Use Windows NT Screen Acceleration

You should enable the Windows NT screen acceleration feature and use the default set of accelerated drivers. Although this type of acceleration only works for Windows NT computers, it is an essential speed boost. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, in “Windows NT Screen Acceleration,” a restart (or two) is necessary in order for Windows NT acceleration to be enabled. If acceleration is not available for the video card chipset used in your organization, experiment with a single computer’s video chipset before you add an entry to the video acceleration list for the entire site.

Tip   Adding unsupported chipset names can cause unexpected results because such chipsets have not been specifically tested for compatibility with Windows NT Acceleration. The method to determine a client’s chipset designator and add this chipset name to the site is described in this section. Note that the user interface term “Video Driver” is misleading — it is a chipset designator, not a driver.

Procedure Bullet  To determine a client’s chipset name

  1. On the client, run Regedt32 or Regedit.
  2. Navigate to the following registry key: \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Hardware\Devicemap\Video.
  3. Check each of the “\Device\Video0” keys and take note of the …\Services\<video driver>\Device0 key. (You can ignore the VGASave entry. It is reserved for VGA Safe Mode).

The <video driver> portion of the key will be the chipset name as determined by Windows NT.

Procedure Bullet  To add a client’s chipset name to the accelerated drivers list

  1. From the SMS Administrator console tree, navigate to the Client Agents item.
    2. Systems Management Server   Lower levelSite Database (site code - site name)      Lower levelSite Hierarchy         Lower levelsite code - site name            Lower levelSite Settings                Lower levelClient Agents
  2. In the details pane, right-click Remote Tools Client Agent and select Properties.
  3. In the Remote Tools Client Agent Properties dialog box, click the Advanced tab.
  4. Click the Add (star) key to add a chipset name.
  5. In Video driver name, type the chipset name, and then click OK.

Remember that the restrictions associated with the settings in the Advanced tab still apply. Only new clients are affected by changes to these settings unless you force a manual run of the Hardware Munger, as described in the “Hardware and Security Mungers” section, or repair the installation (see the repair procedure under “Hardware Munger”).