Windows 10, high load from WUDFHost.exe Windows Driver Foundation - User-mode Driver

[Tweak3D]

While 8.2 M0 on windows 10 1703 is much better than before, its still basically unusable anytime video content is being displayed. If I am on a conference call using Cisco Jabber or Webex my CPU pins it self to 100% usage and makes everything like a slideshow. Screensharing does not have this effect. If I hide the video window, CPU usage drops back down to a much more reasonable level.

If I use a non-displaylink dock there are no issues. This has been tested on several vairants of Dell and Microsoft devices all with the same impact. using a higher end device with a top of the line I7, SSD, 32gb ram results in the same 100% cpu usage.

This was not a problem before anniversary update or back on windows 7.

[Patty]

8.2 M1 works great for me, CPU dropped significantly.
Thanks.
Machine is Dell XPS 13

[AlbanRampon]

Hello Patty and all,

We are delivering incremental improvements based on use cases reported at the time.
Some will see change, and some won't. That seems a better approach rather than not delivering anything to anyone when we have something beneficial to distribute.

8.3 will be bringing additional improvements in some use cases. There are also others planned for 8.4.
I'm trying to get an 8.3 Alpha version made available early June to get feedback on this, and other items. At that time, I'll create a dedicated forum board and post here.

Kind regards,
Alban

[kkris]

Hi

I have read the many posts about the WUDFHost.exe causing a high CPU-load and since I have this issue I have already tried like everything:
- Cleaning up the display link drivers
- Installing older versions of the display link driver
- Reinstalling all kinds of drivers
- and so on and so on...

I think this problem came up after the recent windows update last week, but I am not 100% sure.

My issue:
I am using a USB 3.0 docking station by Lenovo (ThinkPad USB 3.0 Ultra Dock, Driver version: 8.2.1952.0, but I have already tried with 8.3 too) and via HDMI I have connected a monitor to it. When I remove the HDMI cable from the docking station, the CPU-load goes down and the fans are going back to a normal noise level again. What I have also recognized is that when I stop "explorer.exe" the CPU-load of "WUDFHost.exe" goes down too (to around 0.2 - 0.8%), even though the HDMI cable is still connected to the docking station and the monitor is still working. When I close the most CPU-consuming "WUDFHost.exe" the load goes down as well but this time it (of course) detaches the monitor.
"Windows Explorer" and the "Windows Driver Foundation - User-mode Driver Framework Host Process" are together using around 50% of the CPU when the laptop is connected to the monitor through the docking station.

My hardware & OS:
Laptop: Lenovo Yoga 900-13 ISK
OS: Windows 10 Enterprise
OS Version: 1703
OS Build: 15063.483
Docking Station: ThinkPad USB 3.0 Ultra Dock

Any help would be highly appreciated! Thank you and have a great day.

Cheers,
Kris

[kkris]

Hi,

Yesterday I downloaded this version again:
DisplayLink USB Graphics Software for Windows - DEV BUILD NR-135298-LS-1 (8.3.1852)

First nothing changed but then, after a few minutes, all of a sudden the CPU-load went down. Both for "explorer.exe" and "WUDFHost.exe". Today the CPU-load is going crazy again: Both processes consume around 50% together. So I am back to where I was.


UPDATE:
I just disabled the visual effects in windows and the CPU-load went down immediately. Does this mean that the docking station + the display link driver does not work well when the visual effects are enabled?
This is my setting for now but I will keep an eye on it to make sure if this really was the solution to switch to "Adjust for best performance":



Cheers,
Kris

[Tweak3D]

Originally Posted by kkris

Hi,

Yesterday I downloaded this version again:
DisplayLink USB Graphics Software for Windows - DEV BUILD NR-135298-LS-1 (8.3.1852)

First nothing changed but then, after a few minutes, all of a sudden the CPU-load went down. Both for "explorer.exe" and "WUDFHost.exe". Today the CPU-load is going crazy again: Both processes consume around 50% together. So I am back to where I was.


UPDATE:
I just disabled the visual effects in windows and the CPU-load went down immediately. Does this mean that the docking station + the display link driver does not work well when the visual effects are enabled?
This is my setting for now but I will keep an eye on it to make sure if this really was the solution to switch to "Adjust for best performance":



Cheers,
Kris

This helps a little bit, but it is part of a bigger problem. we've found that pretty much any app that uses fades, transitions, or animations can bring the driver framework (and thus displaylink) to its knees. Its really unfortunate there isn't a good fix though at the moment though as we heavily rely on video conferencing and the experience is pretty much that you get choppy video and cannot really do anything else with your machine.

Currently trying out the 8.4 alpha, and its not much difference performance wise on the machines i've tried it on which is unfortunate.

[AlbanRampon]

Hello,

Here is an answer with numbers taken using an Intel 6th generation Core m5.
Measurements were automated with moving cursors, moving windows, browsers... to make them repeatable and comparable.

From 8.0 to 8.1, the CPU usage was decreased by ~20% during idling and moving mouse cursor.
From 8.1. to 8.2 M3, the CPU usage was decreased by about ~25%, in conditions like moving browsers.
From 8.2 M3 to 8.3, the reduction is about ~5% with applications and web browsing.
The work continues for 8.4 and beyond. We're doing both short term and long term investments.

Interesting find about the transitions (and things like that in browsers). I don't believe the issue is with the UMDF, but could be OpenGL pass-through not working correctly on Windows 10 indirect displays. Microsoft is pushing hard to get engagement with Intel but Intel has been unresponsive.
This means that some activities which could be hardware accelerated are done is CPU. This stays on the agenda of my weekly call with the MS graphics team. Microsoft or DisplayLink have no intention of giving up!
The next step though will be OpenGL ES to be optimal on browsers like Chrome and their WebGL. That engagement is also in progress.

For the video conferencing, I think this could potentially be something else. You need to do real-time transcoding. In a use case like that, the bottleneck might be around memory bandwidth (moving data). There's work ongoing on video playback too.

Kind regards,
Alban