Teradici PCoIP Hardware Accelerator (APEX 2800) Software 2.5.3 Release Notes

Release Status: General Availability (GA)

Release Overview:

This release includes an updated set of drivers for the Virtual Machine to allow support for the latest version of VMware Horizon (Up to 7.0). This release also adds support for Windows 10 as the guest OS.

To avoid compatibility issues, please familiarize yourself with the following knowledge base article.

The Hypervisor drivers are specific to the ESXi version being used, while the VM driver installer package is compatible with any supported version of VMware Horizon. Each package contains the following files:

  • VM driver in all packages: apex2800-2.5.3-rel-46443.exe
  • ESXi driver specific versions: (example for ESXi 6.0 apex2800-rel-2.5.3.46443-esxi.6.0.0.zip)
  • EULA
  • Readme
Key Release Details

APEX 2800 driver release 2.5.3 includes support for:

  • ESXi 6.0 Update 2
  • ESXi 5.5 Update 3
  • VMware Horizon (View) 7.0

Notable changes:

  • ESXi and Horizon version checks are now disabled, thus the current release can be installed on any future ESXi and Horizon (View) release
  • Temporal caching is disabled
  • Improved diagnostic log for the Apex hypervisor

Compatibility Notes

Teradici PCoIP Hardware Accelerator (APEX)

  • APEX Low Profile PCIe card reference T2800H0101, Rev 01
  • APEX MXM for HP Blade servers, card reference T2800H0200, Rev 01
  • Amulet HotKey DXM-A APEX for Dell "M" Blade servers

ESXi Driver Release 2.5.3 supports:

  • ESXi 6.0 Update 2
  • ESXi 5.5 Update 3
  • ESXi 5.1 Update 3
  • ESXi 5.0

VMware View Driver Release 2.5.3 supports:

  • VMware Horizon 7.0
  • VMware Horizon 6.2.2
  • VMware Horizon 6.1.1
  • VMware Horizon 6.0.2
  • VMware Horizon 5.3.4

Virtual Operating Systems

  • Windows 10 64 bit
  • Windows 8.1 64 bit (Windows 8 is not supported)
  • Windows 7 32/64 bit
  • Windows Server 2008 R2

Key Resolved Issues
24691. Disabled Teradici PCoIP Hardware Accelerator (APEX 2800) alerts that are logged in VMware vSphere for all log levels except when the APEX log level is set to 3 (debug). The default APEX log level is 2 (info). To enable APEX log level to 3 (debug), do the following from VMware ESXi command line:
  • >> pcoip-ctrl -L 3
Note that the above setting is not persistent between ESXi reboots. To restore the APEX log level back to its default level 2 (info), do the following from the VMware ESXi command line:
  • >> pcoip-ctrl -L 2
37731. When displays are offloaded to APEX, caching will not be enabled. This addresses many imaging artifact issues that some users have been experiencing.

Key Known Limitations
Some customers have reported occasional profile application issues on HP Virtual Connect with the PCoIP Hardware Accelerator installed. Under investigation. Please open a ticket if you experience this issue.
In some occasions, you might experience a reduction of frame per seconds in a GPU Pass through environment (vDGA).

29428. Same patch ID for APEX ESXi driver across different ESXi versions does not work for VUM
Background: vSphere Update Manager (VUM) enables centralized, automated patch and version management for VMware vSphere and offers support for VMware ESXi hosts, virtual machines, and virtual appliances. With VUM, Customers can install and update third-party software on hosts.
APEX ESXi drivers use same patch ID for different ESXi versions, which cause problems when customers need to import the same APEX ESXi driver version but for different ESXi versions because VUM requires unique patch ID for each driver zip file.

Workaround: Edit the id tags of the vmware.xml & TERA2_045408.xml files by inserting the ESXi specific version number in the file name.

Example:

The xml id tag <id>TERA2_046443</id> would now include release number 6.0.0 and become <id>TERA2_6.0.0_046443</id>.

File locations

  • Drivers_Package_2.5.3_for_Hardware_Accelerator_ESXi6.0.zip > apex2800-rel-2.5.3.46443-esxi.6.0.0.zip > Metadata.zip > vmware.xml
  • Drivers_Package_2.5.3_for_Hardware_Accelerator_ESXi6.0.zip > apex2800-rel-2.5.3.46443-esxi.6.0.0.zip > Metadata.zip > bulletins > TERA2_046443.xml
4574/(6622). With certain workload types, the Horizon client output frame rate is sometimes slightly lower when a display is being processed by the PCoIP Hardware Accelerator. Teradici PCoIP zero clients are unaffected.
5049/(13373). If a user drags a window while a VMotion migration is in progress, the session may freeze and stop responding.
26165. The offload indicator (red dot) when enabled might be in the wrong spot on monitor with resolution of 2560 x 1080.
25939. The frames per second reported in pcoip server log are incorrect. The number should be ignored
25663. pcoip_server or syslog server logs are flooded with "WARNING: All descriptors are in use" message when in an APEX session with vGPU.
26090. Occasionally when switching active windows,  remnants of the last active window remain on the current window.

The above known issues are under investigation. Please subscribe to this knowledge base item to receive updates.