New - not sure if Dualboxing is what I need

[Madadd]

Hello,

I suppose the best place to start is what I'm attempting to do. My idea is pretty synonymous with this short thread here: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5568798684?page=1. I want to put my gf on one screen, me on the other, each with our own keyboard/mouse, all off 1 computer. I got to this site because the OP in the link above mentioned dual boxing. However in viewing the beginners guide and looking a little innto multi-boxing, it seems like its more for 1 user controlling multiple instances off 1 (sometimes more) computer. But I want 2 users controlling 2 instances, off 1 computer. I tried looking around at Isboxer to see if it supported what I want to do, but I didn't find anything.

Is dualboxing right for me? is there another term/place/program I should be looking at instead?

[MiRai]

I want to put my gf on one screen, me on the other, each with our own keyboard/mouse, all off 1 computer.

I want 2 users controlling 2 instances, off 1 computer.
Windows, by default, isn't going to interpret multiple keyboards and mice as separate devices and I don't know if such software exists.

[zenga]

What you are looking for is called a 'multiseat' setup, often referred to as 'terminals'. Linux offers a broad range of possibilities, windows has it's multipoint server, but there are other commercial products available as well (name escapes me). Your pc just needs to have enough capacity. This has not much to do with the purpose of this site though, but some people might be able to help you out (I'm interested for sure how it's gonna work out for you, so keep us posted please).

Edit: looks like en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiseat_configuration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiseat_configuration) might be a good place to start.
Edit 2: softxpand was the name of the windows software, costs like 50$ for the home version and I believe they have a trial as well.

[candlebox]

This is big in a lot of hospitals i have worked at. They will have servers set up with "Virtual Machines". They pipe CaT5 throughout the hospital and set up hubs. The hub has an attachment for a monitor and periphs. Make sure you have a bitchin pc though if you plan on getting to crazy. Might be cheaper to build a barebones PC http://www.newegg.com/Store/Category.aspx?Category=3&name=Barebone-Mini-Computers or piece one together in the long run.

[ebony]

it be a lot cheaper to get a 2nd pc for her and a lot easyer.

[Madadd]

Cheaper...no. Easier, yes. I always planned to do this some day as I will be constantly upgrading components, and I can spend the 500+ on a new machine or new components for my PC. So yea, new components. Besides, don't have the cash atm.

I always knew it was possible, just check out the link I provided in the original post (same game I'm workin with and everything). Zenga: Thank you for giving me a more refined search term.That softxpand, http://www.miniframe.com/solutions/home-users.html might be exactly what I need as it even mentions handling games. I might even be able to find something free with a little more searching. Unfortunately, I'm at work so I won't be able to provide any results until tonight, but I will do my best to share my results on this thread.

As for my PC...I'm hoping it will be able to handle the task. q6600 (I just recently had to reset the BIOS, so it's stock clocked now, but I used to have it OC'd @3.0 and will again if needs be for this project), 780i mobo, GTX 580 FTW hydro copper 2 (no additional OC), 4GB DDR2 (possibly 8GB, the other two stick I'm not sure about working order), 128GB Intel SSD and 750gb HDD, CPU and GPU watercooled. In lieu of a second monitor I will be using my 50" LG tv, using a miniHDMI-to-HDMI cable. So, for those who can't tell, my latest upgrade was the 580. It's a beast and should last awhile, but as NVidia tech support told me when I couldn't get SCII to play, "It's like a dragster trying to run down the track, pulling a crate of bricks." in reference to the "syngery" between GPU and Mobo. So yea, enough graphics power, but the next upgrade will be to my mobo/cpu/ram.

My only real planned outcome for this project is to play DiabloIII. I know they purposely made it to not be a terribly taxing resource hog, so I'm hoping I can do alright with it...as well, I read on this site that you can actually delegate which CPU cores each instance o the game will run on...Perhaps that's software specific, but if anyone knows an easy way to do this (if it even needs to be done?), let me know.

[Apps]

Walmart sells an Acer thats sub $400 i3, 6GB ram, and will handle running a copy of wow no problem.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Acer-Mesh-Gray-15.6-Aspire-AS5733-6489-Laptop-PC-with-Intel-Core-i3-Processor-with-6GB-of-Memory-500GB-Hard-Drive-and-Windows-7-Home-Premium-with-Wi/19714375?ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=19714375&sourceid=1500000000000003142050&veh=dat

Itll get the job done for your GF to play with you. However, if this is a young couple, and not likely your next or first wife material, buying her a laptop probably isnt a wise choice out of investment return.

[MiRai]

Walmart sells an Acer thats sub $400 i3, 6GB ram, and will handle running a copy of wow no problem.

Walmart sells an Acer thats sub $400

Walmart sells an Acer

Walmart sells

Walmart
The less things we, as consumers, buy from Walmart (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/), the better the future looks. =)

Just figured I would throw this in here.

[Homer]

Windows, by default, isn't going to interpret multiple keyboards and mice as separate devices and I don't know if such software exists.

Was this changed in the past half decade or so? I remember in school crawling under desks in IT to plug a second mouse into my friends computer to fuck with him. They both would work.

[Madadd]

Apps: new gf, unsure of future plans/longevity, can't afford to buy a new PC outright for her, and she wouldn't buy new one just to play. Besides, if I can make this work with current hardware, why bother spending for a second PC?

Homer: It requires 3rd party software to use multiple mice/keyboard...Windows does recognize the different mice (different drivers and such. this may not be possible if using the same model of mouse), but it only allows one focus, which means only one cursor. The 3rd party programs use a form of virtual desktop and setup to separate out the 2 mice (during setup it will ask you to left click the mouse using screen 1, press alt+alt on keyboard 1, etc).

At least that's how I understand it all.

[Svpernova09]

Was this changed in the past half decade or so? I remember in school crawling under desks in IT to plug a second mouse into my friends computer to fuck with him. They both would work.


By separate devices I believe he means 2 mouse cursors. You've been able to use multiple input devices for a good while in Windows. However there isn't any software (that I'm aware of) that will allow each device to have its input focused as if it was it's own computer. I vaguely remember (late 90s) such a device that claimed to do this however it wasn't something I would have recommended.

[MiRai]

Was this changed in the past half decade or so? I remember in school crawling under desks in IT to plug a second mouse into my friends computer to fuck with him. They both would work.
Of course they both work, but you can't assign one device to one game window and a second device to another game window without third party software.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Was this changed in the past half decade or so? I remember in school crawling under desks in IT to plug a second mouse into my friends computer to fuck with him. They both would work.

Two mice can control one cursor, which is how Windows works today and why you could screw with your friend's head.

The problem regarding the OP's desire is that Windows by itself cannot maintain focus to more than one app at a time. The window/app that has focus is where all mouse clicks and keyboard keystrokes are sent unless you have specific software/hardware set up to route those differently. I'm presuming it would also require some hefty modifications to the Windows GUI as well, as there are video rendering (DirectX) complications when that window does not have focus (see the "Audio in background" option in WoW, for example). The fact that there are so few reliable multiboxing applications (which work around a lot of these issues) is further evidence of the complexity of this type of use case.

[luxlunae]

You could sort of do this through a multiboxing approach. Say one of you sits on the left and runs the "active" character with the mouse to move and the numpad to control abilities, and then use isboxer or AHK or whatever to pass WASD and 1-= to the second instance.

Not a comfortable way to game together though, by any means. Just tell her to buy her own laptop or get her a cheap one off craigslist.


Was this changed in the past half decade or so? I remember in school crawling under desks in IT to plug a second mouse into my friends computer to fuck with him. They both would work.

They both work, but they fight for control of the same cursor, this guy wants separate mice for both of them.

[Madadd]

It worked!

I plugged in the second keyboard and mouse into any old usb ports, extended the desktop to the second screen, installed, restarted and went through the very brief keyboard/mouse setup. Viola. At first all sound was coming through my speakers. I switched the audio between the tv and speakers a couple times and messed around in the softxpand settings (I really didn't think I did anything of consequence in here) and got the audio to come out in the appropriate place for each client. So user 1 on the desktop got audio through the speakers, user 2 on the tv got audio through the tv. Performance wise, I did not notice ANY difference with my setup. I did not overclock (still at stock clocks and timings). All in all it was a rather easy setup.

Notes:
We had trouble signing in under the same user at the windows login (go figure). Easy workaround, just create a new user/guest account.
Need to copy the game files to either a different location on one of the clients. Not sure if it's just another folder or you need to put it on a whole other HDD. I did the latter.
For this particular game (maybe all games, idk), one of the clients will need to create a shortcut of the diablo.exe file and add -launcher to the end of the target field.
Sometimes on client 1, when using the diablo launcher it would startup on client 2's screen, and sometimes Vice-a-versa. Doing the above on both clients will remedy that.

The one problem I still have is occasionally client 2 will black screen and after a minute the windows login will come up as if it just restarted. When trying to re-enter the game, the shortcut that was created pointing to the copied game .exe gave me an error (i don't remember what) and had to be re-created. I don't know why, but I'll be looking into it today.

Edit: It seems like the trial version of softxpand: " (all workstations will automatically logoff from SoftXpand every 1 hr)" Which seems about right, timing wise...Although it sounds like all clients would be logged out, but Client 1 was unaffected by this. I still don't know if this is the real error...I'll probably go ahead and buy it tonight and I'll update on this issue tomorrow. Also it doesn't explain the shortcut suddenly not working.