Dedicated server, slow browser

Question

I have a server running Windows 2008 Enterprise with the following specs:

Dual Xeon E5-2670, 96GB, 2x480GB SSD
2.66GHz / 3.3GHz Turbo, 1Gbit Port
16 Cores / 32 threads

I am using this server for browser task automation (via Python) and found that it runs very slow. Rendering simply pages with images takes a long time and FPS when watching videos is also very low.

I have tried with both latest versions Firefox and Chrome and get the same problems and although I think RDP is causing some of the issues - I am confident it is not the main cause, since the Python code running on the server itself also runs very slow when automating any browser based tasks.

If anyone has any advice on what could be changed to make browser run smoother (Win2008 features, software, changes, etc), it would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

Servers usually have the bare minimum video capability. Anything graphic related is going to perform poorly.

But there is a known issue that specifically affects remote access, but maybe is causing other issues. You need to disable hardware acceleration because your server does not have the hardware to handle it. The CPU can actually do a much better job.

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/hardware-acceleration-windows-7

I know the above link is for windows workstation but the steps should be fairly similar.