Visio 2003 sluggish on Win2K Terminal Server

[RichAtShepherd]

Visio 2003 seems more sluggish on repaints in a terminal session than
previous versions. Running ica (Citrix) and turning speed screen on helped
some, but still pretty bad. Plenty of RAM processors, etc. suspect
repaint/display issue. Any tips for optimizing Visio 2003 in terminal
environment (rdp or ica based) much appreciated.

 

[Al Edlund]

With Citrix/ICA the application runs on the server. Typical bottlenecks are
Not enough memory allocated to the user application (visio takes a lot,
and with large drawings can overwhelm
even a small standalone system)
Thin-client applications work best when the server and client are local
to each other, WAN performance
has always been a problem with applications that are screen and
keyboard/mouse intensive. In a WAN
environment speed RARELY is the issue, it is network latency (i.e.
time to redesign the solution)
Too many users on the server (takes cycles)
Al

 

[Al Edlund]

Tytpically, when we heard "repaint/display" issues we start to look for
network latency problems, which are not the same as bandwidth. User sat with
thin-client requires that we have network delay on the average of less than
50ms. You might try a simple ping test from the client workstation to see
what yours is. I worked with one client where we found over a second delay
in his gigabit core because of routing problems.
Al

 

[Al Edlund]

Typically what we have to do is to take traces with tools such as NAI
Sniffer to profile the application and see where the delay in the screen
write is. You have to remember that these apps (citrix etc.) were originally
developed for support of text based applications and remote desktop support.
I don't know what you're trying to do with Visio, but, IMHO user sat with
thin-client is usually inversely proportional to the amount of screen
activity that has to go across the network. It will never be as good as
locally implemented (assuming the local device is configured appropriately).

Al
ps It all goes across the network