Remote Graphics Software

Last updated
Remote Graphics Software
Developer(s) HP Inc.
Stable release
7.7.1 / May 2020;3 years ago (2020-05)
Operating system Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, HP ThinPro, Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, and for the RGS receiver macOS 10.10, 10.11, 10.12
Type Remote desktop software (client software and server software)
License Proprietary
Website www.hp.com/us-en/workstations/zcentral-remote-boost.html

HP ZCentral Remote Boost, formerly known as HP Remote Graphics Software or HP RGS, is a client-server remote desktop software developed by HP Inc. Launched in 2003, [1] HP RGS enables remote access to high-performance workstations (or virtual workstations [2] ) from many different devices, including other workstations and thin-clients. [3] Screen sharing between multiple users, remote USB, as well as Windows and Linux are supported. HP markets RGS for "Real-Time Collaboration", "Workstation-Class Mobility" and "Remote Workers" [4]

Contents

In 2014, HP released RGS 7.0 which brought remote workstation use cases to tablet devices. [5] The remote desktop tool has less latency and packet loss when compared to Citrix HDX 3D or Teradici's PCoiP. [6] [7]

In 2020, HP updated and re-branded RGS as part of the HP ZCentral Solution. [8] ZCentral Remote Boost was awarded an Engineering Emmy Award in 2020. [9]

With HP RGS, all the processing, including hardware-accelerated graphics, is done on the workstation and only compressed bitmap images (the screen) are sent to the client device.

There are two components to the software, the sender (for the workstation or server) and the receiver (for the client device). The software supports OpenGL and Microsoft DirectX. The software is sold stand alone for servers, virtual machines and non-HP Workstations. HP started including RGS with all of its desktop Z brand workstations starting with version 5.4.7 in 2011. [10] RGS can be downloaded from HP and run on HP Z Workstations and ZBook mobile workstations for free.

An early version of the HP RGS video compression codec, is derived from a patented system developed by HP Labs and used in the NASA Mars rover program. [11]

Versions

From HP RGS' release notes website.

DateVersionMajor features added
October

2020

Remote Boost 2020.1Technology preview for enhanced Wacom support on Windows, macOS, RHEL and Ubuntu Receivers connecting to Windows and Linux Senders. hardware acceleration for AVC mode with GeForce (in addition to Quadro) graphics cards). Greater admin control over which users can access Senders.
May

2020

RGS 7.7.1RHEL 7.8 support. ThinPro 7.x support. HP Velocity now supported on MacOS Receivers. Frame rate improvement to reduce stutter for video playback. Additional properties to set display resolution and layout of sender.
March

2020

Remote Boost 2020.0New major version with support for new broker, HP ZCentral Connect. New scaling of remote desktop window on receiver side without impacting resolution on sender side. Auto-Launch files supported on Linux and macOS. Borderless mode now supported on macOS. User interface adjusts to high DPI displays. Improvements to WACOM Cintiq and Intuos remoting on Linux to Linux connections.
January 20197.6Decreased idle CPU usage on Linux senders using HP3. Increased performance for AVC on Windows 10 senders with Intel graphics. Added support for RHEL 6.10 and 7.6 and ThinPro 7.0. A new property has been added for resolution matching on Windows Senders with NVIDIA graphics without a physical display.
May 20187.5Bandwidth required for HP3 on Windows 10 is reduced. HP3 performance increase on Windows and Linux Sender. Experience controls Adaptive Image Quality is more responsive. Experience improvements: As of version 7.5, the operating system manages the HP RGS Receiver Window frame and scrollbars. The toolbar can be re-positioned horizontally by dragging the four dots at the left edge of the toolbar right or left. When the Receiver Window size is increased beyond the size of the Sender desktop, black bars will appear around the image. A new Hotkey, F, will fit the Receiver Window to the Sender desktop.
October 20177.4Restarting the Linux Sender no longer requires a restart of the X Server. Added support for RHEL 7.4 and SUSE 12 SP3. The FLEXnet license server for floating licenses must be version 11.14 or later to support RGS 7.4. Standard and Trial licenses are not affected. The FLEXnet license server is included with the HP RGS package. 64-bit versions of the Sender and Receiver for Windows are now available. Future versions of RGS will deliver only the 64-bit Sender and Receiver. The 32 and 64-bit versions of RGS are compatible with each other. The 64-bit version of RGS is installed in C:\Program Files\HP by default. If the Windows 10 version is updated after installing HP RGS, Remote USB may stop working. You will need to uninstall and then reinstall HP RGS. As of RGS 7.4, separate RGS installers are provided for different Linux Distributions.
February 20177.3.2HP added support for SUSE Linux Enterprise 12.2 and HP ThinPro version 6. MaxImageUpdateRate now applies to AVC mode. In previous releases this setting only applied to HP3 (the default image codec). Smart card redirection on Windows receiver supports a wider range of smart card reader devices including virtual smart cards, (Requires RGS 7.3.2 or later on both sender and receiver. Smart card redirection is supported on the following senders: Windows 7, 8.1, and 10 and now RHEL 6, RHEL 7, and SUSE Linux® Enterprise 12. (Linux® support is new in 7.3.2.) Smart card redirection is supported on Windows receivers only. On Windows-based and ThinPro-based receivers, smart cards can be remoted using Remote USB.
October 20167.3.1HP improved Windows sender performance when AMD and Intel graphics used. AVC mode performance improvements on Windows receivers. Improved resolution matching with Windows senders with NVidia graphics. New property to improve Velocity performance when connecting via VPN.
August 20167.3 (receiver for macOS)HP added an RGS receiver that runs native on macOS, allowing mac users to connect to Windows and Linux based workstations and virtual machines.
May 20167.2.3Added Sender properties to more easily configure VMware virtual machine displays for use with Nvidia GRID graphics
March 20167.2.2Enabled a smart card to be used to authenticate on a receiver and sender simultaneously for Windows
November 20157.2.0Added support for Windows 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.2, Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) 12. Reduced the occurrence of receiver network connection warning screens. Other various fixes
April 20157.1.0Improved performance with default HP3 codec, with higher framerate and/or higher screen resolution compared to 7.0. RGS HP3 can now use multiple CPU cores. WACOM tablet remoting with full functionality for Linux to Linux sessions. Improved audio experiences on Linux Advanced Video Compression (AVC) is now GPU-accelerated on Linux sender systems with GRID capable nVidia graphics devices. AVC on Linux also supports multi-monitor. AVC has been updated to the latest GRID SDK from nVidia on Windows and Linux platforms. Support for RHEL 7. New tools to configure properties via a UI, avoiding the need to directly edit the corresponding text based files (rgsenderconfig and rgreceiverconfig).
September 20147.0.1Added support for ThinPro 4.4 and 5.0. Added a sender property that allows ordering and selection of RGS license types. Easy Login functionality is no longer limited to certain hardware platforms.
June 20147.0Upgraded HP Velocity to version 2.1 to further improved connectivity and packet loss protection. Traffic protected by HP Velocity now uses UDP, rather than TCP. A host of new tablet features has been introduced: Gesture-to-hotkey mapping. Users can assign a series of keystrokes to a gesture via the new gestures tab in the UI. Virtual Mouse. The virtual mouse allows for precise onscreen mouse control on a tablet. Zoom & Pan. Tablet users are able to zoom and pan around the sender desktop. Various improvements to the user interface for touch optimization and improved toolbar control.
April 20146.0.5Added support for ThinPro 4.4 and new Bloomberg Keyboards. The use of the installer command line has changed. See the user guide for details.
March 20146.0.4Added a sender property that allows collaboration without displaying a collaboration authorization dialog (see rgsenderconfig).
6.0.2Added support for Advanced Video Compression in directory mode. Added support for RHEL 6.4. Enabled support for ThinPro 3.3, 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3.
February 20136.0RGS has a new UI look and feel. All UI components associated with RGS have been enhanced to improve aesthetics and usability. The RGS sender and receiver can be configured to encode screen updates with an H.264 codec. H.264 consumes less bandwidth when compared with legacy codecs in many situations. H.264 settings are available in the Performance tab of the Settings panel under "Advanced Video Compression". The RGS sender and receiver provide an install-time option to enable HP Velocity WAN optimization. This optimization provides improved network performance when packet loss and latency are present in the environment. Added support for Microsoft Windows 8 (desktop mode) for both Sender and Receiver.
June 20125.4.8Added Linux Screen blanking. Support for SLED11 Sender. Support for RHEL6.2 Sender. IP address filtering. Linux Audio enhancements. ThinPro 4.1. Linux "easy login" equivalent.
October 20115.4.7HP RGS now runs for free on HP Z Workstations and HP Mobile Workstations.
June 20115.4.6The HP RGS Sender on Windows Vista and Windows 7 now supports Single Sign-On and Easy Login. The Windows Sender installer enforces prerequisites when enabling Single Sign-On or Easy Login on Windows XP. These are: enable Control-Alt-Delete, disable Fast User Switching, and disable AutoLogon.
January 20115.4.5Mouse control improvement in Altair Hyperworks, Linux Audio Support for RHEL 4 and 5. Linux supported in a Virtual Machine.
April 20105.4.0Windows 7 support. Loss-less image codec. Smartcard reader support for Vista.
September 20095.3.0Windows Vista sender support. Open platform RGS sender support for HP and non-HP Windows XP and Vista Desktops, Notebooks and Workstations. Text cut, copy, paste between Linux and Windows senders and receivers. Hot keys for session minimize and disconnect. Auto remote selected USB devices at session connection and auto return to access client on session disconnect. Local license file support
November 20085.2.0Linux supports Norwegian keyboards. Windows Sender supports Traditional Chinese Korean and Russian Keyboards. Linux sender supports remote audio. Sender to sender cut and paste for Windows. Linux sender supports match receiver resolution. Receiver supports Windows Vista.
November 2003HP Remote WorkstationSupport for remote connection to HP Personal Workstations and collaboration

See also

Related Research Articles

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In computer networking, a thin client, sometimes called slim client or lean client, is a simple (low-performance) computer that has been optimized for establishing a remote connection with a server-based computing environment. They are sometimes known as network computers, or in their simplest form as zero clients. The server does most of the work, which can include launching software programs, performing calculations, and storing data. This contrasts with a rich client or a conventional personal computer; the former is also intended for working in a client–server model but has significant local processing power, while the latter aims to perform its function mostly locally.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">X Window System</span> Windowing system for bitmap displays on UNIX-like systems

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References

  1. ↑ http://www.stpforum.com/public/showPage.html?page=424045
  2. ↑ "HP Blogs - HP extends leading Z Workstation family into virtu... - the HP Blog Hub". Archived from the original on 2014-08-19. Retrieved 2014-08-14.
  3. ↑ "HP Thin Clients".
  4. ↑ "Is anyone out there using (or heard of) hp's "Remote Graphics Software" (RGS)? - Brian Madden - BrianMadden.com". www.brianmadden.com. Archived from the original on 2010-12-10.
  5. ↑ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine : HP Remote Graphics Software vs. Citrix Receiver on a Tablet | Z Workstations | HP. YouTube .
  6. ↑ Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine : HP RGS 7.0 vs. Citrix HDX 3D - WAN Long Distance Test | Z Workstations | HP. YouTube .
  7. ↑ HP RGS 7 vs. Teradici PCoIP Remote Workstation Card (Tera2) | Z Workstations | HP. YouTube . Archived from the original on 2021-12-10.
  8. ↑ "HP Claims World First with ZCentral Remote Workstation Solution | Cadalyst". 2 July 2021.
  9. ↑ "The Show Must Go on – How HP ZCentral Remote Boost Made Remote Post-Production a Reality During a Global Pandemic".
  10. ↑ Ed Washington, AWN (Feb 2013). "HP Launches Remote Graphics Software Redesign".
  11. ↑ HP (Jan 2004). "HP Labs technology used to send most accurate images possible". Archived from the original on 2014-10-01. Retrieved 2014-08-14.
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