SUMMARY
This article will try to explain some of the things to be aware of when using Foundry software remotely.
MORE INFORMATION
Performance
Depending on your connection type, hardware, software, quality settings and internet bandwidth, there will be some image and playback degradation. This can manifest in a few different ways, such as:
- Blockiness when viewing Viewports
- Sequences not playing back in realtime
- Input lag slowing down UI interactions. This can affect our software differently, for example having slow input when moving nodes in Nuke doesn’t really affect artists usability, however when creating a cube in Modo, this can make the UI much more challenging to use.
Compatibility
Foundry software requires OpenGL 2.0+ in order to run correctly, the full list of OpenGL requirements is below:
NOTE: *Displacement preview in Mari is currently only available on cards and drivers that support OpenGL 4.0 or higher
**The Advanced viewport mode in Modo requires GPU drivers that support OpenGL 4.4 or higher
Some remote desktop software will not allow applications launched remotely to access the full driver of the GPU, and use a basic graphics driver instead. These basic drivers tend to only support OpenGL 1.1, which is below our software minimum requirements, per the above list. This means our software will not launch or will show poor performance when interacting with the UI.
If you are encountering these sorts of issues when using our software remotely, please contact your system administrator about them, as they would be the best people to help improve your remote setup.
They will be able to ensure the remote desktop application you're using, supports and can make sure of the relevant OpenGL version, or contact the remote desktop software vendor for more information on enabling OpenGL 2.0+, if supported.
NVIDIA support for Windows Remote Desktop
NVIDIA has now provided Windows Remote Desktop support for NVIDIA GeForce GPUs, a feature that has previously only been available on enterprise Quadro GPUs.
If you are using an NVIDIA GeForce GPU, you can download and run the following patch from NVIDIA to your host machine. This will then enable OpenGL acceleration, allowing applications to run remotely. You will first need to log on as an NVIDIA Developer to get access, but after you do, this link will give you access to the patch:
https://developer.nvidia.com/nvidia-opengl-rdp
NOTE: The patch requires GeForce drivers R440 or later.
Once you download it, launch the executable as administrator on the machine which runs the OpenGL application to enable OpenGL acceleration. A dialog should then be displayed to show whether OpenGL acceleration was enabled, however, a reboot may be required for it to take effect.
This may also help with other remote desktop applications that relied on this feature being implemented, but please note that we have only tested this with Windows RDP.
FURTHER HELP
If you encounter any further issues, please raise a Support request and let us know more about the problem you are encountering and the troubleshooting steps you have taken so far.
For more information on how to open a Support request, please refer to this article: Q100064: How to raise a support ticket
FURTHER READING
There is a known issue with Nuke 11+ crashing if you don’t have OpenGL 2.0+ available:
Q100340: Nuke 11 crash on launch without OpenGL 2.0 GPU driver support
There are several options available for using our software remotely, which are discussed here:
Working Remotely with Foundry Tools
Rather than using software remotely, you could also use software locally, then use a VPN to access licenses, as explained here:
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