[PATCH v1] vnc: fix VNC artifacts

[Cameron Esfahani]

Remove VNC optimization to reencode framebuffer update as raw if it's
smaller than the default encoding.  QEMU's implementation was naive and
didn't account for the ZLIB z_stream mutating with each compression.  Just
saving and restoring the output buffer offset wasn't sufficient to "rewind"
the previous encoding.  Considering that ZRLE is never larger than raw and
even though ZLIB can occasionally be fractionally larger than raw, the
overhead of implementing this optimization correctly isn't worth it.

In my investigation, ZRLE always compresses better than ZLIB so
prioritize ZRLE over ZLIB, even if the client hints that ZLIB is
preferred.

Fixes: <de3f7de7f4e257> ("vnc: allow fall back to RAW encoding")
Signed-off-by: Cameron Esfahani <address@hidden>
---
 ui/vnc-enc-zrle.c |  4 ++--
 ui/vnc.c          | 30 +++++++++++-------------------
 2 files changed, 13 insertions(+), 21 deletions(-)

diff --git a/ui/vnc-enc-zrle.c b/ui/vnc-enc-zrle.c
index 17fd28a2e2..b4f71e32cf 100644
--- a/ui/vnc-enc-zrle.c
+++ b/ui/vnc-enc-zrle.c
@@ -98,8 +98,8 @@ static int zrle_compress_data(VncState *vs, int level)
     /* set pointers */
     zstream->next_in = vs->zrle->zrle.buffer;
     zstream->avail_in = vs->zrle->zrle.offset;
-    zstream->next_out = vs->zrle->zlib.buffer + vs->zrle->zlib.offset;
-    zstream->avail_out = vs->zrle->zlib.capacity - vs->zrle->zlib.offset;
+    zstream->next_out = vs->zrle->zlib.buffer;
+    zstream->avail_out = vs->zrle->zlib.capacity;
     zstream->data_type = Z_BINARY;
 
     /* start encoding */
diff --git a/ui/vnc.c b/ui/vnc.c
index 4100d6e404..f085e1b747 100644
--- a/ui/vnc.c
+++ b/ui/vnc.c
@@ -898,8 +898,6 @@ int vnc_raw_send_framebuffer_update(VncState *vs, int x, 
int y, int w, int h)
 int vnc_send_framebuffer_update(VncState *vs, int x, int y, int w, int h)
 {
     int n = 0;
-    bool encode_raw = false;
-    size_t saved_offs = vs->output.offset;
 
     switch(vs->vnc_encoding) {
         case VNC_ENCODING_ZLIB:
@@ -922,24 +920,11 @@ int vnc_send_framebuffer_update(VncState *vs, int x, int 
y, int w, int h)
             n = vnc_zywrle_send_framebuffer_update(vs, x, y, w, h);
             break;
         default:
-            encode_raw = true;
+            vnc_framebuffer_update(vs, x, y, w, h, VNC_ENCODING_RAW);
+            n = vnc_raw_send_framebuffer_update(vs, x, y, w, h);
             break;
     }
 
-    /* If the client has the same pixel format as our internal buffer and
-     * a RAW encoding would need less space fall back to RAW encoding to
-     * save bandwidth and processing power in the client. */
-    if (!encode_raw && vs->write_pixels == vnc_write_pixels_copy &&
-        12 + h * w * VNC_SERVER_FB_BYTES <= (vs->output.offset - saved_offs)) {
-        vs->output.offset = saved_offs;
-        encode_raw = true;
-    }
-
-    if (encode_raw) {
-        vnc_framebuffer_update(vs, x, y, w, h, VNC_ENCODING_RAW);
-        n = vnc_raw_send_framebuffer_update(vs, x, y, w, h);
-    }
-
     return n;
 }
 
@@ -2087,8 +2072,15 @@ static void set_encodings(VncState *vs, int32_t 
*encodings, size_t n_encodings)
             break;
 #endif
         case VNC_ENCODING_ZLIB:
-            vs->features |= VNC_FEATURE_ZLIB_MASK;
-            vs->vnc_encoding = enc;
+            /*
+             * VNC_ENCODING_ZRLE compresses better than VNC_ENCODING_ZLIB.
+             * So prioritize ZRLE, even if the client hints that it prefers
+             * ZLIB.
+             */
+            if ((vs->features & VNC_FEATURE_ZRLE_MASK) == 0) {
+                vs->features |= VNC_FEATURE_ZLIB_MASK;
+                vs->vnc_encoding = enc;
+            }
             break;
         case VNC_ENCODING_ZRLE:
             vs->features |= VNC_FEATURE_ZRLE_MASK;
-- 
2.24.0