2 gamers, 1 cpu, NO Virtualization!
www.apalrd.net
I’ve been using Linux for a long time. The first distribution I ever installed was Ubuntu 6.06 ‘Dapper Drake’, on which I ran a phpBB server for my school friends. Security was poor. But shortly after, as I learned about Linux desktops (and first daily-drove a Linux laptop around 2012), I learned about ‘Multiseat’. The Wikipedia article has a cool picture of a very 90s looking desktop tower with 4x CRT monitors, and that image was published to Wikipedia in 2005, and I saw it in middle/high school years.

This is a super interesting project, and the video is really well presented and explained, if you prefer that format.

I think this method could be brought even further by using ‘thin clients’ (a cheap laptop or used office mini-PC), making it possible to access the main gaming rig from any room in the house as long as you have access to a good network speed.

Utilizing a ‘dummy’ HDMI or Displayport stick, which simulates a monitor for the GPU, you could then remote into the gaming rig from a thin client-like PC through Parsec or Moonline/Sunlight, allowing you to use it as a fully fledged gaming or workstation PC.

If anyone decides to go that route, be aware that AMD GPU’s have pretty notoriously bad encoders, so I’d recommend sticking with Nvidia (Pascal/1000 series or newer) or Intel GPU’s/Integrated Graphics (6th generation 6000 series or newer).

EDIT: AMD did actually improve their encoders in recent years, starting with the Raven Ridge integrated graphics APUs, and the first generation Navi cards (RX 5700 onward, the lower end cards don’t have it).

  • Artopal@lemmy.mlEnglish
    17·
    2 days ago

    Wasn’t UNIX (and thus Linux) all about multi seat like since the seventies?

    • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
      16·
      1 day ago

      Yes, but mixing in 3D hardware acceleration was apparently quite difficult to achieve until systemd came along to make it somewhat painless.