unfortunately, a deployed app cannot locate the server C: drive to determine a graphics card is available.

The Revit software therefore assumes not graphics card & reverts to using software.

This is a major issue. We have that renaming the file to .old from .xml resolves this issue but I am not sure if Autodesk recommend this?

There is probably a really smart cookie out there who can let the rest of us know how to get around this?!!

[casquatch]

Hello!

I know this is old, but I thought I'd just see if folks are still having issues in this area. We have been running Revit through XenApp since about Revit 2009. We did run into GPU issues around Revit 2013, but added a graphics card to our servers (at the time Nvidia GRID K2) and have been running fine since. 

I'm not the admin that does the server setup / hardware work, but I do work closely with him on the software side, etc.

We are also running virtual machines without much issue and getting into app layering for those.

To us, the remote/virtual setup is still a better option than BIM 360. We have all data on a single server that is shared to all virtual machines / apps. This works great for Revit, but also any other software we need to utilize across all of our office locations (MS Office products, etc).

If you have questions, reach out!

[justinatan]

Hello!

We are thinking of visualizing our existing setup.

We have around 70 revit users.

Just want to know if anyone has used Nutanix with Revit running on it.

how does it compare to BIM 360 Design?

Really appreciate your sharing and feedback.

Thank you.