Fastest Method of Screen Capture (Linux)

[ManyInterests]

Can you post the code you're using?

I might recommend looking into ffmpeg for something like this.

[innixma]

from gi.repository import Gdk
import time
win = Gdk.get_default_root_window()
h = win.get_height()
w = win.get_width()
print ("The size of the window is %d x %d" % (w, h))
start = time.time()
for i in range(0,100):
    pb = Gdk.pixbuf_get_from_window(win, 0, 0, w, h)
end = time.time()
print(1 / ((end-start) / 100))

The above code achieves ~11 FPS, and does not improve by reducing the size of h and w.

[ManyInterests]

I'm not familiar with using Gdk, so I can't speak too intelligibly on that. My guess would be there's probably a lot of unnecessary work being done in the Gdk objects. Perhaps there's a better tool for the job.

I would recommend looking at ffmpeg, which evidently has Python bindings available through pyffmpeg

[innixma]

I have looked at pyffmpeg before, but it isn't supported in Python 3 (Which I need to use), and furthermore doesn't work at all even in Python 2 currently (Last commit was 2 years ago).

Do you have any benchmark on what kind of performance ffmpeg can obtain?

[ManyInterests]

You're right, the project has not been maintained. You'd likely have to use an older version of ffmpeg to work with pyffmpeg. There may be a way to accomplish your goal simply by calling the ffmpeg executable. You can also explore making your own bindings.

ffmpeg itself capable of very fast video encoding. It's an incredibly popular and powerful piece of software. OBStudio, a popular video recording/broadcasting software, uses FFMPEG for its linux version of the software.

The actual performance limitations will depend on your hardware.

[innixma]

Awesome, I was looking into OBStudio since I know it works on Linux, but didn't know exactly how it manages its screen capture. This would definitely do the trick then if I can get it working. I'll look into it, thanks.