8 ms·

Universal Split Screen

486 points by surround 6y ago

jkbbwr 6y ago
I gotta admit, this looks very impressive. I took a look at the borderlands 2 example video and it seemed very flawless.
didibus 6y ago
Awesome I was just looking for something like this, as a lot of games only have online multiplayer.
asadlionpk 6y ago
I am assuming this runs two separate instances of the game in some isolation/VM-like separation. Pretty cool project!
- I_Byte 6y ago
  After looking at some of the setup guides for some of the games it doesn't look like it is using any fancy isolation tricks. So far it looks like it works with games that either allow the user to run multiple instances or the program somehow modifies the game to allow it to run a separate instance. Although I don't know what is being changed that allows the games to run multiple instances. Here is an example of the program modifying Left 4 Dead 2 so that it can run a separate instance. https://youtu.be/1RHWgHh2Q6M?t=120 https://youtu.be/1RHWgHh2Q6M?t=120
  - trynewideas 6y ago
    Some Steam games require little to no modification, just a direct invocation of the game's launcher. Others require a Steam API emulator: https://universalsplitscreen.github.io/docs/goldberg/ https://universalsplitscreen.github.io/docs/goldberg/ > Some games use Steam to prevent you from launching multiple instances, and some games use Steam for matchmaking, preventing you playing with one copy. > The Goldberg emulator replaces the Steam API dll, tricking games into letting you launch multiple instances and join the same server. There are also a few warnings on the site that the hooks used by universal split screen will likely trip anticheat software.
    - akersten 6y ago
      > There are also a few warnings on the site that the hooks used by universal split screen will likely trip anticheat software. Yikes, they should make that warning more prominent. Like a big yellow banner across the top of the landing page. If you trip VAC for example, you're banned from online play for all of your VAC-enabled Steam games, IIRC. I imagine programs like this that do all sorts of weird Windows API plumbing/injection are pretty likely to look anomalous to even the most basic anti-cheat.
      - judge2020 6y ago
        No, you're only banned from playing the game that VAC detected a cheat in, unless it's a half-life or source based game where it bans you from related games using the same engine. http://www.vacbanned.com/static/information http://www.vacbanned.com/static/information Vac is also only triggered if you try to sign into VAC-secured servers and VAC detects a cheat. In the unlikely event that something like this is ever classified as a cheat (unlikely since valve manually detects and adds cheats to the blacklist), simply running a local server would not trigger a VAC ban.
        ponker 6y ago
        In a nutshell, how does VAC work?
        judge2020 6y ago
        fixed link http://www.vacbanned.com/static/informations http://www.vacbanned.com/static/informations
  - unnouinceput 6y ago
    You can always run a game in multiple instances by launching the secondary copy using another user's credentials.
sneak 6y ago
This is one of those brilliant things that seems obvious in retrospect. Sweet hack! See also: https://github.com/symless/synergy-core https://github.com/symless/synergy-core (share one mouse/kb across multiple computers with their own displays via network)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
trynewideas 6y ago
I'm a bit curious if this could be bent into being a pair-programming tool. One of the core functions is simply routing multiple connected keyboards/mice to multiple concurrent copies of a given piece of software.
- codetrotter 6y ago
  I like that idea. In the past I was thinking that multiple separate cursors and keyboard inputs on a shared screen would be neat, but the problem with the way I was imagining things was in how do you make it so that both people can work together unhindered at all times. For example, in the way I was originally imagining it, you and me would sit down at a computer and I’d open the editor and we’d make concurrent edits. But then when I want to scroll, the suddenly you would not be able to scroll. And another example, if you were pointing and clicking at something, say for example that you were drawing a painting in Photoshop, and I try to move another window from one side of the screen to the other and suddenly I am occluding your window, and on top of that you might click in my window. This was a few years ago so I was imagining a situation where both people were sharing the same computer and sitting together physically in front of it. But I like what you said a lot. A split screen view with separate working areas that we both see, like in a video game, that would probably be nice. Both for local and remote collaboration.
  - MereInterest 6y ago
    There's an emacs plugin for it[0]. I've used it before, though only at the same network, and not over the internet. The host gives access to specific files, which people connecting to the session can then edit. Host and clients maintain separate buffers, selection, etc, which are then synchronized by rudel. If you are on a shared account, it is even easier by running `(start-server)` and then connecting to it with emacsclient. The only downside is that marked regions are shared between clients. [0] https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Rudel https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Rudel
- woodpanel 6y ago
  Same Idea here. Always was annoyed with the lack of multiple cursors from mice/keayboards when doing pair programming.
seba_dos1 6y ago
Neat idea. That would be super easy to implement on GNU/Linux using nested Wayland compositors, which BTW is something Valve is already playing with (although for different reasons): https://github.com/Plagman/gamescope https://github.com/Plagman/gamescope
- ifreund 6y ago
  Why nest them? Wayland already has multi-seat.
  - seba_dos1 6y ago
    With nesting, you get full flexibility of how to display a single game (cropped, letterboxed, scaled, placing on the screen even if it insists on being fullscreen, input grabbing etc.) so you can play split-screen without having to switch your regular session to a special-purpose compositor.
isuckatcoding 6y ago
There’s a better one called NucleusCoop
stuaxo 6y ago
Fantastic, can you put up some videos showing it from launch until multi-player ?
- surround 6y ago
  Im not the creator but there are videos on the website under “Tested games guides.”
surround 6y ago
Apparently there is another, similar application called NucleusCoop. Here’s a good comparison of the two: https://www.reddit.com/r/localmultiplayergames/comments/ce8mij/comment/eu5vq6m https://www.reddit.com/r/localmultiplayergames/comments/ce8m... Both are free and open source. NucleusCoop: https://github.com/lucasassislar/nucleuscoop/ https://github.com/lucasassislar/nucleuscoop/ Universal Split Screen: https://github.com/UniversalSplitScreen/UniversalSplitScreen https://github.com/UniversalSplitScreen/UniversalSplitScreen
- notRobot 6y ago
  It always makes me so happy when I see multiple F/OSS solutions to a problem :)
birdyrooster 6y ago
Back when I was poor and all I had was a laptop... my girlfriend wanted a computer but we didn't have enough money. So I loaded up virtual box and plugged in an external monitor, keyboard and mouse binding them to the virtual machine. This setup worked really well to let us both browse the internet simultaneously.
- techolic 6y ago
  That's a brilliant idea! I was mentally practicing sharing my 32 inch screen with my wife when she complains about screen real estate inequality in the house - hers is surface pro - but never come close to solving keyboard and mouse sharing.
- jldugger 6y ago
  I seem to recall Ubuntu had a similar thing for PCs to drive multiple X sessions (a classroom's worth?) off a single PC: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MultiseatX https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MultiseatX But it seems to have gone by the wayside as the upper limit is really the number of video outputs, and driving 30+ displays off one computer starts getting into custom setups that are going to be more expensive, even if the goal was just running 30 instances of Firefox on one computer. The wiki hasn't been updated in 6 years, so I assume it's not viable in modern Ubuntu?
  - Nightshaxx 6y ago
    Not sure about Ubuntu's support for it, but they may have just decided to leave it for virtualization OSs specifically made for this purpose. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXOaCkbt4lI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXOaCkbt4lI
  - hawski 6y ago
    I did this on Gentoo around 10 years ago. It was quite cumbersome, but it worked. Separate X sessions in time of xorg.conf. The problem was with sound, I didn't know how to divide it, also removable media and danger of shutting down computer when another session was still running. Today it would be probably easier.
  - 6y ago
xuhu 6y ago
Looking at some of the setup guide videos, I guess portrait mode for the monitor would work better as two landscape game windows would fit better on it.
- _-___________-_ 6y ago
  Ergonomics would be a bit weird considering that you're likely to be sitting side-by-side.
jbverschoor 6y ago
Very cool.
jbverschoor 6y ago
This is real social gaming..
mysterydip 6y ago
My 5yo daughter has been really into creative mode minecraft lately (using my computer and copy). She's been begging me to get a second computer set up to play together but I haven't had the time or resources to do so. I'm definitely checking this out!
- sciurus 6y ago
  FWIW my four year old has started exploring minecraft on a raspberry pi 4. It runs decently, and the pi is pretty cheap.
  - mysterydip 6y ago
    Is that the pi edition or full version? I have a 4 waiting for me to use. Once my daughter saw a video of someone playing with dragons in minecraft, she started asking why ours didn't have them... so now we have mods for unicorns, dragons, dinosaurs, and rocket ships. We just went to space yesterday for the first time, and she started building a house on a moon.
    - sciurus 6y ago
      It's the pi edition.
sharpercoder 6y ago
I want a 64-core 51GB box with this to use wih my teams. Anyones IDE will fly using that power available. Costs could be lower too (although I doubt setup and maintenance offsets the decreased hardware cost).
- chrisacky 6y ago
  I posted this the other day https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24571689 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24571689 Basically, along the same vein. I have multiple offices at my house, it would be nice to just have one POWER-horse, that I can use throughout my home when working. Instead of have to use slower-laptops occassionally. I don't understand why this hasn't been solved as a problem before.
  - vanderZwan 6y ago
    > I don't understand why this hasn't been solved as a problem before. Aren't you basically describing mainframes?
  - jpalomaki 6y ago
    I think it is kind of solved, Windows for example support remote connections via remote desktop. With the desktop version you can either run local or remote session. If you run server versions you can have multiple simultaneous connections. The same things are of course available on Linux side as well I'm doing this with Windows all the time, connecting from laptop my desktop where I have all the apps running. It's pretty usable even with 4G connections.
  - DJBunnies 6y ago
    I think that's called docker or kubernetes these days?
  - vb6sp6 6y ago
    You can do this today. Enable rdc on your windows machine https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/turn-on-remote-desktop-in-windows-vista/ https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/turn-on-remote... you can portforward or setup a vpn to make it accessible anywhere in the world. There are rdc clients for nearly every device out there (android, iphone\pad, raspberrypi, window, mac, etc)

486 points by surround 6y ago

I gotta admit, this looks very impressive. I took a look at the borderlands 2 example video and it seemed very flawless.

didibus 6y ago

Awesome I was just looking for something like this, as a lot of games only have online multiplayer.

asadlionpk 6y ago

I am assuming this runs two separate instances of the game in some isolation/VM-like separation. Pretty cool project!

I_Byte 6y ago
After looking at some of the setup guides for some of the games it doesn't look like it is using any fancy isolation tricks. So far it looks like it works with games that either allow the user to run multiple instances or the program somehow modifies the game to allow it to run a separate instance. Although I don't know what is being changed that allows the games to run multiple instances. Here is an example of the program modifying Left 4 Dead 2 so that it can run a separate instance. https://youtu.be/1RHWgHh2Q6M?t=120 https://youtu.be/1RHWgHh2Q6M?t=120
- trynewideas 6y ago
  Some Steam games require little to no modification, just a direct invocation of the game's launcher. Others require a Steam API emulator: https://universalsplitscreen.github.io/docs/goldberg/ https://universalsplitscreen.github.io/docs/goldberg/ > Some games use Steam to prevent you from launching multiple instances, and some games use Steam for matchmaking, preventing you playing with one copy. > The Goldberg emulator replaces the Steam API dll, tricking games into letting you launch multiple instances and join the same server. There are also a few warnings on the site that the hooks used by universal split screen will likely trip anticheat software.
  - akersten 6y ago
    > There are also a few warnings on the site that the hooks used by universal split screen will likely trip anticheat software. Yikes, they should make that warning more prominent. Like a big yellow banner across the top of the landing page. If you trip VAC for example, you're banned from online play for all of your VAC-enabled Steam games, IIRC. I imagine programs like this that do all sorts of weird Windows API plumbing/injection are pretty likely to look anomalous to even the most basic anti-cheat.
    - judge2020 6y ago
      No, you're only banned from playing the game that VAC detected a cheat in, unless it's a half-life or source based game where it bans you from related games using the same engine. http://www.vacbanned.com/static/information http://www.vacbanned.com/static/information Vac is also only triggered if you try to sign into VAC-secured servers and VAC detects a cheat. In the unlikely event that something like this is ever classified as a cheat (unlikely since valve manually detects and adds cheats to the blacklist), simply running a local server would not trigger a VAC ban.
      - ponker 6y ago
        In a nutshell, how does VAC work?
      - judge2020 6y ago
        fixed link http://www.vacbanned.com/static/informations http://www.vacbanned.com/static/informations
- unnouinceput 6y ago
  You can always run a game in multiple instances by launching the secondary copy using another user's credentials.

sneak 6y ago

This is one of those brilliant things that seems obvious in retrospect. Sweet hack! See also: https://github.com/symless/synergy-core https://github.com/symless/synergy-core (share one mouse/kb across multiple computers with their own displays via network)

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

trynewideas 6y ago

I'm a bit curious if this could be bent into being a pair-programming tool. One of the core functions is simply routing multiple connected keyboards/mice to multiple concurrent copies of a given piece of software.

codetrotter 6y ago
I like that idea. In the past I was thinking that multiple separate cursors and keyboard inputs on a shared screen would be neat, but the problem with the way I was imagining things was in how do you make it so that both people can work together unhindered at all times. For example, in the way I was originally imagining it, you and me would sit down at a computer and I’d open the editor and we’d make concurrent edits. But then when I want to scroll, the suddenly you would not be able to scroll. And another example, if you were pointing and clicking at something, say for example that you were drawing a painting in Photoshop, and I try to move another window from one side of the screen to the other and suddenly I am occluding your window, and on top of that you might click in my window. This was a few years ago so I was imagining a situation where both people were sharing the same computer and sitting together physically in front of it. But I like what you said a lot. A split screen view with separate working areas that we both see, like in a video game, that would probably be nice. Both for local and remote collaboration.
- MereInterest 6y ago
  There's an emacs plugin for it[0]. I've used it before, though only at the same network, and not over the internet. The host gives access to specific files, which people connecting to the session can then edit. Host and clients maintain separate buffers, selection, etc, which are then synchronized by rudel. If you are on a shared account, it is even easier by running `(start-server)` and then connecting to it with emacsclient. The only downside is that marked regions are shared between clients. [0] https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Rudel https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Rudel
woodpanel 6y ago
Same Idea here. Always was annoyed with the lack of multiple cursors from mice/keayboards when doing pair programming.

seba_dos1 6y ago

Neat idea. That would be super easy to implement on GNU/Linux using nested Wayland compositors, which BTW is something Valve is already playing with (although for different reasons): https://github.com/Plagman/gamescope https://github.com/Plagman/gamescope

ifreund 6y ago
Why nest them? Wayland already has multi-seat.
- seba_dos1 6y ago
  With nesting, you get full flexibility of how to display a single game (cropped, letterboxed, scaled, placing on the screen even if it insists on being fullscreen, input grabbing etc.) so you can play split-screen without having to switch your regular session to a special-purpose compositor.

isuckatcoding 6y ago

There’s a better one called NucleusCoop

stuaxo 6y ago

Fantastic, can you put up some videos showing it from launch until multi-player ?

surround 6y ago
Im not the creator but there are videos on the website under “Tested games guides.”

surround 6y ago

Apparently there is another, similar application called NucleusCoop. Here’s a good comparison of the two: https://www.reddit.com/r/localmultiplayergames/comments/ce8mij/comment/eu5vq6m https://www.reddit.com/r/localmultiplayergames/comments/ce8m... Both are free and open source. NucleusCoop: https://github.com/lucasassislar/nucleuscoop/ https://github.com/lucasassislar/nucleuscoop/ Universal Split Screen: https://github.com/UniversalSplitScreen/UniversalSplitScreen https://github.com/UniversalSplitScreen/UniversalSplitScreen

notRobot 6y ago
It always makes me so happy when I see multiple F/OSS solutions to a problem :)

birdyrooster 6y ago

Back when I was poor and all I had was a laptop... my girlfriend wanted a computer but we didn't have enough money. So I loaded up virtual box and plugged in an external monitor, keyboard and mouse binding them to the virtual machine. This setup worked really well to let us both browse the internet simultaneously.

techolic 6y ago
That's a brilliant idea! I was mentally practicing sharing my 32 inch screen with my wife when she complains about screen real estate inequality in the house - hers is surface pro - but never come close to solving keyboard and mouse sharing.
jldugger 6y ago
I seem to recall Ubuntu had a similar thing for PCs to drive multiple X sessions (a classroom's worth?) off a single PC: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MultiseatX https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MultiseatX But it seems to have gone by the wayside as the upper limit is really the number of video outputs, and driving 30+ displays off one computer starts getting into custom setups that are going to be more expensive, even if the goal was just running 30 instances of Firefox on one computer. The wiki hasn't been updated in 6 years, so I assume it's not viable in modern Ubuntu?
- Nightshaxx 6y ago
  Not sure about Ubuntu's support for it, but they may have just decided to leave it for virtualization OSs specifically made for this purpose. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXOaCkbt4lI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXOaCkbt4lI
- hawski 6y ago
  I did this on Gentoo around 10 years ago. It was quite cumbersome, but it worked. Separate X sessions in time of xorg.conf. The problem was with sound, I didn't know how to divide it, also removable media and danger of shutting down computer when another session was still running. Today it would be probably easier.
- 6y ago

xuhu 6y ago

Looking at some of the setup guide videos, I guess portrait mode for the monitor would work better as two landscape game windows would fit better on it.

_-___________-_ 6y ago
Ergonomics would be a bit weird considering that you're likely to be sitting side-by-side.

jbverschoor 6y ago

Very cool.

jbverschoor 6y ago

This is real social gaming..

mysterydip 6y ago

My 5yo daughter has been really into creative mode minecraft lately (using my computer and copy). She's been begging me to get a second computer set up to play together but I haven't had the time or resources to do so. I'm definitely checking this out!

sciurus 6y ago
FWIW my four year old has started exploring minecraft on a raspberry pi 4. It runs decently, and the pi is pretty cheap.
- mysterydip 6y ago
  Is that the pi edition or full version? I have a 4 waiting for me to use. Once my daughter saw a video of someone playing with dragons in minecraft, she started asking why ours didn't have them... so now we have mods for unicorns, dragons, dinosaurs, and rocket ships. We just went to space yesterday for the first time, and she started building a house on a moon.
  - sciurus 6y ago
    It's the pi edition.

sharpercoder 6y ago

I want a 64-core 51GB box with this to use wih my teams. Anyones IDE will fly using that power available. Costs could be lower too (although I doubt setup and maintenance offsets the decreased hardware cost).

chrisacky 6y ago
I posted this the other day https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24571689 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24571689 Basically, along the same vein. I have multiple offices at my house, it would be nice to just have one POWER-horse, that I can use throughout my home when working. Instead of have to use slower-laptops occassionally. I don't understand why this hasn't been solved as a problem before.
- vanderZwan 6y ago
  > I don't understand why this hasn't been solved as a problem before. Aren't you basically describing mainframes?
- jpalomaki 6y ago
  I think it is kind of solved, Windows for example support remote connections via remote desktop. With the desktop version you can either run local or remote session. If you run server versions you can have multiple simultaneous connections. The same things are of course available on Linux side as well I'm doing this with Windows all the time, connecting from laptop my desktop where I have all the apps running. It's pretty usable even with 4G connections.
- DJBunnies 6y ago
  I think that's called docker or kubernetes these days?
- vb6sp6 6y ago
  You can do this today. Enable rdc on your windows machine https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/turn-on-remote-desktop-in-windows-vista/ https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/turn-on-remote... you can portforward or setup a vpn to make it accessible anywhere in the world. There are rdc clients for nearly every device out there (android, iphone\pad, raspberrypi, window, mac, etc)