XenDesktop 4 Enterprise and Platinum editions include HDX 3D Pro Graphics, a capability of HDX RichGraphics that enables high-end 3D professional graphics applications such as CAD/CAM, GIS and PACS to be delivered from a virtual desktop with GPU hardware acceleration. XenDesktop 4 Feature Pack 1 with HDX 3D Pro Graphics 1.1 recently introduced several valuable enhancements:

• Support for 64-bit virtual desktops (Windows XP and Windows 7)
• Support for Windows 7 virtual desktops (32-bit and 64-bit), including Aero
• Pixel-perfect lossless encoding for medical imaging
• Seamless application delivery

The 3D Pro Graphics feature of HDX RichGraphics offers both CPU-based and GPU-based compression to reduce network bandwidth requirements. The CPU codec technology is included in our standard Citrix Receiver plug-ins for Windows and Linux. The GPU codec, which provides the deepest level of compression, is provided in a special 3D Pro Graphics version of the online plug-in for Windows. I’m pleased to announce that we have now released a 12.0-based online plug-in for Pro Graphics. This client has all of the features of the standard 12.0 online plug-in, plus the decoder for the GPU codec. (No, you don’t need a GPU on the user device, but you need this decoder to decompress data that was compressed using our GPU codec on the host workstation in the data center.) If you were using the previous 11.1-based plug-in for Pro Graphics, here are a few good reasons to upgrade to the new 12.0.001 client:

• USB support on 64-bit Windows user devices (especially important if you’re using a 3D mouse)
• New audio codecs (introduced in the 11.2 online plug-in) for great sound quality and low bandwidth consumption
• Flash redirection for LAN-connected users
• Support for the Desktop Viewer toolbar