[feature request] h.265 HEVC support for PC to PC remote play

[froggx]

I noticed that HEVC support has been enabled for the steam link app for android (and maybe iOS? I don't keep up with iphones) for a while now and it would be great if remote play between PCs could take advantage of that too.

In my case I stream from a gaming computer to a lightweight laptop with a 4G cell connection when I'm on the go. The higher compression rate from h.264 to h.265 makes the difference between streaming 720p and 1080p, so I've completely abandoned using Steam for remote play in favor of another streaming program that uses HEVC (and which I won't name as it's not related to this feature request beyond indicating that competing programs have had HEVC support for PC to PC play for a good while now). However I would rather use steam to stream though because everything just works better and overall seems to be able to better utilize underlying hardware, such as being able to work without a display on the host while other programs seem to capture frames at V-SYNC to display (which inherently implies having a display plugged up, upsetting my power settings via some kind of ghost in the shell).

GPU h.265 hardware encode/decode for PCs is becoming pretty widespread, HEVC encoding on the host PC has already been implemented thanks to the steam link app, and libavcodec is already used by steam and includes native HEVC decode. I'm sure it's more complicated than adding a couple lines of code and a "enable HEVC support" checkbox in the Remote Play settings, but would it really be that much trouble considering it's already all but implemented (or at least it seems that way to my cybersec mind that avoids software development more than a slow fiery death from the 'wick effect')?

(p.s. I couldn't find much info on this in the forum so if there is another thread asking about this I apologize. If this can be enabled with a flag at startup or something, this should really be added to the settings menu for steam beta because Remote Play/Steam Link (the physical box that is no longer available)/In-Home Streaming/Steam Link (again, but now a mobile app, which I promise doesn't make it hard for me to look for new ways to repurpose my physical box variant)/whatever-steam-calls-the-next-iteration is being left behind by other options for home game streaming.

self-edited because I was rambling into the domain of off-topic

[mwf4321]

yeah i've been trying to figure this out, why would steam add this functionality to a mobile client and not to the pc client when every other streaming client has had this functionality for a long time.

[SuperN0va_]

This is about the only recent post that I find on this. Would love to see HEVC support for PC to PC streaming, as I too stream to my laptop