NVIDIA GRID: Citrix HDX adds support for Relative and Absolute Mouse Modes to Linux Receiver

Update: 14th September 2016 – Receiver For Windows 4.5 released today now adds support for Windows in addition to Linux!

Just a quick blog to highlight the availability on the Citrix HDX/ICA protocol of a feature enabling Relative Mouse mode. This is a particularly interesting for many NVIDIA GRID vGPU and graphical users as it enables better behavior of certain gaming like applications, particularly those favoured in federal simulations (battle and flight-simulators) e.g Bohemia Simulations VBS 2 & 3. Before on certain application without using an addition gamepad device the mouse could behave strangely ending up with the user pointing their barrel at the ground or sky.

There are some graphics features that require both server and client side changes. Citrix recently released in their latest Citrix Receiver (client) for Linux release support for Relative and Absolute Mouse Modes (read here for details). This paves the way for Citrix to add support for other clients as the server changes are included in Citrix XenDesktop 7.9. So if you are looking for support on Windows receiver you should highlight your need to Citrix.

VMware Horizon has had this feature for a while so it’s nice to see Citrix moving towards matching that functionality. You can find details of VMware’s support in their documentation, here; the VMware documentation carries a good overview of how this feature is useful for many CAD / graphical applications.

The Citrix Receiver Linux release also includes some long-wished for features such as a Desktop Viewer Toolbar, credential insertion SDK and enhanced security features and as shows a significant improvement  in the functionality of this Receiver. These improvements are available to the numerous Thin Client OEMs who build upon the Receiver for Linux and should improve the options for end-clients significantly in the future. Many of these were features I scheduled under my tenure as Citrix Product Manager for the Linux Receiver and it’s great to see the roadmap items coming to fruition and rest assured there is more to come (although I can’t share 😉 ).