Commonly Used EUC Score Lab Equipment
Benny Tritsch
Last update: 8 June 2025
Prerequisite for building an EUC Score performance benchmarking test lab is a local area network with 100Mbit/s or more, Internet connectivity, a PC or laptop with video recording software installed, and one or multiple monitors.
[Mandatory] Reference Endpoint Device
Repeatable testing requires a standardized physical endpoint where a real or synthetic user interacts with a remote session. Depending on the system under test, remoting client software such as Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection, Microsoft AVD Client, Citrix Workspace App, or VMware Horizon Client must be installed on the client device.
To give you an example, here are the specifications of the reference client devices I'm using in my lab:
- Reference Client Device #1: Asus NUC 15 Pro, Intel Core Ultra 7 255H @ 1.5-5.1GHz, Intel Arc 140T, Intel AI Boost NPU, 32GB DDR5 SO-DIMM, 1 TB Samsung 990 EVO Plus, Windows 11
- Reference Client Device #2: Mac Mini M4, 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, MacOS
- Old reference client device: Intel NUC NUC8i7HNK, Intel Core i7-8705G @ 3.1GHz, Radeon RX Vega M-GL (embedded GPU), 16GB RAM, 512 GB M.2 SSD, Windows 11
- KVM switch connecting keyboard, mouse and FullHD or 4K monitor to the client device
[Mandatory for Advanced Testing] Screen Capture Device
Locally recording screen videos relies on specialized screen capture software, such as Microsoft ClipChamp. Such screen capture software consumes local system resources, including CPU, memory and graphics cards. For simple video capture use cases a software solution might be good enough. But when you are serious about quality and accuracy of on-screen recordings, a dedicated capture device is an essential tool to minimize the impact on system resources. A capture device will alleviate any frame-rate drop which can occur while recording and is therefore regarded as an essential item.
The design goal of a screen capture device or frame grabber is to offload and hardware-accelerate the process of converting a video signal produced by a gaming console, tablet or personal computer to a digital video stream and storing it locally as a computer file.
Using a video capture device for recording Simload screen videos is a mandatory element in the context of benchmarking perceived remote user experience. Here is a list of compatible video capture devices:
- Epiphan AV.io 4K (www.epiphan.com)
- AVerMedia GC573 Live Gamer 4K, PCI Express x4 Gen 2, HDMI 2.0, 4Kp60 HDR
- AVerMedia Live Gamer Portable 2 Plus, 4K Pass-Through, 4K Full HD 1080p60 USB Game Capture
- Elgato 4K X, USB 3.2 Gen2 (10Gbps) Type-C, HDMI 2.1, 4Kp144 HDR
- Elgato Game Capture HD60 S (www.elgato.com)
- Elgato Game Capture 4K60 S+, including built-in HEVC/H.264 encoder
- Hauppauge HD PVR Pro 60 4K with built-in HEVC/H.264 encoder
- Hauppauge HD PVR 2 Gaming Edition Plus with hardware H.264 encoder
- Blackmagic Intensity Pro 4K PCIe card
- Blackmagic Design DeckLink Quad HDMI Recorder 4 x 4K
- Blackmagic Design Atem Mini
- Inogeni 4K2USB3 (inogeni.com)
- Razer Ripsaw Uncompressed HD 1080p at 60fps
- MiraBox USB 3.0 HDMI Game Capture Karte 1080P 60fps Portable HD Video Recorder
- MYPIN 1080P HD 60fps USB 3.0 Type C HDMI Game Video Capture Card
Typically, such a video capture device comes with two accompanying items: an HDMI cable and a USB cable. The USB cable connects between the video capture device and the computer used for recording. The HDMI cable connects to the video capture device and the video out on the endpoint device you're wanting to capture the footage from. VGA-to-HDMI and DVI-to-HDMI converters can be used if the endpoint device doesn't have an HDMI video output. The video stream produced by the video capture device can be used as the input signal for video recording software, such as OBS Studio.
[Optional for Advanced Testing] WAN Emulator
WAN emulation devices incorporate a varying amount of standard network attributes into their designs. This may include the amount of available bandwidth, the round-trip time across the network (latency) and a given degree of packet loss. In addition, attributes such as duplication of packets, reordering packets, corruption and modification of packets, and/or the severity of network jitter may be included. By nature, the network emulator appears to be a network. End-systems can be attached to the emulator and will behave as if they are attached to a network.
Adding a WAN emulator to an EUC Score test lab is optional. Here is a list of suitable hardware WAN emulators:
- Apposite Linktropy Mini2 (hardware appliance, $2,000 - $6,000)
- Apposite Netropy N60/N61 (19" hardware appliance, $15,000 - $20,000)
- Trinegy INE Ultra/Enterprise and NE-ONE (starting at $4,000)
- InterWorking Labs Mini Maxwell and Maxwell G ($2,000 - $5,000)
- Telnet Networks Candela LANforge ICE Systems
- PacketStorm Communications Network Emulators
For simple test setups, software WAN emulators, such as WANem, SoftPerfect or NetLimiter may be sufficient. But for more advanced and accurate test setups, a hardware WAN emulator is recommended.
[Optional] Measuring User Input Delay
User input delay and user interface response times are critical factors for remote user satisfaction. An optional device designed to measure the time between a mouse click and the resulting user interface update on the local physical screen can be used to analyze user input delay.