IDD-push: Windows capture without Desktop Duplication or WGC

Punktfunk doesn't capture the Windows desktop with Desktop Duplication or WGC. Its own display driver receives each frame from Windows and encodes it there.

A Windows streaming host has to get each frame from the compositor to the encoder. Punktfunk does it inside its own display driver.

Desktop Duplication and WGC

Desktop Duplication (DXGI) and Windows.Graphics.Capture (WGC) read the finished desktop back out of Windows. Sunshine and Apollo capture with Desktop Duplication and offer WGC as a beta; Sunshine's WGC doesn't work when it runs as a service. Vibeshine captures with WGC and switches method for UAC prompts and the sign-in screen.

IDD-push

Punktfunk streams from its own virtual display, an Indirect Display (IddCx) driver. Windows composes that display and hands each finished frame to the driver, as it does for any indirect display. Nothing is read back.

The driver encodes the frame on the GPU; the host reads only the compressed result. No frame is copied to the CPU or crosses a process boundary. Details: the encoder in the driver.

What you get

• Sign-in, lock and UAC screens in the stream. The host runs as a system service and the driver receives the secure desktop too, so you can sign in and approve prompts remotely.
• One capture path. Nothing to switch when a UAC prompt, an overlay or an HDR game appears.
• HDR and full chroma. Windows hands the driver full-chroma RGB, so HDR10 and 4:4:4 come off the same path.

What it costs

• No fallback. The Punktfunk driver is the only video source on Windows. Without it, or with one that doesn't match the host, there is no stream; the installer keeps both in step.
• No physical monitors. A Windows host can't stream a monitor; that is Linux-only.
• Windows 11 22H2 or newer, for the display-driver interface the driver needs.

Setup and requirements: Windows host.