Citrix provides a superior graphics and video experience for most users by default, with no configuration required. Admins can still use multiple policies to improve performance according to their requirements.

From XenApp and XenDesktop 7.11, Overall graphics quality in XenApp and XenDesktop is noticeably sharper without any bandwidth increases. Intelligently adapt the user display for optimal graphics performance when users are running both video and text-based content to provide the best possible quality and server scalability. This can be achieved using the policy, “Use Video Codec for compression." For more information on this policy, please refer here.

Basically, this policy allows you to either use Thinwire plus or H264 or H.264 for actively changing regions and Thinwire Plus for the rest. Following screenshot shows the options.

Citrix Receiver for Chrome and Receiver for HTML5 are not able take advantage of this option till v2.2 and was always using Thinwire Plus irrespective of the policy selected on XenDesktop. From v2.3 onwards, Citrix Receiver for Chrome and Receiver for HTML5 supports selective use of H.264 which means H.264 for actively changing regions and Thinwire Plus for the rest. We have seen major quality improvements in our video playback testing using this option. Also, users get the benefit of lower bandwidth use for the video content combined with sharpness of text in applications they are working with elsewhere on their screens.

Instructions

If Admin feels that, he still wants to use Thinwire plus based on their requirements, he can always disable this option using web.config or configuration.js as described below.

Disable Selective H.264 Configuration Using The web.config File

Open the web.config file for the Citrix Receiver for Website. This file is typically located in the C:\inetpub\wwwroot\Citrix\Web folder, where Storename is the name specified for the store when it was created.

Locate the chromeAppPreferences field and set its value with the configuration as a JSON string; for example:

chromeAppPreferences='{"graphics":{" selectiveH264":false}}

Configure Selective H.264 Using configuration.js File for Receiver for Chrome

The configuration.js file is located in the ChromeApp root folder. Edit this file to make changes to Citrix Receiver for Chrome. Citrix recommends using this method only when Citrix Receiver for Chrome is repackaged for users.

Open the configuration.js file and set the selectiveH264 attribute to false.

For example:

'graphics' : {
'selectiveH264' : false
}

Note: Administrator level credentials are required to edit the configuration.js file; after editing the file, repackage the app to make additional modifications to toolbar elements.

Configure Selective H.264 Using configuration.js File for Receiver for HTML5 

The configuration.js file is located under C:\program Files\Citrix\Receiver Storefront\HTML5Client. Edit this file and change SelectiveH264 to false as shown below.

'graphics' : {
'selectiveH264' : false
}

Note: Administrator level credentials are required to edit the configuration.js file; after editing the file, repackage the app to make additional modifications to toolbar elements.