Parsec is a high performance, low latency remote access product connecting you to your computer from anywhere. Connect to work, games, or projects wherever you are, whenever you want.

Features

Silky smooth screen sharing

Parsec's proprietary technology allows gamers of all stripes to play their favorite games at 60 FPS HD across multiple devices anywhere, anytime and virtually lag free.

Local co-op is local no more

With the Parsec platform you can play any multiplayer game with anyone in the world with extremely low lag. Play any game online without worrying about subscribing to online services and which platform and hardware you and your friends use.

The arcade of the future

In the Arcade, we make it easier to find someone to play your favorite games with. It's a matchmaking service that helps you play local multiplayer games online with anyone anywhere in the world.

Gaming

  • Cooperative. Indie games, retro, emulators, or even AAA. There is not a better feeling than that couch experience.
  • Versus. Play your favorite fighting games or just 1v1 me bro, no items, FD, Fox only.
  • A little help...from your friends! Let them help you beat that difficult section or just show them how to do that double shell jump.

Productivity

  • Cad and Graphics. This is the perfect remote desktop tool for CAD, graphics, video editing and more! Check out Parsec for Teams.
  • WFH. Travel? Work? Access your computer for anything you need on the go, any time.
  • Problem Solving. Need some troubleshooting? Let a friend take control and help!

Hang Out

  • Listen to Music. Listen to music at the same time. No hassle. For some reason nobody has made a better solution.
  • Watch Videos Together. "Wait, why I didn't think of that before?" This is not the first time we have watched The Office like this.
  • Community. Join or host tournaments! Matchmaking in offline multiplayer games has never been easier.

How does it work?

As high performance, low cost video processing chips were introduced, it became clear that delivering video over the internet at extremely low latencies was possible. Since then, it has been our obsession to perfect peer-to-peer, low latency game streaming over a wide area network.

Parsec's core technology suite, the Parsec SDK, is built in cross platform C. We take a strong stand against unnecessary bloat, complexity, and dependencies of dubious value. Even our host side WebRTC implementation (for our web client) was custom built without requiring Google's massive dependency tree.

We use our own peer-to-peer networking protocol called BUD; Better User Datagrams (naming is hard). BUD has been optimized for low-latency video delivery based on the data gathered over a three year period. With a 97% NAT traversal success rate and lightning fast adjustment to packet loss and congestion, BUD is the cornerstone of the Parsec SDK.

Native code --- why low-level code is the only way to get performance

We didn't build on top of any wrappers --- we wanted full hardware control and the ability to manipulate every element of the stream to reduce latency as much as possible. On our test setup on a LAN ethernet connection, Parsec adds only 7 milliseconds of latency to your game. Remember, your ping is important, so if you're far from the computer, there will be more lag.

BUD --- The networking protocol for game streaming

It's not a clever name, but the protocol works. Providing reliable UDP video at the lowest latency possible while handling all sorts of messy networking situations. Built with an ultra-responsive dynamic bitrate adjustment that is constantly adjusting based on network conditions. It also supports the best in-class security available with DTLS 1.2 with AES128 or AES256 cipher enabled on every single packet sent over the network.

Peer-to-peer NAT traversal for co-playing with friends

Nothing makes you rage quit when you're just trying to play some games with friends faster than a bunch of networking errors. Making sure two computers can connect in a peer-to-peer connection with as little latency as possible is really difficult. We've spent years optimizing our NAT traversal techniques to give you the highest likelihood of connecting on the first try. 95% of our users successfully co-play together due to this effort.

Hardware encoding and decoding plus frame timing optimizations

We support the h.264 codec and low latency desktop capture, with a zero-copy GPU pipeline to the encoder. You can use whatever GPU you want --- AMD gets the same love as Nvidia here. We use hardware decoding whenever possible on every platform we support, and we have low level frame timing and synchronization optimizations for a smooth 60 FPS stream.

What's New

New

  • [Teams] Added additional Teams API endpoint for admins to programmatically disconnect any user that is connected to a team machine host.
  • [Windows host] You can now create a virtual mouse on the host, enable this setting when there is no physical mouse attached to the host.
  • [Win/Mac host] Parsec for Teams Administrator can now tell hosts to use the closest available relay in the list by using a new setting called Network Fast Relay Ping which will be available as an App Rule.

Improvements

  • [All] Mouse cursors will now be accurately sized when connecting to hosts.
  • [All] Clients will now default to using H265 when connecting to hosts.
  • [[Windows host] Parsec Virtual Display Driver 0.45 allows you to select which physical GPU you wish the adapter to spawn on. This change is aimed at virtual machines and the selection can be changed using the Windows Registry.

Bugfixes

  • [Windows host] Parsec Virtual Display Driver 0.45 greatly improves Privacy Mode and Virtual Display Driver reliability when used in combination with 150-93.
  • [All] Clipboard is now much more reliable.
  • [Windows host] Parsec Virtual USB Driver 0.2.7.0 fixes hardware device issues caused by parsecudeaudio.sys which was present in 0.2.5.0 driver.
  • [macOS host] Fixed an issue where Parsec would spawn multiple screen capture sessions when switching between H264/H265.