Two Instances of a Game

[sshorty10]

Hi,

I want to know is it possible to run two instances of a game on the same computer, to allow two users to play on each instances with a dedicated mouse/keyboard on each instance. To put it simply I have a i7-3770k OC's to 4.5GHz, Palit Jetstream GTX680, Corsair Dominator GT 2200MHz Ram and my mate has an old piece of #$%^ dell laptop that barely runs, let alone Starcraft 2. We would like to try use just my computer to play starcraft 2. Any help would be muchly appreciated.

Cheers

 

[Sunius]

I've tried researching it a year ago, however, I could not find any solutions. Sorry.

 

[jay2tall]

I don't believe this is possible. In order to have 2 sessions running on the same machine you would need to have 2 windows sessions. First off, all consumer windows versions only support 1 active windows session. Server versions support more than 1 active session. On top of this, you can only have one active console session the rest would need to be though remote desktop or some other remote protocol like the Citrix ICA protocol. The next hurdle you will have is none of these can utilize the local GPU to generate graphics to send to the remote client. I believe Nvidia is working on something right now to allow 2d/3d graphics to be processed on a local machine and then displayed on a remote client, however, these are for corporate/professional uses like CAD and other professional applications, not gaming. I believe this technology is being developed for virtual PC's not multiple sessions on a single windows box. I believe it will support the VMware hypervisor and the hosts that run on the virtual host. http://www.pcworld.com/article/242136/vmware_nvidia_work_to_improve_virtual_desktop_performance.html

Just build 2 identical PC's. It will be the cheapest option even if there actually was an option to do this.

 

[individuality]

I found this on google

If your computer runs linux you can setup 2 different wine environments and use the WINEPREFIX environment variable to launch each instance. I currently have my computer setup so my first virtual desktop is hotkeyed F1 and my second is hotkeyed F2. I can easily play both characters, switching between screens using F1 and F2. Alternatively, I have 2 video cards and can setup my computer as a multi-seat box and plug in an extra mouse/keyboard so my friend can play d3 on one screen while i play on the other screen. If you want me to clarify anything I can. This was all done using linux which is entirely free to use. I'm more than happy to help anyone setup something similar if they don't know how and want to.

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/profile/2532128/1/Astaroth/

 

[sshorty10]

Hi, thanks for the reply ill give it ago but will utilize the capabilities of my system or will it just be running virtually and receive similar problems to say running CAD programs through a VM on OSX and windows? (Im only using this as an example because i know AutoCAD doesnt play nicely with VM's on OSX due to the virtualisations of CPU/GPU) Correct me if im wrong in anything im saying btw, not claiming im an expert just some of my experiences.

 

[sshorty10]

Best answer selected by sshorty10.