Running two instances of a game on one computer

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brncao

Limp Gawd
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Jan 4, 2013
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Would like to know if this is even possible. My brother bought a GTX 980 Ti, but I'm pretty sure he's wasting his money since all he does is watch anime and play runescape and J-MMORPG @ 1680x1050. Talk about waste of potential :rolleyes:

Some games natively support split screen on PC (i.e. Serious Sam 3 and Black Ops III), but many others don't, requiring two copies of the game. I'm interested in playing Far Cry 4 co-op, and so I'll buy my own copy from my Steam account, and he'll buy his own copy from his Steam account. I would like to run two instances of Steam/Far Cry 4 (or any co-op games) on a single PC powered by a single GPU. Is this possible? Otherwise, I'll have to force him to downgrade his card and buy two cards between my PC and his—I don't own a graphics card atm because I'd be wasting money as I don't game regularly during college.

Forgot to mention the setup will be two monitors, and a combination of kb/m(s) and/or Xbox One controller(s).
 
You can do this with VMWare, if you don't mind the performance hit. Run one copy of the game natively, and another installed in a VM.

Some games like Borderlands can run multiple copies of the game natively without any trickery, but for those that can't, a VM is an option.
 
Just work a couple weeks and buy a 950. Why force your brother to downgrade. Wars have started with less than that.
 
Wait, so I can install a VM, and run 2 different games (with 2 different keyboard + mouse) from a single GPU??
 
melk said:
Wait, so I can install a VM, and run 2 different games (with 2 different keyboard + mouse) from a single GPU??
Click to expand...

Yes, as long as the game is playable with the degraded performance associated with virtualizing the GPU calls. You're going to have to lower the settings of both games unless you have very high end hardware. A 980 Ti is definitely enough to run two copies of FarCry 4 as long as it's backed up by a good CPU and both users are willing to play on more modest settings than with a single game running, assuming the game itself is amenable to being run inside a VM container.
 
I would be blown away if FC4 managed more than 5 FPS in a virtualized environment on lowest settings, lowest resolution - regardless of the host system's GPU.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there would be no DX calls going to the 980ti from the VM, right? Wouldn't the guest game's API be calling the virtualized generic VGA adapter VMWare presents to the guest OS?

The only workable approach to gaming in a VM would be with an exotic PCIe GPU pass-through rig requiring advanced configuration and tweaking. Unless I'm wrong. Am I?
 
No, I play games in a VM all the time. Look up some benchmarks or YouTube videos for running games through VMWare Workstation, Player or Fusion. VMWare can pass through direct commands to the GPU, but it adds some overhead. I can't vouch for FarCry 4 since I don't own it, but I play Civilization V and Cities Skylines in a VM regularly and they work fine.

VMWare has had DX9 support for a few years now, it's not using the generic VGA guest driver.
 
Oh this is excellent. My kids will love being able to play Minecraft side by side.
 
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