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Can 2 people work on 1 PC?
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fullvietFX
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Two chicks at the same time.
I'm not sure how that would work but I bet there's software out there that would allow this.
I remember hearing a couple years ago about software that could do this. I could only find one that is geared toward home users.
http://www.miniframe.com/products/softxpand/softxpand-home.html
The price is pretty good - $49, but only works with XP.
http://www.miniframe.com/products/softxpand/softxpand-home.html
The price is pretty good - $49, but only works with XP.
Yes, have a central computer with multiple virtual OSes running via vmware and connect remotely via remote desktop protocol or something similar. I don't believe vmware supports GPU utilization, so you would need to game on the system itself while your wife connects to a virtual install remotely.
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LAiN_OfTheWired
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Virtualbox does allow for 3D acceleration and up to 128MB of VRAM dedicated to each virtual machine. There is going to be a drastic decrease in gaming performance for anybody using a virtual machine, though.
Wouldn't using a PC to remote into one PC defeat his purpose?
paperwastage
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theoretically the second(and so forth) PC doesn't need to be powerful at all, only need enough processing power/RAM to drive that forwarding program. therefore, if you have one powerful machine, users can take turns using that power
etc a lot of companies virtualize their desktops, and use thin clients that log onto a virtualized instance on their server
as to OP, you need a software that can filter out the USB signals(since you will have 2 mouse/keyboards), along with some way like virtualization or resource partitioning for the multi-user on one system to work.. i don't know if any exist, but I'm also interested in this problem
currently, my desktop has VirtualBox and a Ubuntu guest, set up for network-bridging. I can ssh/VNC from anywhere in the world into my Ubuntu guest, which is technically separate from my Windows Host(windows host is firewalled off from the internet). If someone somehow breaks into and thrashes my ubuntu session, they should not be able to touch any of my window stuff, theoretically of course(unless VirtualBox has some problems)
fullvietFX
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What about two users using the same computer/screen with two mouse cursors flying around?
*head explodes*
*head explodes*
Emission
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This is what I figured the OP wanted. I don't think game performance would suffer much if at all if only one person is gaming, and if it's a decent machine. i7 or the like.
lol I wasn't expecting so many replies so fast ^^
No the point is that me and my wife could play the same game (with 2 diffirent versions of the game ofcourse) on the same PC
I thought this would be possible since the newest AMD processor has 2 seperate dual cores inside each chip and from my experience dual core did almost as good then quad core wich basicly means that technology is more powerfull.
It would safe a lot of money not having to upgrade both pc's all the time.
oh yes, we both use win7 64bit
No the point is that me and my wife could play the same game (with 2 diffirent versions of the game ofcourse) on the same PC
I thought this would be possible since the newest AMD processor has 2 seperate dual cores inside each chip and from my experience dual core did almost as good then quad core wich basicly means that technology is more powerfull.
It would safe a lot of money not having to upgrade both pc's all the time.
oh yes, we both use win7 64bit
Uberbob102000
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I have no idea what the bit about the AMD processor means. There's not 2 separate dual cores inside the chip, I'm pretty sure all modern quad cores are monolithic dies.
I'm not trying to be an ass but this would be easier if I didn't spend so long decipher what you typed.
Anyways, back to the topic: I'm fairly sure what you want to do is impossible, you can do it for desktop apps and such but if you want to game the best case scenario is going to be someone will be physically sitting in front of the computer using the Host OS to game and the other is using a virtual OS or whatnot to do desktop work. The problem lies with virtual machines not being able to directly make graphics calls without a ton of overhead IIRC.
Emission
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Lets get this straight: He does not want a virtualized solution, he wants it to be both on the same machine.
I'm pretty sure there are no solutions for this at present.
I'm pretty sure there are no solutions for this at present.
I remember seeing a demo a few years ago on an expo that showed 2 persons using the same pc with 2 keyboards/mouse/monitor. It used 2003 server, it was somewhat like using terminal services to run 2 separate users on the same OS.
Can't remember the name of the software though.
Can't remember the name of the software though.
Oldie
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Unless your game is farmville, the short answer is no.
This is what I'm talking about, an upcomming AMD processor named BULLDOZER.
Here's how it works:
http://www.chw.net/2010/04/amd-bulldozer-en-exclusiva/2/
And here's some pics:
http://www.qdpma.com/Arch_files/amd_bulldozer_module.jpg
http://content.hwigroup.net/images/news/amd-bulldozer-bobcat6.jpg
http://images.bit-tech.net/content_images/2006/07/intel_core_2_duo_processors/conroe_block.jpg
Since this technology has a 50% performance over the current quadcore AMD I have now and since it uses a dualway technology I was hoping this would make it possible to do 2 heavy workouts on the same PC at the same time.
What is that supposed to mean?
Anyway wether the answer is yes or no depends on the given site mentioned here:
I don't know if you've tried running multiple games at once on a recent system, but my old Q6600 can handle 3 copies of WoW at once. I'm sure something more modern would be able to run 2 copies of anything at once, as long as settings aren't maxed.
hmm come to think of it I've played on 2 GW accounts on this computer on high settings and it did indeed work..
seeing as I never turn my AA higher then 2x and do not turn any other option on (like vertex shaders, shadow or anistrophic filter)
it should indeed be possible to achieve this...
I think that if I do not turn the game on max setting as mentioned here, it should be able to do it and without much quality or performance loss... afterall, as long if your hardware is a lot better then what the games require, it won't have much difficulty running it ^^
I'll look into it wether one pc will be a lot cheaper then having one and will post the example here (unless ofcourse someone beats me to it).
It sounds like BeTwin VS might work. They don't mention whether or not gaming is supported though, and their list of supported video cards list is a little light. Even though higher-end cards aren't listed, I'd bet that they work without a problem.
I think that what you really have to ask yourself at this point is whether or not it is worth the headache of trying to setup your one computer for two people to share. The software might work for now, but who knows how long it will be supported. I can't imagine that the market for that kind of software is very big, so it could go off the market at any point. You'd be stuck using software that no one supports and may not work with newer versions of Windows.
I think that what you really have to ask yourself at this point is whether or not it is worth the headache of trying to setup your one computer for two people to share. The software might work for now, but who knows how long it will be supported. I can't imagine that the market for that kind of software is very big, so it could go off the market at any point. You'd be stuck using software that no one supports and may not work with newer versions of Windows.
Just because you can get a multicore processor doesn't mean the rest of your system can handle two full loads. Running multiple instances of games in the background is different then wanting to run two games at full load. Referring to the guy mentioning WoW. You are only rendering the foreground/current task. If you minimize and shrink the windows down, you are still only rendering the same amount of total pixels. The focus for system resources will still be the current "active" window.Somewhere you will have a bottleneck, and im sure it wont be very fun for either of you.
With the technology we have today I'm sure their is someone out there that has been creative and has got things like this to work. Maybe someone even developed a program but was then bought out so they wouldn't hurt electronic hardware sells. ; )
Why don't you just build two complete intel builds for like $300-600 each, instead of looking into "upcoming" technology that will cost three times as much.
There are also a couple companies hosting computers for people to rent games/play games on remotely. They launched a few years ago, and I'm not sure if they were successful.
With the technology we have today I'm sure their is someone out there that has been creative and has got things like this to work. Maybe someone even developed a program but was then bought out so they wouldn't hurt electronic hardware sells. ; )
Why don't you just build two complete intel builds for like $300-600 each, instead of looking into "upcoming" technology that will cost three times as much.
There are also a couple companies hosting computers for people to rent games/play games on remotely. They launched a few years ago, and I'm not sure if they were successful.
Oldie
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There is a vast vast difference between having multiple games up on the same system for one user, and having two different users playing a game simultaneously on two different screens. I've got enough RAM I can have several games loaded and minimized at once, but that doesn't mean I could play them simultaneously. Even if I could, splitting that up with another user playing one and me playing the other simply won't work well with any type of software out there.
There are plenty of patches out there for Windows that will let you run concurrent sessions (one remote one local), but none of them will successfully support the type of gameplay he's asking about.
I doubt you'll have a worth the effort gamer pc for that amount of money...
MrGuvernment
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microsoft has a system for this,
It sounds like you've already got one gaming pc. You could pretty easily build another one for $300-$600 if you buy parts off the FS/FT board or eBay, and aim toward one with mid-level gaming power.
In the end you and your GF will have a much better gaming experience than if you tried to share a computer anyway.
bought 2 things off ebay, one was damaged without cables, the other broken.
I won't use E-bay again since most people are unfair when it comes to money.
And I never buy second hand crap since there's usualy another reason why people want to get rid of something.
I don't know how you make a descent pc though, If I make calculations I always end up over 1000$, a mainboard alone costs 120-200$ if you want a good one and VGA cards cost even more, not mentioning the memory... still makes me wonder how you get 600$..
If however you are talking about upgrading the stuff I allready own...lately not much choise in that... I always tend to move to another piece if the newest one is at least 40% faster or better (I always do this whenever something annoys me, for instance lag or nasty colors). In this case they have been moving slots a lot from 939-940-AM2-AM3..
and everytime you want a new processor, you usualy end up having to buy a lot more for it to be compatible again :/
Anyhow an update on a test I did with a tool someone gave me earlier.
I opened up 2 versions of guildwars (my account and my wife's), noticed a slight delay every few seconds but not very noticable. As for colors I could set them both to highest resolution however I was not able to set the graphics details on my wife's account, it was grayed out. I was using 1 cheap ATI radeon series 4 card.
I do not know the effect of using 2 VGA cards & 2 monitors on 1 PC though...
If you're building a gaming pc and want to spend less than $600, you have to set your sights a little lower. A motherboard that costs less than $100 will work fine, as will a video card that costs less than $200.
Try a google search - "budget gaming pc 2011". Here's one example hit:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/budget-gaming-pc-phenom-ii-radeon-hd-6850,2903.html
Try a google search - "budget gaming pc 2011". Here's one example hit:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/budget-gaming-pc-phenom-ii-radeon-hd-6850,2903.html
There is plenty of quality hardware to be had on the used market if you buy from reputable sellers. And there are plenty of reasons for someone to sell their hardware other than shady ones like it's half broken or something like that. Just because you've had 2 bad experiences doesn't mean you should write it all off...I mean, if you received 2 new items that were defective, would you never buy new hardware again either?
I don't know about running 2 modern games off of one system, but the fact that you never hear about it being done probably means that it's either really expensive (more expensive than building 2 systems) to implement properly or it just doesn't work all that well.
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you make a good point about background windows. But to counter this, i'd like to point out that i can run one copy of WoW on my main monitor (1680x1050 res) and one copy on my secondary monitor (1280x1024 res) with both copies running at 60fps. Each instance of the game uses about 1gb ram and 30% cpu, so if i ran more there'd likely be slowdown. note that i'm not leaving one copy idle, i use a program called keyclone that sends keypresses to both windows at once to control both characters at once (multiboxing). There are people who run more than that on the one PC, but i don't have much information to back that up.
There was also a video streaming cloud gaming service that was launched last year as well that i think is partially relevant - IIRC each of the nodes was able to run 4 or 8 games at once. That's a specialised setup, though, but i don't think running multiple copies of a game on one PC is out of the question. The issue is not in the hardware being able to handle the load, it's in the software being able to interpret and handle two sets of input/output efficiently.
What about a virtual machine?
last time I got a 100$ mainboard that supports all and scored high, it appeared to have bugs like being unable to provide energy for all my 8 usb slots (if I use them all, at least 2 of those USB devices won't work at next bootup). It can't be my powersupply since thats 1200w (my mainboard even boots 3 times in a row because it seems to have trouble providing energy to all my hardware eventhough I only got the standard things installed).
My mainboard is a AM2 gigabyte mainboard (last one was Ashrock, not expensive but same problems).
No more risks for me, I want the highest rated mainboard next time, no matter what the price is.