Steam Remote Play gets low-latency codec but costs 10x more bandwidth
For gamers, the dream of seamless game streaming often clashes with frustrating reality. While game streaming over a local area network sounds simple, the process usually involves a technical hack—borrowing video streaming technology for interactive games—which introduces unwelcome latency. Even when streaming across a local network, the complex process of rendering, encoding, transmitting, and decoding video means input lag remains a persistent nuisance.
Enter Hans-Kristian “TheMaister” Arntzen, an open-source developer who decided to tackle this problem head-on. Instead of settling for existing video codecs, he engineered a specialized video codec called Pyrowave, designed specifically for in-home game streaming. This innovation isn’t just a clever tweak; it represents a fundamental shift in how interactive video data is handled over a network.
The magic of Pyrowave lies in its approach. Traditional video codecs, like AVC and AV1, rely on techniques that can compromise quality—such as chroma subsampling—to save data. This often leads to visual artifacts, especially around fine elements like text, or requires complex inter-frame encoding that adds significant delay. Pyrowave sidesteps these issues entirely. It utilizes Discrete Wavelet Transforms and intra-frame encoding, allowing it to deliver remarkably consistent quality frame after frame and exceptional error resilience.
Crucially, Pyrowave is computed directly on the GPU’s shader array rather than relying on traditional video engines. This radical architecture is the secret sauce behind its performance: it achieves insanely low latency by bypassing unnecessary processing steps, eliminating the latency bottleneck that plagues standard remote play experiences.
The performance payoff is tangible. In a test streaming a demanding title like Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis to a handheld device, the system clocked a throughput of approximately 210 megabits per second. While the codec requires 5 to 10 times the bandwidth of other streaming codecs, this data volume is easily manageable over a local network, ensuring that gamers can enjoy excellent visual quality and frame rates without sacrificing responsiveness.
When streamed using Pyrowave, users reported a noticeable improvement in responsiveness compared to conventional methods, alongside truly exceptional image quality, particularly when utilizing the 4:4:4 color mode. This solution proves that specialized engineering can create a system where speed and visual fidelity are no longer mutually exclusive.
Pyrowave streaming is strictly intended for local networks, meaning concerns about internet bandwidth are irrelevant. The data only travels between devices on your LAN. While the hardware overhead remains a consideration, the results demonstrate that this custom codec offers a genuinely superior, low-latency experience for the modern home streamer.
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