Multiple game instances on one monitor
-
My FIL is retired and spends most of his time playing Runescape. He has multiple characters and is totally involved in the game. He wants to be able to have at least 3 instances of it running at the same time, but on 1 large monitor where he can "play" them simultaneously.
I am thinking this is entirely possible with some VMs as you can only have 1 instance of the game running at a time on the same PC. The part I am unsure about is how to have the console of each VM running and usable from 1 monitor, mouse, and keyboard.
Does this seem logical versus having 3 separate PC setups going at the same time?
-
@brandon220 said in Multiple game instances on one monitor:
My FIL is retired and spends most of his time playing Runescape. He has multiple characters and is totally involved in the game. He wants to be able to have at least 3 instances of it running at the same time, but on 1 large monitor where he can "play" them simultaneously.
I am thinking this is entirely possible with some VMs as you can only have 1 instance of the game running at a time on the same PC. The part I am unsure about is how to have the console of each VM running and usable from 1 monitor, mouse, and keyboard.
Does this seem logical versus having 3 separate PC setups going at the same time?
Why not just use a 34 inch widescreen monitor or something? Isnt runescape browser based?
-
I guess that is the legacy one I was thinking about.
-
I would think Windows licensing would be your biggest issue. Outside of that, Virtual Box with three VMs, you have console access on each - bob's your uncle.
-
You should able to launch another instances of the game. You could then use one of the screen tiling apps out there to get them to fit evenly on the screen.
-
@coliver I wasn't aware that you could load more than one instance. I asked about that option and I believe he said it will not load another. That is what prompted my question.
-
@Dashrender Apparently there is a Linux client even though they recommend Windows. Could run Ubuntu VMs to avoid licensing issues.
-
@IRJ There is a client now. I'm thinking it uses java.
-
@Dashrender said in Multiple game instances on one monitor:
I would think Windows licensing would be your biggest issue. Outside of that, Virtual Box with three VMs, you have console access on each - bob's your uncle.
-
@brandon220 said in Multiple game instances on one monitor:
@Dashrender Apparently there is a Linux client even though they recommend Windows. Could run Ubuntu VMs to avoid licensing issues.
Score - that will likely make things easier.
-
@scottalanmiller I need to load up a test machine with Ubuntu or similar and let him try it out first.
-
Kind of curious now but are you able to have two separate instances of a game going on one pc and have two different people playing it? Just wondering how you would be able to separate the controls if that was even possible.
-
@kmcs said in Multiple game instances on one monitor:
Kind of curious now but are you able to have two separate instances of a game going on one pc and have two different people playing it? Just wondering how you would be able to separate the controls if that was even possible.
You don't have two people playing it. it is one person.
I used to box 3 characters in Everquest. Back then (2001) it was three whole computers.
When I started doing dev work for ProjectEQ (the open source EQ emulator), things had advanced enough that I could launch 18 instances of EQ on my single computer. Of course the non-primary instances were all at minimum graphics settings.
-
I still box 3 everquest accounts. We are all level 115 now. Its such an old game that it uses very little resources so it isn't an issue at full graphics.
-
@JaredBusch said in Multiple game instances on one monitor:
@kmcs said in Multiple game instances on one monitor:
Kind of curious now but are you able to have two separate instances of a game going on one pc and have two different people playing it? Just wondering how you would be able to separate the controls if that was even possible.
You don't have two people playing it. it is one person.
I used to box 3 characters in Everquest. Back then (2001) it was three whole computers.
When I started doing dev work for ProjectEQ (the open source EQ emulator), things had advanced enough that I could launch 18 instances of EQ on my single computer. Of course the non-primary instances were all at minimum graphics settings.
That was me with Shadowbane. 3 computers, boxed 10 accounts between them. Was only every active with 3 characters, the other 7 were buff bots and healers that all ran off of macros.
-
I need to experiment and come up with a plan. He wants to buy some new hardware too as his is getting up there in age. He knows there is better/faster equipment out there now. I already did an SSD swap in his laptop (W10) and his iMac (2012). Right now, he is talking about a new Mac Mini and multiple monitors. Parallels is installed on the iMac so he can run Win XP for some old PC games.
Virtualbox is a possibility with Linux VMs but I can't say I've ever used it on MacOS. Parallels is another option.
