Video Conferencing with Solstice Performance Tool

The Solstice Conferencing Performance tool is a standalone executable file for Windows 10 machines intended to assess a host laptop’s qualifications for successfully running Solstice video conferencing functions. Click here to download the application.

The Solstice Conferencing Performance application has four tabs:

When the Solstice Conferencing Performance tool is launched, the application runs an initial scan of the laptop device to evaluate system resources. The System Information tab shows the results of that initial scan and provides a rating along with an overall numerical score.

The following are the ratings and their definitions:

The rating estimates the system’s performance if you were simultaneously running the Solstice app, Solstice conferenceing functionality, a video conferencing application such as Zoom or GoToMeeting, and other applications such as web browsers and standard productivity tools.

The bottom section of the System Information tab shows the individual components affecting performance and their individual rating. The Save Results button allows you to save a JSON file which contains the version information, results, calculated weights, etc. The Score Details button gives the numerical value for the laptop device’s overall score.

The Network Performance tab measures the speed of the network connection between the host laptop and the Solstice Pod. If a screen key is enabled for the Pod, you must enter the Pod’s valid screen key in the pop-up that appears, then click Submit to perform the test. To get the valid screen key, view the screen key on the Solstice Pod’s welcome screen display. If no screen key is enabled for the Pod, you can leave this field blank and simply click Submit.

Red indicates the field is required and that you need to input a value. Yellow fields indicate an optional parameter that you are able to change. Green fields show the results of the network performance test.

Before running, you need to set the Server Address (i.e. the Pod’s IP address) and update the Server Port field to the Pod's configured base communication port (e.g. 53100 by default). You can find the configured base port by opening the Solstice Dashboard, selecting the Pod from the list of Solstice instances, going to the Network tab > Communication Ports section, and locating the value in the Solstice Base Port field.

You also need to review the other optional fields. As a note, we recommend lowering the value for Packets Sent; however, the greater the quantity, the more accurate the test results are.

You may select to run the UDP Benchmark or TCP Benchmark tests. These are run independently, and the order they are run in does not matter. Results for the number of packets received and lost, data size, transfer time, and network bandwidth are listed.

The Conference Monitoring tab provides CPU usage measurements for the Solstice app, Solstice video conference functions, and the Solstice virtual display.

Before you begin monitoring, you need to start a Solstice video conference session with the following:

After the above Solstice conferencing session is running, select Start Monitoring and run through a working conference session to see how the system resources are used by the application. You may select Stop Monitoring at any time.

The scale is identical to the one used by the Windows Task Manager, so CPU usage is divided by the number of cores within the laptop’s processor. For example, a CPU usage reading of 10% indicates an average load of 10% across all cores.

The Version Information tab provides information about the application’s release date and coinciding Solstice release as well as applicable copyright information.