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Using 1 Gaming Computer For 2 People?
True Vox writes "My fiance and I have recently taken interest in City of Heroes (she's currently got a character on my account). She's got a cute little netbook, but nothing nearly powerful enough for a 5-year-old MMORPG, let alone if we take interest in Champions Online! I am reticent to buy a new gaming computer simply for what amounts to a passing phase. Has anyone had any experience using one computer to control two monitors with two sets of input devices (e.g. two keyboards and two mice, or one keyboard, one mouse, and a 360 gamepad, perhaps)? I have seen one solution that might work, but not much information from users that I can find. In short, does anyone have any experience with setups like this?"
A) Just have her remote desktop into your computer, log in as another user, and play that way
B) fiance... fiance.... SPEND TIME WITH HER
:(
Check out some of the refurbished systems available online and from places like Frys. You can get some raging deals on a solid mid-range box. Thin Client is absolutely abysmal as a gaming solution. This way you two can share a hobby and not drive each other nuts.
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Sounds like you're complicating things a bit.
What you're not saying here is if you want to run multiple instances of the game at the same time. What kind of PC are you using now? It had better have a LOT of horsepower. 9/10 times, the simpler solution (a second gaming PC) is the smarter answer.
Keep in mind, Windows was not designed as a 'time sharing' system - at least not in the way you're thinking.
http://www.bistolas.net
Honestly, a 5 year old game could most likely run on the cheapest of cheap systems at best buy. Go spend the 2-300$ (yes, they have them that cheap) and fish around your local recycling center/craigslist for a monitor. When you're done with the phase, sell it on craigslist for a hundred bucks as a set, or keep it as a media pc. You're on a geek website bro, there's always a use for another PC. Always.
It's called multiseat. It's a feature that's targetted for the next version of Fedora Linux . I'm not sure if there's any way to do it under windows but vmware or virtualbox might help when Fedora 12 comes out.
Just get the cheapest inspiron from dell and dump the integrated graphics for...anything that's not integrated. Then you won't have to worry about virtual machines with direct graphics access or any other time sucking rough spots.
Also, if you can wait a few weeks, keep checking the best buy circular for the coupon code for the extra-discounted cheap dell machine.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
It can't be done with Windows (at least not to my knowledge), but multiseat on Linux these days is a cinch. Google has tons of resources on the topic -- basically it involves a bit of xorg.conf hacking, and then Bob's your uncle.
I myself have done it before on an amd64 dual-core 2.2GHz system with two video cards, a GeForce 7600GT on PCI-e, and a GeForce 6200 on plain PCI. Worked beautifully. I could multiplayer FlightGear by running one instance on each seat. Each user can log on and off independently with their own keyboard and mouse.
This is a (blurry and fuzzy) picture of my setup (1280x1024 JPG). You can see glxgears running on each screen -- handled by the same computer. Cool thing about using two video cards is that each user gets his own GPU -- running two FPSes simultaneously (I tested Nexuiz) had absolutely zero slowdown.
It had better have a LOT of horsepower.
Meh, it isn't that difficult. I had a friend get into 5 boxing on WoW. He got a beefy system a couple of years ago, and could run 4 or 5 instances of WoW simultaneously without any real problem.
Two things to think about:
Does the game you want to play with her allow multiple instances to be run on a single computer? WoW does, but you have to have multiple WoW directories. It is possible to program a game to force full screen mode or to terminate if an existing instance is already running. Do some research on the software before buying the hardware. Find out about any tricks you need to use to get it to work.
Find out about the game controls and UI. Chances are, while it might be possible to play multiple instances on one box, it might be a PITA because of the complexity of the game to share a mouse/keyboard. Multi-boxing works in WoW because one person drives multiple characters. Two people using a single keyboard and mouse would not work very well for that game. Other games might be different.
Search google for 'Multi-boxing' + '(your game name)'. Chances are someone has already tried what you are wanting to do.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Well, aside from the fact that the software you pointed to requires a second video card, which for gaming, should be the most expensive part of the computer, you will also have the issue of game license issues due to only having one computer, running 2 instances of the same game at the same time will be very difficult if not impossible for many games. Most will check to see if multiple license keys are in use at the same time with online play, and to my knowledge, installing 2 copies of the same game on the same computer using different keys is not something that will work either since that is a use that was never designed into the games and they will usually check to se if it is already installed and basically say that it is already installed on the computer. And for most MMORPGs you are not allowed to connect two sessions/characters online at the same time, so that will be something you need to look at as well.
It is probably just better to build a cheap game rig. Simply do a budget gaming PC:
Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5200 Wolfdale ~$70
Asus P5QL Motherboard ~$90
4GB DDR2 RAM ~$20
320GB hard drive ~$45
DVD+/-RW ~$25
SIGMA La Vie LBYWBP computer case with 500W power supply ~45 after rebate
ATI HD4770 video card ~$100
Total: ~$395
If you need an extra copy of XP or Vista, well that will be another ~$100, and if you need a monitor, another $100-150.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Found it.
I was remembering a dongle, but this seems to fit functionality. Does CoH run on Win98?
http://www.dansdata.com/easyclone.htm
It was me, I did it, I moved your cheese
Desktop environments - especially WINDOWS desktop environments - will not allow two people to log onto the same hardware at the same time.
Oddly enough, most Linux distros come with an X-server installed. Just create an account for her, she can log in, then direct the video output to her own netbook, or to a second monitor, or whatever.
To do anything similar on Windows, you MUST install a Windows Server, whether it be Win2K, Win2003, or Win2008. You CANNOT log multiple people on at the same time with Win9x, ME, XP, or Vista or Win7. Microsoft won't allow it, you ain't doing it without some SERIOUS hacking.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Multisteating Windows is crap. But heres an idea of how it could be done with Windows. This idea does not involve Virtual Machines (not suitable for games) or RDP (also NOT SUITABLE FOR GAMES FOR THE LAST BLOODY TIME!).
He could use the BeTwin software which appears to give direct graphics access (good for games) - and then to deal with the fact that a lot of games (Like WoW) don't like to run two different sessions at once (unless you are on Wine) you can also do some Application Virtualization using Sandboxie (or Novell Zenworks Application Virtualization) to keep the two games somewhat separate. To fully separate the games you might need separate NICs, but they are a dime a dozen and you could probably get one for free.
Else you could buy a computer that could handle it for $300.
Well that's my two cents.
Have her use remote desktop (rdc / rdp ) to gain a second session on your box.
XP Home doesn't support it.
XP Pro will boot off the console user when a remote user logs in.
Vista is the same set of rules, afaik.
You need windows Server to active support multiple simultaneous interactive sessions.
And that STILL won't let you run a 3d accelerate game 'remotely'.
For the application at hand, it would be simpler to just buy a $300 budget gaming PC and be done with it.
We can collectively stop answering these things with "don't" when people stop asking questions where it is the most appropriate response.
The answer to this question is definitely "don't".
There are ways to do it, but pretty much all of them involve far more money and/or time than just buying a reasonable PC for his fiancee. Hardware isn't all that expensive and solving a problem like this isn't easy, cheap, or particularly effective.
Slashdot gets a lot of these sorts of questions because for things where the answer is "don't" you generally don't find a lot of useful information from a google search and so people ask here instead. We tell them, don't, which is the best advice they can get.
Umm what?
Linux could handle this just fine in 1994, so I think you are confused. Either that or basic functionality has been torn out between now and then, which doesnt seem very likely.
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I could imagine you can clamp together some input set per application makeshift but as soon as it comes to 3D acceleration you are boned. Oh yeah, why would you believe a computer powerful enough to run one instance of the game would be less expensive than two stock gaming machines...?
There is no way you can run two 3D demanding games on the same PC. Maybe Vista has some advanced 3D engine to host 2 user, but I doubt it.
VM still lacks support for GPU, so it won't work either.
The cheapest solution would be a cheap overclocked system. Buy a reliable motherboard from Asus and overclock an Intel Dual-core CPU.
I bought an Intel dual-core E4300, 1.8 GHZ almost 2 years ago and at 3.2GHz is still able to give me 60FPS in almost any new game.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
I picked up a scratch & dent computer, dual core 2.6, 3 GB of RAM, 320GB hard drive for $220 from the dell outlet.
http://www.dell.com/outlet
Considering it came with a licensed OS, it was cheaper than me building one.
just keep an eye on there, because they go quick. if it turns out that you can buy a better computer than what you have, just keep the new one and give her the old one...win-win?