Two Gamers One PC

[DillonB]

I currently have a “ok” gaming pc just sitting around, and I was wanting to let my two little brothers play on it. But they keep fighting over it, so I seen The video on two gamers one pc and I thought to come here. Any simple solution to let them both play on it at the same time? You tried VirtualBox but it is laggy as anything. 
 

PC Specs

32GB DDR4 Ram

Amd Radeon 580 RX series (8GB)

16 Core Processor, 3.4ghz base (AMD)

The only catch is I don’t have the money to spend on any type of purchase or subscription. Especially since I just built this

 

[ Recap: One PC Into two machines, one can be a VM and the other can be just the normal windows 10 with all the current files ]

[IgorM]

you can use Unraid to run VMs or a linux distro (that can be a bit harder). Also make sure to allocate RAM and cores for each VM so they can run smoothly 

[Metallus97]

is that a 3950x or a threadripper? 

On 3950x you could run into problems with PCIe lanes. At least you wont be able to run the GPUs with 16x

Also you need 2 GPUs.

Besides that one normal booted and a VM on top of that will properly be poor performance. You need 

4 minutes ago, IgorM said:

you can use Unraid to run VMs or a linux distro (that can be a bit harder).

This to have a proper hypervisor. Just like in the video. Unraid/your Linux stuff will be the main Os and both of the "Gaming Windows installs" will have to be VMs running on this. 

[DillonB]

Is Unraid not a monthly subscription?

 

Also right now I was recommended to just set up VirtualBox so one can play in the VM and one can play on the normal OS. But there seems to be disk capping and ram getting sucked up (Idle 13.4/16GB)

 

At this point I have no money to spare on another GPU so is there anything I can do with what I have?

 

[ Also I want to keep the normal OS if possible and just run another VM with a second game ]

[Windows7ge]

Look into an OS like Proxmox. It's free to use (has a subscription you can pay for but you don't have to) unlike UnRAID. I have a quick beginners guide on it.

Do note to have two concurrent VMs for people to use for gaming you'll need 2 GPUs and one for the host or a single GPU that supports SR-IOV (in such case VMWare ESXi may be better suited). You will also need to check that your CPU/motherboard support both virtualization & the enabling of IOMMU groups.

 

My guide still needs to be updated for the enabling of IOMMU within the OS. If you ever get that far and I haven't fixed it just give a holler.

[DillonB]

Seems like it may work.

Not sure if anyone’s getting the concept though. I still want to keep the windows OS installed as the boot OS. I just want a VM or something to run a second game instance without the two interfering. And once again I am looking for a solution without another GPU if possible. 

[Metallus97]

10 hours ago, DillonB said:

Is Unraid not a monthly subscription?

 

Also right now I was recommended to just set up VirtualBox so one can play in the VM and one can play on the normal OS. But there seems to be disk capping and ram getting sucked up (Idle 13.4/16GB)

 

At this point I have no money to spare on another GPU so is there anything I can do with what I have?

 

[ Also I want to keep the normal OS if possible and just run another VM with a second game ]

Box wont work because of relatively poor performance. Especially on the GPU side of things.

[Windows7ge]

2 hours ago, DillonB said:

Seems like it may work.

Not sure if anyone’s getting the concept though. I still want to keep the windows OS installed as the boot OS. I just want a VM or something to run a second game instance without the two interfering. And once again I am looking for a solution without another GPU if possible. 

If they play anything even remotely demanding like Rocket League or Fortnite your only options are:

1. Give each VM a physical GPU
2. Use 1 GPU that supports SR-IOV (like the Radeon Pro WX 2100 or 4100)

The problem here is without GPU acceleration the CPU has to render the graphics which will result in a very poor gaming experience. The only real solution is to give the VM a GPU.

 

Windows supports both Hyper-V and VMWare for Workstations but from a little research I've done previously ONLY SOME VERSIONS of VMWare for Workstations support GPU pass-though and Hyper-V does not at all. Even then you have to figure out how to disconnect the GPU from the host and I've never done that on Windows.

 

Your best option is to use a Linux distro on the host then run the 2 VMs as guests.

[DillonB]

Does the AMD Radeon RX 580 (8GB of VRam) work with it?

[DillonB]

Also the picture below is at idle with no vm running. Is that normal?

[Metallus97]

24 minutes ago, DillonB said:

Does the AMD Radeon RX 580 (8GB of VRam) work with it?

Yes, but you need two of those to give each VM their own GPU

[Metallus97]

15 minutes ago, DillonB said:

Also the picture below is at idle with no vm running. Is that normal?

Yes 

[DillonB]

So is there any solution for running to game instances without a second gpu?

[Nick7]

25 minutes ago, DillonB said:

So is there any solution for running to game instances without a second gpu?

Nothing that will be even remotely satisfactory with given HW.