[performance] How is TeamViewer so fast?

My random guess is: TV uses x264 codec which has a commercial license (otherwise TeamViewer would have to release their source code). At some point (more than 5 years ago), I recall main developer of x264 wrote an article about improvements he made for low delay encoding (if you delay by a few frames encoders can compress better), plus he mentioned some other improvements that were relevant for TeamViewer-like use. In that post he mentioned playing quake over video stream with no noticeable issues. Back then I was kind of sure who was the sponsor of these improvements, as TeamViewer was pretty much the only option at that time. x264 is an open source implementation of H264 video codec, and it's insanely good implementation, it's the best one. At the same time it's extremely well optimized. Most likely due to extremely good implementation of x264 you get much better results with TV at lower CPU load. AnyDesk and Chrome Remote Desk use libvpx, which isn't as good as x264 (optimization and video quality wise).

However, I don't think TeamView can beat microsoft's RDP. To me it's the best, however it works between windows PCs or from Mac to Windows only. TV works even from mobiles.

Update: article was written in January 2010, so that work was done roughly 10 years ago. Also, I made a mistake: he played call of duty, not quake. When you posted your question, if my guess is correct, TeamViewer had been using that work for 3 years. Read that blog post from web archive: x264: the best low-latency video streaming platform in the world. When I read the article back in 2010, I was sure that the "startup–which has requested not to be named" that the author mentions was TeamViewer.

Examples related to performance

Why is 2 * (i * i) faster than 2 * i * i in Java? What is the difference between spark.sql.shuffle.partitions and spark.default.parallelism? How to check if a key exists in Json Object and get its value Why does C++ code for testing the Collatz conjecture run faster than hand-written assembly? Most efficient way to map function over numpy array The most efficient way to remove first N elements in a list? Fastest way to get the first n elements of a List into an Array Why is "1000000000000000 in range(1000000000000001)" so fast in Python 3? pandas loc vs. iloc vs. at vs. iat? Android Recyclerview vs ListView with Viewholder

Examples related to network-programming

Difference between PACKETS and FRAMES socket connect() vs bind() How to read all of Inputstream in Server Socket JAVA C# An established connection was aborted by the software in your host machine Asynchronous Function Call in PHP TCP: can two different sockets share a port? trace a particular IP and port How is TeamViewer so fast? Recommended way to get hostname in Java Difference between TCP and UDP?

Examples related to operating-system

Context.startForegroundService() did not then call Service.startForeground() Fork() function in C python: get directory two levels up Find Process Name by its Process ID Best way to find os name and version in Unix/Linux platform How to run a program without an operating system? How to make parent wait for all child processes to finish? Get operating system info Running windows shell commands with python What are the differences between virtual memory and physical memory?

Examples related to udp

How do I publish a UDP Port on Docker? Simple UDP example to send and receive data from same socket Is SMTP based on TCP or UDP? What does it mean to bind a multicast (UDP) socket? Sending and receiving UDP packets? How to send only one UDP packet with netcat? How is TeamViewer so fast? TCP vs UDP on video stream Difference between TCP and UDP? What are examples of TCP and UDP in real life?

Examples related to remote-desktop

Remote desktop connection protocol error 0x112f login to remote using "mstsc /admin" with password How is TeamViewer so fast?