Use RLE Compression

Although the Automatic option in the Advanced tab of the Remote Control Client Agent Properties dialog box for setting the compression type determines the best compression type, based on the client’s CPU speed, this option alone is not enough to determine the best compression for all environments. If it is determined that the CPU is a Pentium 150 or faster processor, Lempel-Ziv (LZ), a higher math-intensive compression type is used (except when NT Screen Acceleration is not loaded). Otherwise, Run Length Encoding (RLE) is used. Because the client CPU speed method for determining the compression type cannot take into account other related factors (such as general network traffic, network topology, and the speed of the viewing server where the SMS Administrator console is running), RLE is the best and fastest all-around compression type for use throughout an organization.

Tip High compression is dependent upon NT Screen Acceleration. If NT Screen Acceleration is not present, High (LZ) Compression will not be used even though the client registry might indicate that High Compression should be in use (this is, Compression Type = 1).

Note High Compression is also available for Windows NT 3.51 (subject to the same dependency on NT Screen Acceleration as mentioned above). But if the administrator has chosen Automatically Detect for the compression type, High Compression on Windows NT 3.51 workstations will fall back to Low Compression because the agent cannot determine the CPU speed reliably under Windows NT 3.51.

In any case, if High Compression is unavailable, the compression type will fall back to the Low (RLE) Compression type — which is usually sufficient for all needs.