Bells & Whistles VNC Client (bwVNC)

What is this?

bwVNC is a VNC client suitable for remote gaming and streaming

Details & Features

bwVNC is a cross-platform SDL2-based VNC client built on top of customised LibVNCServer's client library

Features:

H.264 encoding support
QEMU Audio support - RAW PCM and OPUS
Relative mouse mode support for FPS gaming

To have all the features it has to be used in pair with bwTurboVNC server

Screenshots

How to build

Required dependencies:

CMake
SDL2
FFmpeg
Opus

On Arch based distros use the following command:

$ yay -S cmake sdl2 opus ffmpeg
$ git clone https://github.com/faust93/bwVNC.git

Inside bwVNC source folder:

$ mkdir build && cd build
$ cmake ..
$ cmake --build .

Usage

$ ./bwvnc 
Usage: ./bwvnc [options] [vnc options] server:port
 Options:
  -showdrivers          Show available SDL rendering drivers
  -sdldriver [s]        Use [s] SDL render driver (default: opengl)
  -noaudio              Disable audio support (default: enabled)
  -audio-profile [n]    Specify audio profile to use: (default: 1)
                        0: PCM 11025Hz 16-bit stereo
                        1: PCM 22050Hz 16-bit stereo
                        2: PCM 44100Hz 16-bit stereo
                        3: OPUS 22050Hz 16-bit stereo
                        4: OPUS 32000Hz 16-bit stereo
                        5: OPUS 44100Hz 16-bit stereo
                        6: OPUS 48000Hz 16-bit stereo
  -resizable [s]        Enable desktop window resizing (default: on)
  -resize-method [s]    Resizing method to use: zoom, desktop (default: desktop)
                        'desktop' - change desktop resolution on the server side
                        'zoom'    - rescale desktop picture to the client window size
  -no-logs              Disable logging (default: on)
 VNC options:
  -encodings [s]         VNC encoding to use: h264 tight zrle ultra copyrect hextile zlib corre rre raw (default: h264)
  -compress [n]          Specify compression level: 0-fast, 9-best (default: 0)
                         For H264 encoder it means preconfigured encoding profile num, from 0 to 9
  -quality [n]           Specify JPEG quality level: 0-poor, 9-best (default: 5)

Connect to the server

$ bwvnc -audio-profile 6 -compress 1 192.168.1.2:5901

-audio-profile - specify which audio profile to use, see available profiles above

-compress - for H.264 encoding allows to specify h.264 encoder profile from 0 to 9 (profiles are configured on the server side)

By default bwTurboVNC has the following profiles configured:

0: Default Profile, HW VAAPI 800000 bit/s 30 fps Constant Quality
1: Mid Bandwidth Profile, HW VAAPI 800000 bit/s 25 fps СQP
2: Low Bandwidth Profile, HW VAAPI 500000 bit/s 23 fps СBR
3: x264 Default Profile, SW+OpenCL x264 800000 bit/s 30 fps Constant
4: Mid Bandwidth Profile, SW+OpenCL x264 800000 bit/s 25 fps Constant
5: Low Bandwidth Profile, SW+OpenCL x264 500000 bit/s 23 fps Constant

You can change default settings or configure your own profiles (up to 9) on the server side

It's also possible to switch h.264 profiles on the fly, press F12 while VNC session is open and specify profile number in Compression text field

Menu Options

Press F12 while being in VNC session:

Game mode - switches on relative mouse mode and restricted keyboard mode suitable for gaming
Audio enabled - enable/disable audio output
Zoom resize mode - while enabled just scales picture during window resizing, desktop resolution stays the same. While disabled - changes desktop resolution.
Fullscreen mode - switch to fullscreen mode, respects 'Zoom resize mode' switch
Compression - for Tight encoder changes compression rate, for h.264 selects encoding profile
JPEG Quality - JPEG quality for Tight encoder

faust93 / bwVNC