[Resolved - Kind-of] - Pixilated

[danmacat@gmail.com]

Hi

Just set up Remoter on my iPhone to view/use G-5quad desktop.
when I connect I get a pixilated screen for a few seconds, then the
app quits.

Help please

Thanks
dan

[raf]

Hi Dan,
Not sure what machine you have. Is it a Mac? What OS version?
Thanks.

Edit: Is it a G5 quad? Snow Leopard is required for 16BPP; if running on an older version of OS X, make sure you set the Color Depth (under the session editor, Advanced) is set to 32BPP.

[danmacat@gmail.com]

Sorry, put the dash in the wrong spot.
It's a G5 quad running OS 10.6.6

thanks for looking into this issue.

dan

[raf]

Not sure what the problem can be. Maybe your resolution is too high? Try reducing your screen resolution. If that fails, try a different color depth setting. (32 v/s 16, as 8bpp is not supported in OS X).

[danmacat@gmail.com]

I am running two apple cinema screens, 22" and a 23".
I have to drop the resolutions down to 1024x768 (stretched) and 800 x 600 (stretched) in order
to get the Remoter to not pixilate. And while the remoter seems to work fine that way, what a
waste of two beautiful screens.

dan

[raf]

Yes, Apple Cinema displays are really nice monitors, I have to agree.
Unfortunately, the way the VNC protocol works is by sending the whole screen over the line. Your system needs a lot of RAM in order to be able to display such large screens.
Example, if your monitors are say 1600x1200 and say 1680x1050. Then you would need this much RAM on your iOS device:
1600x1200x32BPP = 60MB x 2 (frontbuffer and backbuffer) = 120MB
PLUS
1680x1050x32BPP = 54MB x 2 = 108MB.
That means you need 228MB FREE memory on your device.

The iPad has only 256MB of RAM total, and that is used by the OS and any running applications; so there is no physical way to do it with this little RAM.

One possible fix would be to down-scale the screen buffer before sending it to the VNC client. This feature is called server-scaling; and is not supported by the stock Apple VNC server. It is supported by some 3rd party VNC servers in other OSs, and Remoter will support this in the near future.

Another option is for a way for the client and server to determine which of the two monitors to display. This is supported by the Apple VNC server, but as a proprietary extension that is not part of the open RFB protocol. I'm planning on offering support for this as well, but it might take some time.

Raf.

[danmacat@gmail.com]

Bummer
But thank you very much for you help in clarifying the issue.
dan

[raf]

Sorry Dan.
You know what I'm going to try for the next version? Half-size front-buffer (half-width & half-height). That should also help reduce memory requirements by cutting the front-buffer required memory in 4.
I'll let you know how it works out, and if I'll be able to include it in the next version of Remoter.

Raf.