Streaming ultrawide and 32:9 without resolution roulette
Black bars, wrong aspect ratios, and missing modes plague ultrawide game streaming. How punktfunk streams arbitrary resolutions natively — up to 5120×1440 at 240 fps.
You've got a 32:9 host, or you want to stream a super-ultrawide resolution, and the stream comes back with black bars, the wrong aspect ratio, or simply won't offer your resolution at all. Most streaming stacks quietly assume 16:9. Here's how to get out of resolution roulette.
Why ultrawide breaks game streaming
- 16:9 assumptions — many host/client combos only enumerate standard 16:9 modes, so 21:9, 32:9, and 5120×1440 aren't even on the menu.
- Black bars and letterboxing — a 32:9 host streamed to a 16:9 client (or the reverse) gets pillar- or letterboxed instead of a clean fit.
- Modeline generation — to get a non-standard mode you're back to
cvt/xrandrmodelines and EDID tweaks. - Bandwidth and encoder limits — super-ultrawide is an enormous pixel count; naive encoders choke or quietly cap the refresh rate.
How punktfunk handles arbitrary resolutions
Because punktfunk creates the host's virtual display to match the client, aspect ratio stops being a negotiation. The session is simply created at whatever resolution and refresh the client requests — ultrawide included — so there's no modeline math and no black bars to crop around.
5120×1440 at 240 fps — the proof point
For the engineering ceiling: punktfunk has been validated streaming 5120×1440 at 240 fps, with GPU zero-copy throughout (tiled dmabuf → CUDA → NVENC), automatic two-way split-encode above roughly 1 Gpix/s, and a measured ~0.83 ms median capture-to-reassembly on-box. If the stack holds at 5K super-ultrawide and 240 Hz, a 3440×1440 or 2560×1080 session sits comfortably within budget.
Playing ultrawide on a normal screen
The reverse case — a 32:9 host viewed on a 16:9 laptop or tablet — is also a virtual-display problem. punktfunk can create the session at the client's native shape, so you're streaming a sensible image instead of squinting at a letterboxed sliver.
Try it
If ultrawide has meant black bars and missing resolutions, punktfunk treats your aspect ratio as a first-class input. Pair a client and request the resolution you actually want.