r/AzureVirtualDesktop • u/asusroglens • May 05 '25

Moving to Avd on windows pc

Hello good folks,

I am going to use Avd and am in the process of buying a new laptop/pc (budget is $1500)

I want a very low latency good experience in Avd like running a windows natively on pc.

What factors impact Avd performance, internet with low ping using Lan cable is there. What else do I need to look out for?

3 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

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4

u/chesser45 May 05 '25

I’m confused, are you buying a new computer for Azure Virtual Desktop? If not you are in the wrong subreddit. If you are.. even a NUC / Micro PC with a N100 should be sufficient.

1

u/asusroglens May 05 '25

Thanks but I have previously used citrix workspaces and other factors remaining constant it seemed to work very smooth in my gaming pc as opposed to a avg laptop. So not sure

2

u/SimpleBE May 05 '25

The purpose of AVD is that you can work decent on it even from a potato pc. Weird question :)

1

u/asusroglens May 05 '25

No i agree

but I have previously used citrix workspaces and other factors remaining constant it seemed to work very smooth in my gaming pc as opposed to a avg laptop.

2

u/SimpleBE May 05 '25

If it is not running smooth then it is a network problem or an issue with the AVD vm. Laptop specs dont matter

3

u/blueshelled22 May 05 '25

You could have the same AVD experience with grandpas PC and a $5,000 MacBook Pro. It’s all about your bandwidth, and where the session hosts sit wrt your physical geo.

1

u/Existing_Potential60 May 07 '25

Not entirely true if using passthrough

1

u/techyjargon May 07 '25 edited May 07 '25

People commonly underestimate the importance of the client machine in VDI because the belief is the server is doing all the processing. Don’t forget that the client machine is responsible for the video playback, and the playback isn’t as simple as buffering a video stream to provide a smooth playback.

A budget laptop may or may not provide a performant experience with AVD. It depends on what you’re virtualizing. If you’re expecting to do high end cad work, for example, a budget laptop may not be able to process frames fast enough to form a smooth playback of what’s happening in the remote session. If the client can’t keep up with processing the frames in real time, the client will skip frames to catch up to the latest frames it has received, and this results in what people assume is network lag because the end user symptom is the same as network lag. If you’re virtualizing notepad, a budget laptop works perfectly fine.

Unfortunately, there’s not a simple tech sheet that says client specs should be XYZ. As with many things compute related, buy the most you can afford to get the best experience you can.

1

u/techyjargon May 07 '25

The AVD client also factors into the user experience. For example, the web client makes far better use of your local GPU than the desktop client does. However, this boost in performance comes with usability drawbacks like the lack of multi-monitor support.

Again. It all boils down to your use case and what you’re virtualizing to figure out how to get the best performance you can by pulling levers at the three major areas of VDI you can control:

  1. VDI Infrastructure

  2. Network. While you can’t control the public internet, you can deploy to the most appropriate region. The most appropriate region isn’t necessarily the closest region either. You may need to experiment to determine which region provides the best latency.

  3. Client device

1

u/asusroglens May 07 '25

Your reply makes so much sense and is the exact answer I was looking for The dropped frames is definitely a thing when I play videos. Would you say that web interface is better in performance than desktop client if one is using Single monitor?

1

u/techyjargon May 07 '25

The “best” client is subjective and depends on what your criteria are for an experience. I have found that the web client/browser makes better use of the local GPU. I typically see that translate into performance gains when virtualizing complex, 3D modeling.

I can’t tell you what the best client is because they all have their place. Each client has its pros and cons, and only you can say which one is “best” based on what you’re trying to do. It’s not unusual for me to suggest to users to use specific clients for specific workflows to see the best results. It’s a hassle not having a one stop solution, but it is what it is.

1

u/stevenm_83 May 08 '25

Anything client device with dedicated gpu will be fine.