Troubleshoot Teams desktop client performance issues
It can be difficult to identify the cause of performance-related problems. However, if your users complain about performance issues in Teams, you can start the investigation by reviewing resource usage. Open Task Manager and if, as shown in the following screenshot, CPU and Memory usage are high, consider investigating further.
Hardware requirements for Teams clients
It’s important to ensure that your computer meets the recommended hardware requirements to properly support the needs of the Teams client. These requirements are summarized in the following table.
| Component | Requirement |
|---|---|
| CPU | For Windows, a minimum 1.6 GHz (or higher) dual core processor. For macOS, an Intel Core Duo processor. |
| Memory | For both Windows and macOS, 4.0 GB RAM. |
| Hard disk | For Windows, 3.0 GB of available disk space. For macOS, 1.5 GB of available disk space. |
| Display | For Windows, 1024 x 768 screen resolution. For macOS, 1280 x 800 or better. |
| Graphics hardware | For Windows, graphics hardware acceleration requires DirectX 9 or later, with WDDM 2.0 or higher for Windows 10. |
| Video | A compatible webcam. |
| Devices | Standard laptop camera, microphone, and speakers. |
| Video calls and meetings | For Windows and macOS, requires dual core processor. For higher video/screen share resolution and frame rate, a quad core processor or better is recommended. Background video effects require Windows 10 or a processor with AVX2 instruction set. |
| Teams live events | If you are producing a Teams live event, we recommend using a computer that has a Core i5 7th Gen (or newer) processor, 4.0-GB RAM (or higher), and hardware encoder. |
If your computer meets or exceeds these requirements, you shouldn’t suffer from performance problems that relate to memory or CPU.
Troubleshoot high resource consumption
Since Teams requires a dedicated 4 GB of RAM over and above any other system requirements, your users’ computers require 8 GB of RAM as a minimum. If that’s not the case, you might struggle to optimize Teams performance.
Having said that, Teams is optimized to only use memory when it’s available. In other words, when your computer has more memory, Teams uses that memory. If your computer has insufficient available memory, Teams will use less.
If your computer has insufficient memory for the running workloads, then you must either:
- Add memory
- Remove workloads
Tip
Not all modern computers support the installation of additional memory.
If you determine that Teams is degrading system performance through excessive CPU usage, you can make some minor adjustments to the Team client configuration that might help. These are described in the following table.
| Configuration change | Description |
|---|---|
| Disable hardware acceleration in Teams | In Settings, on the General tab, select the Disable GPU hardware acceleration (requires restarting Teams) check box. Then restart Teams. |
| De-register Teams as the chat app for Office | In Settings, on the General tab, clear the Register Teams as the chat app for Office (requires restarting Office applications) check box. Then restart Teams. |
Tip
It’s also worth considering clearing the Teams cache.
Alternatively, you must consider removing workloads. For example, if not needed by your users, consider disabling the Microsoft Teams Meeting Add-in.
Tip
If your organization has an Azure subscription, consider using Windows Virtual Desktop to host apps like Outlook and Teams for your users.
Investigate network issues and optimize network performance
Other causes of poor Teams client performance can arise from networking issues. When troubleshooting network-related problems, it’s important to take a logical, step-by-step approach. The following table describes some of the high-level tasks you can consider performing in order to identify the cause of network latency, file upload delays, and slow chats.
| Network optimization task | Details |
|---|---|
| Test Microsoft 365 network connectivity | From the Microsoft 365 admin center, select Health and then select Network connectivity. Launch the Network connectivity test to measure the connectivity between your device and the internet, and from there to Microsoft’s network. Insights from these measurements can help you discover and understand connectivity problems for individual office locations and how you can update your network architecture to improve connections to Microsoft 365. This can dramatically increase productivity and satisfaction for people in your organization. |
| Use Teams Network planner | Network planner helps you to determine and organize network requirements for connecting people that use Teams across your organization in a few steps. Provide your networking details, such as sites, subnets, and WAN and ExpressRoute connections. Then enter your estimated Teams usage, and Network planner calculates your network requirements for Teams and cloud voice across your organization. Launch the Network Planner tool from the Microsoft Teams admin center. |
| Verify external Name Resolution | Verify that all Teams clients can resolve external DNS queries for services provided by Microsoft 365 or Office 365. Ensure your firewalls are not preventing access. Review the Microsoft 365 and Office 365 URLs and IP address ranges document for details. |
| Verify routing to Microsoft data centers | Ensure you configure connectivity to Microsoft 365 through locations that can use local or regional egress points to connect to the Microsoft network. Review the Microsoft 365 network connectivity overview document for details. |
| Configure split-tunnel VPN | Bypass the virtual private network (VPN) for Microsoft 365 traffic by using Split tunneling. Split tunneling means that traffic for Microsoft 365 or Office 365 goes directly to Microsoft 365 or Office 365, and avoids the VPN. Split tunneling has a very positive impact on Teams performance and quality. To implement a split-tunnel VPN, work with your VPN vendor. |
| Implement QoS | Consider implementing Quality of Service (QoS) to configure packet prioritization for Teams. This will improve call quality in Teams and help you monitor and troubleshoot call quality. You should implement QoS on all segments of a managed network. Review the Implement Quality of Service (QoS) in Microsoft Teams document for additional details. |
Analyze web traffic and review HTTP status codes
If you want to analyze the detail of communications between your Teams client and the Microsoft 365 services it connects to, consider using a network analyzer. One which can capture and display http status codes. These codes help you to identify and troubleshoot Microsoft 365 traffic.
Provision audio conferencing for users
Watch the following video for a demonstration of how to provision audio conferencing for users: