Ultravnc vs tightvnc.

[mhertz]

I need a VNC server for a windows 10 machine(I use tigervnc on linux), and have narrowed the path down between ultravnc and tightvnc, mainly because they both support desktop-duplication api of win8+ and are actively developed for windows(both of these makes tigervnc a non-candidate).

Could someone in the know please tell me why you favor ultravnc over e.g. tightvnc(or alike) i.e. why you feel it's the best server on windows. I can see it has a few more options than e.g. tightvnc and is more actively developed I believe, though I have also heard that tightvnc is more stable/solid than ultravnc.

Lastly, I read in the ultravnc changelog, that w8hook.dll became embedded in an earlier version, so why is there e.g. two x64 installers, one for "normal" and one for desktop-duplication api of win8+? Is that a mistake. I guess it is because it says it's using w8hook even while using the regular version(when hoovering over the tray-icon). I believe it was closed-source originally, but I guess it's not anymore?

Thanks alot in advance, it's really appreciated and I apologize in advance if the question is somewhat strange/lame I have thought of this question now in over 2 weeks, and tested the hell out of both tightvnc and ultravnc servers from a win10 VM I connect too from a tigervnc client from linux, and they both seem equally fast and nice, and I've always been rather strange in these regards about not being able to decide.

Thank you!

[Rudi De Vos]

desktop-duplication ( w8hook) is the way togo for win8>=
This require that you use the SDK for win8 but, exe compiled with this SDK do not run on XP

2 exe : XP and WIN8>=
1 exe and one dll and the dll is the win8 specific parts.

Anyway, for 1.2.18 we gonna back to the dll.
*you obligate yourself to seperate the win8 code in the dll,
*A single exe for all OS's is a single compile and installer

[mhertz]

Thanks alot for the reply Rudi!

Could I please lastly just quickly ask your opinion on if ultravnc's desktop-duplication, or other parts, are better in ultravnc compared to tightvnc? Do you personally think tightvnc has an edge in stability over ultravnc? Obviously, you're "bias'ed" but I trust you can put that aside for a quick comment if OK.

Also, I much apologize for stupidly having reposted this post because I thought there was a glitch somehow as the original wasen't posted, but I see I was to hasty and didn't noticed the part about mod-aproval, so please just delete the other post of mine and sorry again for the trouble.

[Rudi De Vos]

Your posts don't get lost, but new users require manual aproval of each post.
I'm not 24 on the net

[mhertz]

Yeah, I apologize about that, as stated previously About the other question, I guess you don't wan't to answer that, which I of course respect, or maybe it was a stupid question, sorry Thanks anyways!

[Rudi De Vos]

Current working on an update for windows 10. I'm not happy with the dd engine implementation in uvnc.

*already done
+multiple video cards support
+multiple monitors on same video card ( you can switch between them)
+...

[mhertz]

Appricate that, thanks! Also, sorry for rather stupid question - of course you can only talk/know about your work. For what it's worth, I haven't gotten uvnc server to break yet in my many linux > win10 VM tests, and all I gather from ~100 tests, is that they seem comparabel fast, and uvnc server uses little more ram and CPU when idle, though less CPU during high-load(even below max-cpu setting). Also, when running chrome with high-load tabs and then quieting chrome, then tightvnc server continuous shows the mouse as "loading" i.e. that little round symbol, which is freezed, but when you select something with the mouse then it goes away, whereas uvnc server never did that.

Edit: I just found a bug in tightvnc, that's not in uvnc: Maybe it's specific to tigervnc's vncviewer I dunno, but when copying clipboard contents from and to the VM a few times, then when I need to exit I need to "hard-quit" the session by doing ctrl+c in the terminal I ran vncviewer from, because the menu where "Exit" is from pressing F8 doesn't come up. Also, I found an issue in tigervnc's viewer in that when copying e.g. "llllaaallll" on the client, then when pasting it into an editor on the server, then only "llll" is pasted, and the a's are stripped for some reason. I gotta report that on there tracker later.

Thanks again for your efforts!

[Rudi De Vos]

Upcoming version for win10, should be faster.
Still doing some stability testing

https://www.uvnc.eu/download/1217/winvnc_zipthread.zip

[mhertz]

Thanks Rudi for letting me test this beta! I've just done a few short tests as of now with it, but I seem to not notice a difference and memory/cpu is also the same by the two winvnc processes. This isn't bad, because the stable version is very fast in itself, so i'm not complaining Btw, I find it incredible that ultravnc can use about 1/4'th less cpu than tightvnc in some of my tests, when thinking about ultravnc is so much more of an advanced "beast" feature-wise I mean I'm of course not thinking about the max-cpu setting here, as it's under that in the tests by a good bit. Good job!

-Martin.

[mhertz]

For others finding this from a google search, which i've myself done for hours, lol, then after having extensively tested both tightvnc and ultravnc, I've decided upon ultravnc After many, many tests, I managed to get tightvnc server crash once, whereas never with ultravnc. Second, ultravnc uses less CPU, and tightvnc exhibits sometimes issues with closing the session from tigervnc viewer + sometimes the mouse becomes locked at the loading round blue symbol until selecting something else.

Also, ultravnc has of course more features, and is more actively developed(in release-schedule atleast). It also seems to be the forerunner of new tech i.e. using win8+ desktop-duplication api, was added by Rudi, I believe as a first(for vnc usage), in v1.1.0.0beta of September 13, 2012, whereas tightvnc added this in v2.7.1 of April 28, 2013. Lastly, having a forum with a responsive and helpfull lead-dev available, certantly doesn't hurt either

Thank you!

-Martin.