Files
netris-nestri/apps/nescapture/README.md
Wanjohi 6ea241c910 docs: the guest READMEs described code that is gone
All three came across with their standalone repos and none had been
touched since the transport changed.

nescapture claimed to packetize with Reed-Solomon FEC and stream RTP/UDP
to a Moonlight client. It sends encoded frames to neshub over a Unix
socket. packetizer.rs, control.rs and shard_batch.rs do not exist, and
neither does ARCHITECTURE.md. Nine documented environment variables are
not read by anything -- NESCAPTURE_RTP_HOST was listed as *required* --
and five that are read were undocumented, including the one that says
where frames go. Someone following that quick start would have set a
required variable that does nothing and got no output.

Documented the three sockets, since nescapture binds one and connects to
two and that was written down nowhere.

neswire documented --rtp-addr and --channels against a gstreamer pipeline.
It has --ipc-path, --channels, --packet-duration-ms and
--bitrate-per-channel, and hub-stub exists precisely so it can be tested
without a hub. Kept the reason hub-stub decodes rather than counts bytes:
Opus codes silence at ~3 kbps, so a dead sink looks alive on a meter.

nescope was mostly right. It called the capture layer "vkcapture", listed
seven of fifteen modules and five of nine flags, and its TODO list was
three items that neshub and nescapture now do. Added compositor mode,
which is the shape a real session uses and was undocumented.

All three licence lines were "TBD" or "See project repository".
2026-08-26 19:09:53 +03:00

177 lines
6.1 KiB
Markdown

# nescapture
A Vulkan implicit layer that captures frames from inside the workload's own
process, encodes them with **Vulkan Video** on the GPU that drew them, and
sends them to [`neshub`](../neshub) over a Unix socket — no copy out to the
CPU and back.
Being a layer rather than a screen-scraper is the whole point: the frame is
already on the GPU when we get it, and it never leaves.
---
## Where it sits
```
Game process
│ Vulkan calls
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ nescapture implicit layer │
│ │
│ vkCreateShaderModule → SHA-256 hash │
│ vkCreateGraphicsPipelines → track hashes │
│ vkCmdBindPipeline → detect HUD │
│ vkQueuePresentKHR → capture+encode │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────┘
│ GPU blit, same device
final_image (DMA-BUF exportable)
│ get_dmabuf_fd(final_memory)
DmaBufImporter (pixelforge VkDevice)
│ import_or_reuse() → vk::Image
ColorConverter (GPU compute shader)
│ BGRA/RGB10/FP16 → NV12/P010/YUV444
Encoder (Vulkan Video: H.264 / H.265 / AV1)
│ Annex-B packets
Unix datagram → neshub → the client
```
CPU fallback exists only for driver configurations without DMA-BUF external
memory export.
---
## Sockets
| path | direction | carries |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `/tmp/nestri-video.sock` | nescapture → neshub | encoded frames |
| `/tmp/nestri-stats.sock` | nescapture → neshub | capture fps, encode ms, drops |
| `/tmp/nescapture-cmd.sock` | neshub → nescapture | IDR requests, encode settings |
nescapture binds the command socket and connects to the other two. The stats
path is derived from `NESCAPTURE_IPC_PATH`'s directory, so moving the video
socket moves both.
---
## Quick start
```bash
# 1. Build
cargo build --release -p nescapture
# 2. Install the layer manifest
sudo cp apps/nescapture/manifest/VK_LAYER_nescapture.json /usr/share/vulkan/implicit_layer.d/
# Point the manifest's `library_path` at target/release/libnescapture_layer.so
# 3. Run something that draws
export NESCAPTURE_ENABLE=1
export NESCAPTURE_CODEC=h265
export NESCAPTURE_BITRATE=10000
export RUST_LOG=info
./my-vulkan-app
```
The layer is inert unless `NESCAPTURE_ENABLE=1`. That is deliberate — an
implicit layer is loaded into *every* Vulkan process on the system.
---
## Environment variables
| Variable | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `NESCAPTURE_ENABLE` | _(unset)_ | Set to `1` to activate the layer. Nothing happens otherwise |
| `NESCAPTURE_IPC_PATH` | `/tmp/nestri-video.sock` | Where to send encoded frames |
| `NESCAPTURE_CODEC` | best available | `h264`, `h265` or `av1`; probes if unset |
| `NESCAPTURE_FORMAT` | `yuv420` | `yuv420` or `yuv444` |
| `NESCAPTURE_DEPTH` | auto | `8` or `10`; inferred from the swapchain `VkFormat` if unset |
| `NESCAPTURE_BITRATE` | `10000` | CBR target in kbps. Ignored when `NESCAPTURE_QP` is set |
| `NESCAPTURE_QP` | _(unset)_ | Constant QP instead of CBR |
| `NESCAPTURE_FPS` | `60` | Target frame rate |
| `NESCAPTURE_IDR_INTERVAL` | `4` | Force an IDR every N **seconds** |
| `NESCAPTURE_TUNE` | _(unset)_ | `highquality`, `lowlatency`, `ultralowlatency`, `lossless` |
| `NESCAPTURE_CONFIG` | _(unset)_ | Path to the per-app shader-hash TOML |
| `NESCAPTURE_GAME_NAME` | exe basename | Override app identification for that config |
| `NESCAPTURE_DISCOVER` | _(unset)_ | Set to `1` to log every draw, for finding HUD shaders |
| `RUST_LOG` | `error` | Standard `env_logger` filter, e.g. `nescapture_layer=debug` |
Everything else is decided at runtime: the client asks `neshub` for a codec or
bitrate change and it arrives on the command socket, so the encoder is
reconfigured without a restart.
---
## Per-app shader-hash config
HUD detection needs to know which pipelines draw the HUD, and that is
per-application. Run once with `NESCAPTURE_DISCOVER=1` to log every shader,
then pick out the HUD pipelines by the `[SUSPECT]` marker — blend on, depth
off, six vertices or fewer.
```toml
# ~/.config/nescapture/apps.toml
[game."MyApp.exe"]
hud_fragment_shaders = ["0xaabbccddeeff0011"]
hud_vertex_shaders = ["0x1a2b3c4d5e6f7890"]
skip_fragment_shaders = ["0x1122334455667788"]
```
```bash
export NESCAPTURE_CONFIG=~/.config/nescapture/apps.toml
export NESCAPTURE_GAME_NAME=MyApp.exe
```
---
## Modules
```
src/
├── lib.rs entry points, dispatch routing
├── dispatch.rs Vulkan function-pointer types and tables
├── state.rs global DashMaps, DeviceState, CbState
├── instance.rs vkCreateInstance / vkDestroyInstance
├── device.rs vkCreateDevice / vkDestroyDevice
├── shader.rs SPIR-V hashing
├── pipeline.rs graphics pipeline tracking
├── framebuffer.rs image view and framebuffer tracking
├── commands.rs vkCmdBind*, vkCmdDraw*, vkCmdBeginRenderPass
├── swapchain.rs vkCreateSwapchainKHR, image enumeration
├── capture.rs GPU blit to the capture image, DMA-BUF export
├── present.rs vkQueuePresentKHR, encode dispatch
├── encode.rs pixelforge pipeline, codec probing, IPC send
├── dmabuf_import.rs cross-device zero-copy import
├── config.rs per-app TOML shader-hash config
└── discovery.rs draw-call logging for shader discovery
```
---
## Dependencies
| Crate | Purpose |
| --- | --- |
| `pixelforge` | Vulkan Video hardware encode |
| `ash` | Vulkan bindings |
| `nesprotocol` | The IPC frame format `neshub` reads |
| `sha2`, `bytemuck` | SPIR-V fingerprinting |
| `dashmap`, `once_cell` | Lock-free concurrent state |
| `serde`, `toml` | Per-app shader config |
`ash` and `pixelforge` are pinned to git revisions — both track Vulkan Video
support that has not landed in a release.
---
## Licence
Apache 2.0. See [LICENSE](../../LICENSE).