Using 1 Gaming Computer For 2 People? 424
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?"
RDP (Score:1, Informative)
B) fiance... fiance.... SPEND TIME WITH HER
Computers are cheap - just get another box. (Score:5, Informative)
Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:RDP (Score:3, Informative)
Cant do that without Windows Server. You've never been able to do that (well, it was in a beta of XP and I think in a beta of a SP once, but it got removed) on a desktop edition of Windows.
Hmmm (Score:5, Informative)
Multiseat (Score:4, Informative)
You want to play the game *with* her, right? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:RDP (Score:4, Informative)
Or just use a modified termsrv.dll [wordpress.com]
Now run along kiddo, this is grown folks business.
aEN
Multiseat is your solution (Score:5, Informative)
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 [google.com] 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 [flightgear.org] 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 [sunriseroad.net] (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.
Hardware probably isnt the real problem. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Still not going to work... (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Oh dear...did he even search the internets? (Score:3, Informative)
Found it.
I was remembering a dongle, but this seems to fit functionality. Does CoH run on Win98?
http://www.dansdata.com/easyclone.htm [dansdata.com]
Re:Still not going to work... (Score:1, Informative)
To explain what BeTwin does, it hooks into Terminal Services and drivers, and redirects devices to each terminal.
So, you don't need an extra copy of Windows. They somehow reimplemented terminal services to get around licensing problems (as you can see with their other product). Not sure how that works.
BeTwin only requires you get the video card and USB hub + peripherals. Which is far cheaper than what you have posted.
Cheap Video Card $40
You can get these USB hubs with integrated audio, for around $20 USD in China.
The only problem, is that BeTwin itself is really expensive. You can buy BeTwin clones in China for next to nothing.
Not sure if they're legal though.
Re:RDP (Score:2, Informative)
i Remote desktop 4 windows 2003 servers atm, trust me no way in hell you are gonna play games over that its just way to slow to support such an operation.
Re:Computers are cheap - just get another box. (Score:4, Informative)
2Ghz 1GB is in no way useful... it's my own desktop's specs. (Well, 1.9Ghz to be exact.)
There used to be a time when playing CoH with a Geforce FX5200 was pretty smooth, back in 2005. When expansions like City of Villains came out, the engine changed a lot, and all the curvy landscapes bogged the PC down even if I was alone on the nearby map, using the superspeed power. The result was my needing to run 800x600 and 16 bit color, with 3D settings at like 50% detail.
Even without Heroes, day to day operations are slow on XP SP2 (even 2.0 versions of firefox run very slowly, let alone play running are very ). I'm not sure if it's just Dell's choice of architecture for my Dimension 2300. The fact that the machine has only one processor, makes things that I could do easily 5 years ago be a pain. I'm not in favor for upgrading and replacing old machines. The problem is that with Flash and Firefox forcing you to upgrade every 8 months, you end up with a world where even clean installs are too slow to handle the overhead of all the bloat out there.
At 2Ghz, even dual core, high-demand games such as any recent MMO will not be decently playable. Even if it plays OK today, the next set of patches can bring upgrades that kill your spiffy idle megahertz.
Re:Computers are cheap - just get another box. (Score:1, Informative)
He will most likely have to buy a new P4 motherboard that supports PCIe as well. I only know of one (which I have bought myself) made by Biostar. It only has a single PCIe 16x slot so he can forget about using any dual slot video cards on it. He will also most likely need to buy a new power supply since most P4 power supplies will not handle the power load, which in turn probably entails buying a new case to house it in. I had to buy a new case with a 550 watt supply with 24 amps on the 12v rail just to support a Geforce 8600GTS on my old P4 system. He will probably also need to buy a monitor because I doubt a $100 computer will come with one.
In the end, it's not worth the hassle. He would be better off just running two instances on a dual core system, possibly with 2 video cards or just buying a brand new computer and giving her his old one.
Re:Hardware probably isnt the real problem. (Score:1, Informative)
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.
WoW runs perfectly fine with only a single directory... or at least it did for me.
You need a server (Score:3, Informative)
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.
I have an idea that isn't RDP! (Score:2, Informative)
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.
Re:Use her netbook (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Solution (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Uh... (Score:3, Informative)
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.
3D Acceleration (Score:2, Informative)
Re:RDP (Score:4, Informative)
> because Slashdot eats my unicode for breakfast.
In theory, the accent should get mapped to ISO8859-1 - no need for unicode. Let' see: é.
And for the OP: forget it. It is possible with certain OS if you have low demands, but I think 3D acceleration never works on both monitors. Getting a slightly oldish PC and adding a cheap mid range graphics card would be a better approach.
Re:Computers are cheap - just get another box. (Score:3, Informative)
Really?
My kids system has a Nvidia 6600 256mb, 1gb of ram, AMD 2000XP and they don't have any real problems running CoH, it runs as well if not better than on my Core Duo with a Ge7400 512mb and 2gb RAM.
Of course, their system is Win2k while the core duo is XP, so that might explain it; I don't have good benchmarks on the XP machine for CoH because I just tested out the game (I thought it didn't compare well to Freedom Force), but it is, of course, a bigger resource hog than the Win2k machine. The 6600 is also a pretty kick ass video card.
Re:RDP (Score:1, Informative)
I would venture a guess grown folks would know RDP doesn't support accelerated graphics.
Re:Computers are cheap - just get another box. (Score:3, Informative)
Err... get process explorer and start shutting things down that you don't need running. View your system services (start -> run -> 'services.msc') and disable unneeded services from starting up automatically with boot. My Dell laptop is a P4-M 1.7Ghz with 1.25G RAM, running windows 2003, and it copes no sweat. I was running a 5 way browser test on a project I'm working on not too long back (IE8, Safari4, Chrome, FF3.1, and Opera (forget the version)), all running at the same time, no problem. (short summary: ie8 had the smallest memory footprint, safari4 and chrome rendered and ran javascript the fastest). There's no reason why a P4 with a gig of ram should struggle with browsing. I'm not a gamer* so can't speak for that.
(*tho civ3 has taken days of mine in a row, but have banned myself from that because of it!)
Re:Computers are cheap - just get another box. (Score:5, Informative)
...and if its a machine that will have a bunch of drives, I'd go with 800 to 1000 watts just in case.
I used to feel the same way about PSUs, but then I picked up a Kill-a-Watt [newegg.com] off newegg, and checked how much power my computers were actually using. Now I realize I don't need nearly as much PSU as I thought.
Corsair HX620 (very efficient)
Athlon X2 @ 2.8ghz
Asus M3N78 Pro
2x1GB DDR2-800
Asus 8800GS
4x Seagate 320GB HDD
1x DVD
Samsung Syncmaster 940BW
2.0 Speakers
Power consumption when playing Left4Dead? 170 watts from the wall. If I shut my monitor off, it drops to ~136w. If I shut my speakers off, ~128w. If I get out of Left4Dead and leave it at the desktop, only ~90 watts. (though once I turn the Monitor/Speakers back on, it's back up to ~130w)
I think the efficiency on most cheap PSUs must really blow; if you go with a quality Corsair one, you really don't draw a lot of juice...
But then again, Athlon X2's and 8800GS's are relatively low power, and Asus makes very efficient boards.
Games are demanding (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:RDP (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Multiseat (Score:3, Informative)
I've been waiting for multiseat linux to gel for years.
Are you joking? Multiseat on Linux is used everywhere and has been around nearly from day 1.
People usually start it up via
ssh -X someserver.com
or
ssh -f -L 5910:localhost:5910 someserver.com tightvncserver :10 :10
xtightvncviewer
Granted, there is no brain-dead mode for people who don't know how to use VNC or X, but, geez, it's one or two commands. You can run Gnome, KDE, or whatever else your heart desires.
Cheap Refurbs? (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.dell.com/outlet [dell.com]
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?
Re:You need a server (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.google.com/search?q=multiple+remote+desktop [google.com]
Re:Computers are cheap - just get another box. (Score:3, Informative)
www.newegg.com part number N82E16820148240. 9.99, free shipping, and no tax. 5 egg rating @ 15 reviews.
Re:Multiseat (Score:4, Informative)
Re:RDP (Score:4, Informative)
As someone who actually does this - I have one system with 3 monitors, another with 2 - it's possible. Is it easy? No.
First of all, all I know is linux. I have no clue about Windows.
If you have a separate GPU per monitor, you can get full acceleration. There's some voodoo you have to pull off to separate the GPUs in xorg, but the info is out there.
If you have a dual-dvi card with a single GPU, you won't get acceleration on either one as you have to run Xephyr on top of your X server.
If it's just a "passing phase", I'd go down to your local computer recycler, buy a relatively recent box for $100, and be done with it.
Right now Xorg is in a state of flux and maybe in 6 months or a year true multiuser will arrive with the rootless X server, but I'm not holding my breath. The xorg devs are doing a fantastic job, but it's a big job....
Re:Computers are cheap - just get another box. (Score:5, Informative)
I second that. I get a kick out of what I hear these days about PSUs... Retarded. People going out and buying 700, 800, 900, even 1000 watt systems, is basically a waste.
If you could see what I used to run on my old Dell machine which had a measly 230 watt PSU, I am talking like 6 HD, dual proc, dual optical, and enough USB crap to sink a ship.
The difference is between quality and crap (no idea if Dell is any good these days, likely not).
My last build I did a LOT of research on PSU, and believe me there is NOT a lot out there. There are a handful of gurus out there that know what they are talking about, I mean like that I could find from scourging the whole internet. However what information they had was spot on.
First the number they sick on the side of the box (900WATT!!!) is pretty much useless. Also brand names mean next to nothing. So good luck! lol. Basically there are only a few manufactures in China that build them ALL. They are then re-branded to whatever the buyer wants. Some manufactures make better PSU that others, some use higher end components, however it can be difficult to figure out which is which.
Efficiency is about twice as important as actually stated wattage (which is usually a lie anyway), and stability is about twice as important as efficiency. What this means is that when you computer goes from no load, to heavy load, and the PSU starts sucking power and shunting it to your components, how much does it fluctuate? You might be surprised to see how badly some of these oscillate up and down, and those dips can cause system failure and even damage components in severe cases.
Anyway thats as far as I want to go into it as it is a pretty complex thing, but there is a community out there though hard to find. I know I was pretty blown away by the truth about PSUs. Most of the companies mislead, and outright lie on their specifications it is pretty absurd.