Alibre and Remote Desktop Connection

[Jimpulse]

I've got a bit aof a weird one...
I have Alibre on my Desktop Computer(XP Pro/Nvidia) as well as my Laptop(XP Home/ATI Radeon).

I was trying to set up a Remote Desktop Connection between the Laptop and the Desktop where the Laptop is a terminal for the Desktop. This was to allow the LAptop to benefit from the superior RAM and processing power of the Desktop.

I have the RDC working as expected for most apps, but for some reason, when I run Alibre through the RDC the program will load, but the modeling area of the screen stays gray with no model showing (typical of an Alibre installation with DirectX or graphics driver problems).

DirectX is current on both computers.

When running Alibre on either computer from its native (Harddrive installation) it works fine.

I would not have thought that DirectX would even matter on the computer running as the terminal, thinking that the screen represented there is simply a clone of the one on the "Alibre Server". Perhaps my understanding of what is happening with RDC is incorrect.

I have NOT attempted to run the Laptop as the Alibre Server with the Desktop as a remote terminal since RDC does not allow a remote logon to XP Home installations

I did use a different Laptop (without Alibre installed) as an RDC terminal and it behaved exactly as the first.


I dont figure that this is an Alibre problem, but perhaps someone here has some prior experience with it.

Any suggestions are welcome

-Jimpulse

 

[DavidJ]

RDP doesn't support DirectX.

Try using an alternative remote viewing package - I've had success with ultraVNC. There are probably lots of others you could try.

 

[sigseven]

I have used Alibre over remote desktop connection successfully when working from home. I'm not sure what sort of voodoo was involved to get it working, but I can see the model rendered in the workspace and everything. As you might expect, the performance when rotating the view and such was terrible compared to working at the computer directly, but you can still get the job done at least.

So, I'm not sure how, but it is possible!

 

[Jonathan]

Logmein.com works with Alibre. You can even download the logmein app for Android to see Alibre on your mobile. Don't waste your money if you intend to only use the mobile app for Alibre... the lack of keyboard/mouse makes Alibre nearly unusable. Fun to show off though!

Logmein for PC is free so I'd suggest giving it a try. Turning down the color quality helps a lot with the performance. Let us know how it works out for you

 

[DavidJ]

OK - a bit of googling suggest that if the host machine is running Vista (or presumably Win 7) and has compatible drivers, DirectX is possible over RDP - so my earlier post was not completely correct. Otherwise - no dice.

 

[sigseven]

Ahh, yeah, the computer I used it with was running Vista.

 

[Max]

Is this on a home network? If not:

It's important to note that your framerate, even if everything is working and supported, is to a large extent determined by your connection to the computer. At the end of the day it's trying to send you a bunch of pictures, somewhat intelligently refreshing areas of the screen that require an update. The larger the required update (how much screen realestate your Alibre Design is taking up), the larger the picture. Since you are used to seeing things probably between 30 and 60FPS on the workstation, your connection would have to support sending the images at 30-60 FPS to get a comparable experience. When this is not the case, you will experience frame droppage and "lag" even if the host computer is ridiculous.

Steps to improve your frame rate for a RDC include:
1) Getting a better Internet Connection
(note that most Internet connections have amazing download speed, but much slower upload speed. As the host machine is uploading you images, it must have a connection with a high upload rate as well)

2) Reducing the resolution of the host computer
(If you are running 1920x1080 with a maximized Alibre Design your frame rate will be horrible. If you are running 1024x768 it will be substantially better.)
*note that RDC does not allow you to change the host resolution over the Internet - you must be on the local machine

3) Anything involving making the Alibre Design window smaller as compared to the total screen

4) Reducing color depth might help, though I'm not positive.


I've used AD and KeyShot on an RDC when in a pinch - with KeyShot for example I immediately make the window very small (600x600?) and that substantially increases the frame rate because it's easier to send images of that window size at a higher frame rate given a set amount of bandwidth.

Max