RDP Client over SSL VPN - Font smoothing and resolution

[cir0]

Hi, in these difficult days with many worker adopting remote/smart working I hope in a resolute improvement on Fortigate rdp client over ssl VPN.

I am unable to find a solution to enable font smoothing (or clear type font) when connecting via ssl vpn portal using fortigate rdp connection. This is an rdp client setting that I cannot set on fortigate rdd client. It is very annoying and difficult to work with not smoothed fonts.

Another problem is the screen resolution that fortigate rdp client decides to set. It is very strange algorithm. If I connect with a 4k screen the resolution on remote machine is set to 1536x864, when I use a monitor with a minor resolution of 2560x1440 the rdp connection set a remote resolution bigger (!) 2048x1152.

This cause bad scaling and without clear type font it is very difficult to work with.

Have you any suggestions? 

[Magion]

Fontsmoothing is something I'd like enabled as well, however support told me there is no option to enable it. My guess is this is done to improve speed.

Usually the resolution of a html5 rdp session is the size of the browser window (minus the border and menu). If it fails to create a rdp session on higher resolutions my guess is the available video memory of the machine you are rdp-ing to might not be enough?

[cir0]

Thanks for answer. If it was a memory limit it doesn't set a major screen resolution when I use a minor resolution on client side, this is strange and I have no way to manage the resolution.

With this 2 limitation it is very hard working remote, my eyes suffer a lot.

I would have an option to enable or disable font smoothing. In previous firmware it was possible to set a screen resolution, this is a worsening of functionality. 

I'd like Fortinet listen to his customer to get better.

[Magion]

4k -> 1536x864 2560x1440 -> 2048x1152

Looks like a lower resolution on both tests to me :)

Unfortunately I don't have a 4k or WQHD here to test with higher resolutions.

What I meant with video memory is the allocated memory for video for each VM on your hypervisor (assuming you are using VMware/Hyper-V/*). We have virtual RDS servers running, published on the VPN portal. All servers each have 128MB video ram allocated, which should be enough to handle multiple RDP sessions.

If there is not enough video memory, the RDP session will most likely be scaled down to the highest possible resolution and colordepth.

I believe VMware advises 32MB for a single 4k monitor connection...

(see for example https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1024990)

(I could be wrong though )

[cir0]

Magion wrote:

4k -> 1536x864 2560x1440 -> 2048x1152

  Looks like a lower resolution on both tests to me :)

Yes client side is > than server side. But I noticed that with a major resolution on client side (4K) Fortigate rdp client set a lower resolution on server side (1536x864 instead of 2048x1152 when client side is wqhd). It is not a video memory problem, same results in phisical machine with dedicated video card and gigabytes of memory. Thank you

[Magion]

Too bad. As I said, I could be wrong :p

I just got a 4K monitor at home yesterday so I'm able to test a 4K rdp sessions via the web portal now.

And yes, you are right. The actual rdp resolution is lower than the display. On a 4K screen with the browser on max size, I got a 2560x1308 pixel resolution.

[cir0]

With browser in full screen mode I cannot go over 1536x864. Perhaps the fonts size (client size) have a role to decide the remote resolution? I would prefer a fixed standard resolution (FHD?). This way the scaling on 4K would be a lot better

[cir0]

I would prefer a fixed standard resolution (FHD?). This way the scaling on 4K would be a lot better

[Magion]

Did you report this issue to support yet? I'm thinking of creating a ticket for the resolution issues in a html5 rdp session...

[cir0]

Yes I did months ago without a resolution. I hope in some improvements in future release.

More people report the problem more fortinet will work to solve it, I hope

Thank you