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/decoders, so I’d recommend sticking with Nvidia or Intel GPU’s.

  • Artopal@lemmy.mlEnglish
    16·
    1 day ago

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

    • ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.netOPEnglish
      14·
      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.