enricobuehler
9eb9f74893
Built it for the first time, on the AMD Bazzite box (`.116`, RADV 780M, Fedora 43 toolbox). The patches applied cleanly to the pinned rev and the configure got all the way through wlroots — then found three things no amount of reading would have: **1. `SPA_VIDEO_TRANSFER_SMPTE2084` does not exist on Fedora 43.** PipeWire 1.4.11's transfer-function enum stops at `ADOBERGB`: SPA grew BT2020_10 / SMPTE2084 / ARIB_STD_B67 as one later block. So the patch simply did not compile on the distro it is primarily FOR. This is the same trap punktfunk's own consumer documents and works around — `pf-capture`'s `pw_pods.rs` spells the value out as `14` for exactly this reason — and the fix is the same: spell out both colorimetry values, because the enum is wire ABI mirroring GStreamer's, not a private detail. `SPA_VIDEO_COLOR_PRIMARIES_BT2020` is present here but gets the same treatment, since its own header comment says `\since 1.6` and there is no reason to depend on that. The `PW_CHECK_VERSION(1, 0, 0)` guard was also just wrong: it tests the library version, which says nothing about which enum members a header names. It now guards only the FORMAT constants, which are what it was actually right about. **2. The build pulled in three subprojects we never ship.** gamescope's own unit tests want Catch2 **v3** (`catch2-with-main`) and Fedora ships v2, so the configure died on a test suite that is not ours to build. Also disabled: the OpenVR integration (a code path a headless capture session never enters) and the WSI layer — which would have been WORSE than wasted work, since the distro gamescope package installs that same layer and ours would have collided with it file-for-file. **3. `dnf builddep gamescope` is not sufficient.** It resolves Fedora's *packaged* gamescope, which is older than the master we pin, and misses `xorg-x11-server-Xwayland-devel` — without which wlroots fails several minutes in with a `xserver.wrap` error that names nothing useful. Documented with the symptom, so the next person recognises it in one line instead of ten minutes.
punktfunk-gamescope — gamescope with 10-bit HDR PipeWire capture
Upstream gamescope's built-in PipeWire node is SDR-only: build_format_params() offers BGRx
and NV12, and paint_pipewire() hardcodes a Gamma-2.2 composite with the SDR screenshot LUT
set. An HDR game therefore reaches every capture consumer already tone-mapped down — which is
why the punktfunk gamescope backend has always streamed 8-bit, even though games can render
HDR on a headless gamescope today (--hdr-enabled --hdr-debug-force-support).
The patches here add the missing half, and nothing else. See
punktfunk-planning/design/gamescope-hdr-virtual-output.md for the full design.
| Patch | What | Upstream? |
|---|---|---|
0001-pipewire-offer-10-bit-BT.2020-PQ-capture-formats-HDR.patch |
Offer SPA xRGB_210LE/xBGR_210LE with MANDATORY SMPTE ST.2084 + BT.2020 props, map them to DRM_FORMAT_XRGB2101010/XBGR2101010, and composite them with g_ScreenshotColorMgmtLutsHDR + EOTF_PQ |
Yes — offered against gamescope#2126 |
0002-pipewire-optionally-composite-the-cursor-into-the-ca.patch |
--pipewire-composite-cursor (off by default): paint the pointer into the capture stream, using the same MouseCursor::paint call the scanout composite uses |
Yes — independently useful to any consumer with no cursor of its own |
0003-punktfunk-stamp-the-version-banner-with-pfhdrN.patch |
Append +pfhdr<N> to the --version banner |
No — ours only, retired when the two above land upstream |
Why the cursor patch matters more than it looks
gamescope keeps the pointer out of its PipeWire node — it lives on a hardware plane for scanout —
so punktfunk has always reconstructed it from XFixes and blended it into every frame host-side.
That blend is what forces the encode path onto its compute colour-conversion arm: the zero-copy
RGB-direct encode source (VK_VALVE_video_encode_rgb_conversion) hands the captured buffer to a
fixed-function front end with no blend stage. Painting the cursor into the node removes the reason
for the blend, and with it a full-frame pass per frame — a gamescope session becomes the first one
that can be genuinely zero-copy end to end.
Why the marker exists
punktfunk decides a session's shape before the virtual display exists: the bit depth at
handshake time (irrevocable — a PQ stream handed to an 8-bit encoder is a deliberate hard error),
and whether the host must composite the cursor before the encoder is even opened. Both answers
must therefore be static properties of the resolved binary, not optimistic negotiations. The host
runs <gamescope> --version once per boot and reads the revision — see gamescope_patch_level()
in crates/pf-vdisplay/src/vdisplay/linux/gamescope/discovery.rs.
The number is a monotonic patch-set revision, so one probe answers every capability:
| Level | Adds |
|---|---|
+pfhdr1 |
10-bit BT.2020/PQ capture formats |
+pfhdr2 |
…and --pipewire-composite-cursor |
Bump it whenever a patch adds or changes something the host must know about before it spawns.
⚠️ The two indirect spawn modes (the GAMESCOPE_BIN wrapper for gamescope-session-plus, and the
SteamOS PATH shim) pass these flags through PF_HDR_ARGS, so they share one dependency: if the
session ignores GAMESCOPE_BIN/PATH and execs the distro's gamescope, it gets neither the HDR
formats nor the cursor flag. HDR fails loudly there (the capture negotiation times out and latches
an SDR downgrade); a missing cursor would be silent. Worth a post-spawn /proc/<pid>/cmdline check
if that ever bites.
Which binary the host runs
Resolution order, applied identically by the bare spawn, the GAMESCOPE_BIN wrapper
(gamescope-session-plus) and the SteamOS PATH shim:
PUNKTFUNK_GAMESCOPE_BIN— absolute path overridepunktfunk-gamescopeonPATHgamescope
So installing this build under the name punktfunk-gamescope is enough; nothing replaces the
distro's gamescope.
Building
Pinned upstream: 8c676c39 (master, 2026-07-27 — tags through 3.16.25). The patches apply
cleanly to that commit; they touch src/pipewire.cpp, src/steamcompmgr.cpp and
src/meson.build only.
git clone https://github.com/ValveSoftware/gamescope.git
cd gamescope
git checkout 8c676c39
git submodule update --init --recursive # or let meson fetch the subprojects
git am /path/to/punktfunk/packaging/gamescope/patches/*.patch
meson setup build/ --prefix=/usr -Dpipewire=enabled
ninja -C build/
# install as punktfunk-gamescope, NOT as gamescope
install -Dm755 build/src/gamescope /usr/bin/punktfunk-gamescope
Build dependencies
They are gamescope's, not ours, and they vary by distro. Two shortcuts that work:
# Fedora / Bazzite (inside a toolbox/distrobox — the host is immutable)
sudo dnf install -y dnf-plugins-core meson ninja-build glslc
sudo dnf builddep -y gamescope
sudo dnf install -y xorg-x11-server-Xwayland-devel # NOT pulled by builddep; wlroots needs it
# Arch / SteamOS — see the makedepends in ./PKGBUILD
⚠️ dnf builddep gamescope resolves Fedora's packaged gamescope, which is older than the master
we pin, so it can come up short. xorg-x11-server-Xwayland-devel is the one that actually bit
(2026-07-28, Fedora 43): without it wlroots' configure fails with Neither a subproject directory nor a xserver.wrap file was found, several minutes into an otherwise clean run. If a different
one surfaces, meson names it — install and re-run with --srcdir so the clone is not repeated.
gamescope needs CAP_SYS_NICE for its realtime priority; the distro packages set it on their
own binary. Mirror it if you install ours system-wide:
setcap 'CAP_SYS_NICE=eip' /usr/bin/punktfunk-gamescope
Verifying the patch on a box (P0 exit)
punktfunk-gamescope --version # must contain +pfhdr2
punktfunk-gamescope --backend headless -W 1920 -H 1080 -r 60 \
--hdr-enabled --hdr-debug-force-support --pipewire-composite-cursor -- vkcube &
pw-dump | grep -A40 '"gamescope"' # node offers xRGB_210LE / xBGR_210LE
The stream is only 10-bit once a consumer asks for it: the formats are listed last, so any consumer that negotiates the 8-bit stream today keeps negotiating it bit-for-bit.
Rebase policy
The functional patch is two files and mirrors code that already exists in-tree (the HDR AVIF screenshot path), so it rebases cheaply. We pin the gamescope commit we ship; when upstream takes it, both patches are dropped and the host's capability probe becomes a plain version floor.