A from-scratch successor to OCISLY for streaming Kerbal Space Program camera feeds to a browser. Hardware-accelerated H.264 over WebRTC, with full Hullcam VDS camera-type fidelity. Designed with Linux in mind.
- Streams HullcamVDS camera sources to a browser via the bundled kerbcam web UI or through @jonpepler/kerbcam, a TypeScript SDK
- Supports performance tweak options to keep fps reasonable through degrading resolution, shedding render layers, and adding 'realistic' noise at sour era ce
- Honours each camera's
cameraModeso B&W / CRT / night-vision variants look like they do in the in-game Hullcam GUI - Supports a data channel for sending control data (eg zoom)
- Fixes and patches long term issues with OCISLY and Hullcam on Linux
- Captures KSP Hullcam VDS camera feeds inside the game via
AsyncGPUReadback, with zero stall on the game's main thread - Encodes them in an out-of-process 'sidecar': hardware H.264 on Linux / Steam Deck (libva), with software H.264 (OpenH264) as the fallback everywhere else. The VideoToolbox (macOS) and NVENC (Windows) hardware backends are stubbed pending implementation, so tier-2 platforms currently encode in software.
- Streams them out as WebRTC media tracks, with adaptive bitrate, congestion control, and packet loss recovery for free
- Renders cameras only when a peer is subscribed, so no idle CPU work and no in-game UI required
kerbcam isn't ready for general consumption yet.
- Linux / Steam Deck support is tier-1.
- macOS and Windows are experimental tier-2: code paths exist, polish does not.
- Mod-platform listings (CKAN, SpaceDock, KSP Forums) will come at 1.0.
Issues and PRs are welcome, particularly if you'd like to 'adopt' macOS or Windows support.
Grab the latest kerbcam-*.zip from the releases page and follow the install steps in that release's notes. The steps live with each release rather than here because they can change between versions; the release notes are always correct for the build you download. You'll also need Hullcam VDS Continued.
OCISLY uses ReadPixels + EncodeToJPG on the game's main thread and ships JPEG over unary gRPC at 30 Hz. That works, but it costs real frame budget, particularly on lower powered devices, and doesn't support the visual character that Hullcam VDS encodes per part. Kerbcam aims to fix both while prioritising high performance through hardware encoding and modern Unity API use.
Measured on a Steam Deck (AMD Van Gogh APU) running KSP 1.12, launchpad scene, 6 Hullcam cameras, OpenGL / Mesa:
| Scenario | Cameras streaming | fps mean | fps p50 |
|---|---|---|---|
| No camera mod | 0 | 56.2 | 56.5 |
| OCISLY | 6 | 13.4 | 9.0 |
| kerbcam, 6 cams attached, 0 connected | 0 | 56.9 | 56.7 |
| kerbcam, 6 cams streaming (h264_vaapi) | 6 | 24.99 | 34.24 |
The idle row (0 connected) shows that cameras attached to a vessel cost nothing until a stream to it is opened. kerbcam streaming (25 fps) is roughly double OCISLY (13 fps) at the same camera count, with AsyncGPUReadback keeping frame capture off the main thread and AMD VCN handling H.264 encode out-of-process via VA-API, specifically tested on Steam Deck.
- Plugin: C# / .NET Framework 4.8, against KSP's Unity 2019.4 LTS assemblies.
- Sidecar: Rust (stable), out-of-process H.264 encoder and WebRTC signalling.
- Protocol: Rust types in
sidecar/src/protocol/, TypeScript SDK atclient-sdk/typescript/.
gonogo - a mission-control browser SPA that consumes kerbcam feeds (and a few other things). Not required to use kerbcam (any WebRTC-capable browser will do).
- Codesign and notarise macOS sidecar binaries (Apple notarytool workflow)
- Establish SmartScreen reputation for Windows binaries
- Publish NetKAN metadata to CKAN's indexer
- Create SpaceDock listing
- KSP Forums post
- User-facing install and quickstart docs
- Better tier-2 OS support
- Support Hullcam VDS cameras that take zoom commands
- Extend Hullcam with a pivotable camera