Is it posible to game while someone else is using the PC?

[Kalets]

Hello Friends,

 

This is my first post, so I'll try to follow the rules and explain my problem as much as I can...

I want to play a game on my TV and at the same time being able to use the PC to web browsing and light photoshop editing on my monitor. I've got my monitor connected to the onboard graphics and the TV to the GPU, the issue is that while I'm playing (I use a Xbox One controller) the game won't take any commands from the controller if someone touches the keyboard or mouse, Windows changes focus to the monitor... I can't find a way to keep focus on two windows at the same time (Chrome and a game) or some application that could force and restrict the inputs from the keyboard and mouse to the monitor and the inputs from the controller to the game (by the way I'm trying to play Dark Souls Remastered).

I've searched and to my knowledge is almost imposible to do this without some kind of Virtual Machine or unRAID. I think that some kind of multiple users option would be amazing for Windows 10, more now than ever since we are getting CPUs with plenty of cores (With a Threadripper 2 32 cores for example).

If anyone has any idea of how can I play while someone else is using the PC, I'll be gratefull.

I hope my english wasn't that bad, I'm from Argentina (We speak spanish) so sorry for any grammatical error.

 

Thanks in advance...

My system specs:

OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit

MB: Asus Z97-E/USB3 (latest Bios)

CPU: i7 4790k (with no OC)

GPU: EVGA 1070 Founders Edition AND Intel HD Graphics 4600

RAM: 8GB DDR3 Kingston 1866mhz

Drives: 120GB Kingston SSD, 1 Tb WD HDD
PSU: Corsair 650W 80+ Gold

 

[Princess Luna]

I do this what you want frequently, it is perfectly possible and quite easy actually then again it depends on the game, you need a game that has the option to keep running without focus such as GTA V has:

If you do this you can move the screen to your TV then shift focus to the other screen and work on whatever using keyboard and mouse while game keeps running on the other screen and when you use the controller since it's not paused due to loss of focus it should work perfectly fine.

 

You also need both screens connected directly to the GPU it will not work if you have one in the GPU and the other on the iGPU.

 

Cheers!

[Kalets]

I didn't know GTA V had that option! The problem is that Dark Souls Remastered does not have any kind of settings aside from resolution and AA. I'll try to connect both the TV and monitor to the 1070 and see if anything changes... Thanks!

[TekSupport]

23 hours ago, Kalets said:

I didn't know GTA V had that option! The problem is that Dark Souls Remastered does not have any kind of settings aside from resolution and AA. I'll try to connect both the TV and monitor to the 1070 and see if anything changes... Thanks!

Other than what you mentioned, I don't believe there would be a way that allows you have multiple inputs without them interfering with each other.

 

I have not tried using it for this propose before you should definitely look into using VM for this.

Then having ChromeOS or Linux running on it as they won't effect your performance too much.

Or something similar to what Linus did on his YT video 7 gamers 1 PC.

You probably need a bit more ram if you were to do this.

[Kalets]

I've tried connecting both the TV and monitor to the GPU and the same happens.

8 hours ago, TekSupport said:

Or something similar to what Linus did on his YT video 7 gamers 1 PC.

Yeah, I think that that's the only way to do what I want, I really can't believe that there is no application that allows you to have multiple users on one PC without using a VM...

[TekSupport]

16 hours ago, Kalets said:

I've tried connecting both the TV and monitor to the GPU and the same happens.

Yeah, I think that that's the only way to do what I want, I really can't believe that there is no application that allows you to have multiple users on one PC without using a VM...

I have been looking into this more as it interests me. It seems like i have said previously that other than VM there aren't any other viable solutions.

 

I mean there is where you can tweak Windows to allow RDP with concurrent users but then you have to have some sort of thin client or another PC and for using it to browse the internet it seems to defeat the purpose of using one PC.

However if thats what you would like to try. https://superuser.com/questions/1036496/is-it-possible-to-have-two-win-10-user-accounts-running-simultaneously-with-one

 

Then I have have come across this, however it seems to be a sort of a hypervisor where it would replicate or use the same windows installation to allow you to have two separate inputs with separate response.

 

I haven't tried this before and can't give you any assurances. Use or try at your own risk.