Is it possible to run two seperate games/processes from one computer?

[mattangle]

I had a thought the other day, I have seen people dual box in games before (play two characters or accounts or what have you respective to the game) and I started thinking, if you got your computer powerful enough, could you get two monitors, and run a game on one monitor with a respective mouse/keyboard/sound, and a whole addition separate game on the other monitor with its own mouse/keyboard/sound? Is this possible or am I grasping at straws? Coming from a stand point where my wife and I both game being able to go down to one really excellent gaming pc and both being able to individually game on it would be pretty darn cool.

 

[MeteorsRaining]

I'm not too accustomed to this concept but a Virtual Machine with some intricate network changing protocols (to change the IP essentially) may do the job. Don't take my words on this though, never tried or saw anyone do the same.

 

[Neur0nauT]

You can possibly run two sessions of the same game in windowed mode with some games, however usually most will not allow the same executable to be running twice. I have mistakenly started two sessions of the same game eg. Skyrim, but it was extremely slow and both sessions cannot be controlled independently from each other. You will have to have one active window at a time, so dual Keyboard and mouse setup will not work either. The only other way I can think of doing this is if you had two OS sessions running from a Virtual Server, in this case you would require a decent server with a lot of RAM.

 

[mattangle]

I imagine in addition to doing the things you've both listed I'd also have to get two sound cards and configure my sound quite a bit to get it right, then some kind of program assuming it exists to get two controls for mouse/keyboards at the same time that don't overlap, and whatever else have you. I think its more trouble and $$$ then just sticking with the second system. Just a fun thought I had when I thought on people dual/triple/more boxing in a game called world of warcraft years ago. Thanks for the responses.

 

[octavecode]

You don't wanna mess with dualbox and invest your money in one gaming pc..why? because not all games support dualbox and its not a future patch proof solution.So better build 2 budget gaming pcs than invest all your money in 1

 

[Mugglensu1984]

Sorry wrong thread

 

[mattangle]

I think your absolutely right, although it sure puts a damper on my fun!

 

[Neur0nauT]

I imagine in addition to doing the things you've both listed I'd also have to get two sound cards and configure my sound quite a bit to get it right, then some kind of program assuming it exists to get two controls for mouse/keyboards at the same time that don't overlap, and whatever else have you. I think its more trouble and $$$ then just sticking with the second system. Just a fun thought I had when I thought on people dual/triple/more boxing in a game called world of warcraft years ago. Thanks for the responses.

The whole process of setting up Virtual Machines on a dedicated server is very costly, and thus is mostly assigned to a business environment that doesn't normally include utilising a GPU or sound card too. If you wanted to run games on these VMs, then yes, you would also have to consider the graphics and multimedia aspect also. If you refer to This post, these guys talk about setting up VMs for dual games. Although it does look limited and complicated to set up.

In short, you would probably find it cheaper and easier to buy two systems to run each game natively.