vfeedback(6)

👑 vfeedback — the XScreenSaver manual, bestie edition

okay so this is the vfeedback(6) page from the XScreenSaver manual and honestly it's such a vibe?? it's a screensaver that fakes that whole "camera pointed at a TV" feedback loop, and yes we're gonna go through it line by line because you deserve to know ✨

🌈 NAME

vfeedback — it simulates video feedback 💖 that's it, that's the whole icon behavior.

🎀 SYNOPSIS

vfeedback [--display host:display.screen] [--visual visual] [--window]
[--root] [--window-id number] [--tv-color number] [--tv-tint number]
[--noise number] [--tv-brightness number] [--tv-contrast number] [--fps]

like, that's the little invocation spell. put it in your terminal and go off 👑

💅 DESCRIPTION

so what does it actually do? it simulates video feedback — you know, the iconic thing where you point a video camera at an NTSC television and the screen shows the screen showing the screen forever and ever 🌀 it's giving infinite hallway of screens, it's giving "not me staring into the void," it's giving main character energy fr fr.

✨ OPTIONS ✨

every single flag, no gatekeeping, we love to see it:

• --visual visual — tell it which visual to use. legal values are either the name of a visual class, or the id number (decimal or hex) of one specific visual 👀
• --window — draw on a newly-created window. this is the default, so if you do nothing at all, this is what you get 🫶
• --root — draw on the root window instead 🌸
• --window-id number — draw on the specific window you point at with number 🎯
• --tv-color number — the Color Knob. range is 0 - 1000. default: 70 🎨
• --tv-tint number — the Tint Knob. range is 0 - 100. default: 5 💜
• --noise number — analog noise, the crunchy fuzzy goodness. range is 0.0 - 0.2. default: 0.02 📺
• --darken number — darkens the looped image. range 0.0 - 1.0. default: 0.7 🌑
• --tv-brightness number — the Brightness Knob. range is 0.0 - 100.0. default: 3.0 ☀️
• --tv-contrast number — the Contrast Knob. range is 0 - 1500. default: 1000 🔥
• --fps | --no-fps — whether to show a frames-per-second display at the bottom of the screen. yes it's a little performance readout, yes it's lowkey iconic 📊

quick heads up bestie: --darken shows up here in OPTIONS even though it's not listed in the SYNOPSIS, so don't @ me, that's just how the page is 💀

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🦋 ENVIRONMENT

the environment variables it sniffs around for:

• DISPLAY — used to get the default host and display number 🖥️
• XENVIRONMENT — used to get the name of a resource file that overrides the global resources stored in the RESOURCE_MANAGER property 📁
• XSCREENSAVER_WINDOW — the window ID to use with --root 🪟

🌟 SEE ALSO

go read these too, they're the friends of this page:

• X(1)
• xscreensaver(1)

💖 COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 2018 by Jamie Zawinski.

okay so here's the legal bit, and I'm keeping every word because this is NOT the part you fudge: Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation. No representations are made about the suitability of this software for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty. 📜

🧚 AUTHOR

Jamie Zawinski. that's the person, that's the legend 👑

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and that's the whole page!! signing off with the cute little footer deets: this is X Version 11, version 6.15, dated 30-Mar-2026, and we were reading vfeedback(6) the entire time 🎀💖✨