From b3f0f53a23204b305ef4a139e5dfdb276330ab8e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Viktor Liu <viktor@netbird.io>
Date: Tue, 19 May 2026 12:42:38 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] Collapse dirty rects to their bounding box when the bbox is
 densely dirty

---
 client/vnc/server/session.go        | 15 ++++++++++
 client/vnc/server/session_encode.go | 44 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 59 insertions(+)

diff --git a/client/vnc/server/session.go b/client/vnc/server/session.go
index c4d066f73..0228701c6 100644
--- a/client/vnc/server/session.go
+++ b/client/vnc/server/session.go
@@ -32,6 +32,21 @@ const (
 	fullFramePromoteDen = 100
 )
 
+// bboxPromoteDensityPct collapses the coalesced rect list down to its
+// bounding box when the dirty pixels occupy at least this fraction of the
+// bbox. Catches the "windowed video" case where the player area dirties as
+// a dense block but is split into many sibling rects by overlays or by
+// non-uniform tile coverage. Sending one JPEG over the bbox beats sending
+// dozens of small JPEGs that each carry their own header and Tight stream
+// restart.
+const (
+	bboxPromoteDensityPct = 70
+	// bboxPromoteMinArea avoids promoting a handful of small scattered
+	// rects whose bbox would span most of the screen and pull in mostly
+	// clean pixels.
+	bboxPromoteMinArea = tileSize * tileSize * 16
+)
+
 type session struct {
 	conn        net.Conn
 	capturer    ScreenCapturer
diff --git a/client/vnc/server/session_encode.go b/client/vnc/server/session_encode.go
index f34a58400..4d6501591 100644
--- a/client/vnc/server/session_encode.go
+++ b/client/vnc/server/session_encode.go
@@ -120,6 +120,11 @@ func (s *session) processIncremental(img *image.RGBA) error {
 		s.refreshCopyRectIndex()
 		return nil
 	}
+	if len(moves) == 0 {
+		if bb, ok := promoteToBoundingBox(rects); ok {
+			rects = bb
+		}
+	}
 	if err := s.sendDirtyAndMoves(img, moves, rects); err != nil {
 		return err
 	}
@@ -311,6 +316,45 @@ func (s *session) captureFrame() (*image.RGBA, error) {
 	return s.curFrame, nil
 }
 
+// promoteToBoundingBox replaces the rect list with a single rect covering
+// the bounding box of all inputs, provided the bbox is at least
+// bboxPromoteMinArea and the dirty pixels fill at least
+// bboxPromoteDensityPct of it. Returns the new rect list and true when the
+// promotion fires; otherwise returns nil, false and the caller keeps the
+// original list.
+func promoteToBoundingBox(rects [][4]int) ([][4]int, bool) {
+	if len(rects) < 2 {
+		return nil, false
+	}
+	x0, y0 := rects[0][0], rects[0][1]
+	x1, y1 := x0+rects[0][2], y0+rects[0][3]
+	dirty := 0
+	for _, r := range rects {
+		if r[0] < x0 {
+			x0 = r[0]
+		}
+		if r[1] < y0 {
+			y0 = r[1]
+		}
+		if r[0]+r[2] > x1 {
+			x1 = r[0] + r[2]
+		}
+		if r[1]+r[3] > y1 {
+			y1 = r[1] + r[3]
+		}
+		dirty += r[2] * r[3]
+	}
+	w, h := x1-x0, y1-y0
+	bbox := w * h
+	if bbox < bboxPromoteMinArea {
+		return nil, false
+	}
+	if dirty*100 < bbox*bboxPromoteDensityPct {
+		return nil, false
+	}
+	return [][4]int{{x0, y0, w, h}}, true
+}
+
 // shouldPromoteToFullFrame returns true when the dirty rect set covers a
 // large enough fraction of the screen that a single full-frame zlib rect
 // beats per-tile encoding on both CPU time and wire bytes. The crossover