I do computer support for a tertiary institute and we are running Houdini v18.5.462 with RedShift v3.0.39 on Windows 10 Enterprise version 20H2 (OS Build 19042.867). As a result of the Covid-19 situation we have enabled students to remote connect to their lab computers so they can work from home.

I have had a couple of the students report an issue with rendering when they are remote connected. If they stay focused on their remote session then the rendering performs as normal, however if they switch away from the session window, eg. run another application locally, or minimize the session window, then the rendering time seems to double or more. They have found if they run a long Youtube video in the remote session then things behave themselves and the rendering performs at the expected speed.

They are connecting through a VPN with the default Windows 10 Remote Desktop Connection app, and the computers are configured to not go to sleep.

Appreciate any thoughts and ideas regarding why this behaviour might be happening and how to possibly resolve it.