cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/28741527
I enjoy playing modded games on PC. My IT competency is all informal and hands on so I apologize if this is a dumb question or it seems like I have no idea what I’m talking about. What I was looking to do without using a 3rd party software was to have a game playing in any type of windowed, borderless windowed, or full screen display window on monitor 1 while also having the ability to navigate an open browser window or even just navigate my desktop on display 2. This is all a very normal set up I know but the brick wall I hit happens because my ability with a keyboard is a huge gaming retardant for me. So what I wanted to try and set up was for the gamepad and gaming window, regardless of what display monitor it’s being used on, to remain as an “up front” and active process while being able to use my keyboard and mouse as their normal operating devices to navigate my dektop or other active program windows simultaneously.
I have only looked into this briefly because it was very evident after searching the internet that there was not a way to natively set up my PC to allow me to game on one monitor using a gamepad while also having the ability to freely navigating other open windows on monitor 2 using mouse and keyboard with the gaming window remaining active.
I’m playing Witcher 3 currently but earlier this year on the same PC and Windows 11 setup, I swear I was able set up Fallout London by editing the setting.ini file to do exactly what I describred no problem. Admittedly I’m usually as baked as an apple pie when playing with games or modding, but I flipping swear by editing the fallout ini it allowed me to set the the window as always on top and active (meaning it didn’t move to the background, or pause, or cut the gamepad off when the mouse was used on other dosplay). It was a series of of like 3 lines of true/false display parameters I entered that allowed me to choose how the program would respond when my input switched from the program window’s gamepad to the PC window’s mouse/keyboard input.
Fast forward to me trying to get the same setup for a modded Witcher 3 and the results of my searching was that it is universally accepted technical impossibility to use a gamepad exclusively in 1 open window program while also using a mouse to navigate a PC’s desktop or other app’s open windows simultaneously.
My questions are all to ubderstand why this would be so difficult to implement as a standard option you can set in your OS settings? I’m certainly not qualified to actually be questioning this but in my limited understanding of the devices and platforms in play, this really seems like a very do-able and sought after feature.
Pc’s with touch screens are basically doing everything I would like to happen but using touch screen inputs and parameters instead of a gamepad’s input. What am i missing in this workflow that is brickwalling this from being an actual feature?:
Creating an OS native setting where the user can choose how the OS handles active and sleeping windows. For example, option A is to keep the default function of determining active windows based on actual cursor location. No clue how it’s programed but basically keeping things as they currently are where the hover over an open window without clicking in it but still be able to scroll with mouse wheel. Then option B would allow you disable the function where inactive windows are relegated to only running background processes.
The setting would then require a subsequent setting option to pop up for the user set when the step 1 selection was set to have multiple open windows running simultaneously as seperate active windows. This setting would be for the user to choose between utilizing one input device to control the PC globally as normal or to be able to assigned an installed device to only perform within the limits of an assigned program’s window when it is open and active.
Basically I’m picturing this working similar to the way a touchscreen laptop allows you to choose between standard desktop mode and tablet mode. Having the actual keyboard and mouse with global permissions as they always had so they will over ride the controller in its assigned program window for troubleshooting, saftey net in case input device 2 (gamepad or w/e) fails mid use. And the 2ndary input device is only able to operate in the confines of the assigned program window.
It also seems like I have messed around with software or device settings in the past that are already doing this for shit like Android Auto, augmented note pads and their stylus, the already mentioned touch screen displays, and I’m guessing but I wanna say some of the more accommodating accessibility options available for different types of handicapable input devices. I mean shit, don’t they have to make all computers capable of being used with only a keyboard or only a mouse option already?
I’m fully expecting the answer to be that Windows and Microsoft are too far in the mindset of fuck what users want to include a feature that will require any added operating/programming costs. But like I started, I know that I don’t know enough to know if there are major obstacles engineering this to work.
You can do this in Linux, with X11 (not Wayland). Here are some links:
It’s possible, but requires some effort. It’d probably be easier and more reliable in your use case; most of the issues I find are because people are trying to set out up so that two people can share the computer with multiple mice and keyboards, whereas you just want to use two different devices at the same time in different windows. For you it might be as simple as using SDL and setting SDL_JOYSTICK_ALLOW_BACKGROUND_EVENTS=1; see multi-pointer X for more info on that.
Oh god. You have my sympathy lol I felt like my question might sound like a ridiculous request to anyone who is more knowledgeable than me at this stuff but I commend the shit out of you taking on a request to help someone trying to do their own LAN party on one pc. Did you have to run two instances of the same game when you did it? Like run one off a virtual desktop and the other of the native OS? I haven’t started my the crusade of switching from Windows to Linus yet so excuse my not knowing how it would be done.
No, I haven’t done this for multi-user. However, having two graphics cards makes this much easier under Linux, because you can run a different session on each card assigned to each monitor. It’s almost trivial to do it this way. But, it does require two graphics cards.
One more common setup is when the CPU is an integrated CPU/GPU, but an additional graphics card has been added to the machine. This can do multi-session multi-monitor, with multiple input devices.
Well sheeet I have an extra amd 6900xt and i think two ledt over amd apu’s I can never make any decisions on how to use. I have kicked around the idea of testing out a build that runs the 6900 with my 4090 as either dedicated monitors for each or getting real squirlly and seeing what size deepseek llm I could run with the extra gpu’s I have. Would there be any benefit of running a dual boot set up with Windows thru 1 gpu and Linus thru the other or would it make more sense just building a seperate oc all together to run Linux. I really hate the idea of having 2 seperate systems to keep track of files and projects for. Just seems like a lot to manage while also learning all new software, work flows, filing system and everything else there is to learn in making the switch. Not enough to scare me away from pulling the trigger but still another stressor to the equation.
Would there be any benefit of running a dual boot set up with Windows thru 1 gpu and Linus thru the other
I don’t know if that’s possible. Linux sessions aren’t different operating systems running at the same time, they’re just different user accounts logged into the same OS, and in the multi-GPU scenario each gets assigned some input devices, a GPU, and a monitor.
Linux has always been concurrent multi-user, inherited back from the days of Unix mainframes and dumb terminals. X can be configured to run different login sessions on each GPU, and you’d assign input devices to each session when you configured it.
You can only have one focus at a time, which is where input goes. It might be possible to do what you want, but you’re talking about implementing some crazy shit in Linux with some custom window management or something. Way beyond me and I’ve been a developer for almost 30 years.
Ok but what about all the devices for disabled users to have accessibility wothout comprimising the systems ability to still use a keyboard and mouse? Or the image editing software that allows users to use drawing pad & stylus in the program without affecting anything outside of the open window?
I’m not guna get pedantic or saying you’re wrong by listing out examples of shit i dont understand how they are able to work but seem to work in ways that would allow similar functionality to what I was hoping to be able to set up.
I look at everything I do with Windows OS as having some workaround, somewhere from sometime when they thought it would be a feature but canned without actually tieing up any of the changes made to the system. You know kinda like how they announce their PC will take screenshots of 3verything you do, realize everyone and their mother absolutely hates the idea, bench it for a year or two, then burry the announcement in a change log of an update noone will see that its coming back.😂
I like to think their policy is, “If you never close a single door you opened, you’ll never have to face a closed door ever again!” With the small print that says, “and fuck anyone who complains about the furnace they’re paying for to heat the house they paid for that is now heating the whole neighborhood.” 🍻
There’s a stack overflow post here. I’ve had the same thought about being able to scroll down a walkthrough in the browser on the second screen. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/53437494/is-there-a-way-to-make-multiple-windows-active-at-one-time-in-windows
Hahaha really thats all I wanted to do too. To be able to scroll through the game settings or in-game mod settings and also scroll thru the online tutorial at the same time in a more streamlined way than bouncing back and forth between screens and controllers. So many times I unplugged and replugged in my controller cuz the usb port is sketchy and my controller will disconnect sometimes even though it’s plugged in but everytime all it was, was that I never re-clicked on the game’s screen to unpause it. 🍻
game in question needs to have background input enabled. This is common in emulators, but I haven’t seen it in anything else.
edit, i only read the title, not the body of the post.
So I’ll tldr the relevant bit from the body relating to your reply, earlier this year on the same PC and Windows OS I was able to edit the settings.ini file that fallout 4 uses by adding parameters for always keeping the window on top when game is not the active windows in focus, also to always keep the game active so it would continue running even though it was idle, and 1 or two more lines for related display options that I can’t remember off top of my head.
Not arguing with you or saying you are wrong, I mean fallout 4 is technically approaching antique status it’s so old but I’m just holding out hope that I can find a way to edit some file in the Witchet 3 build files that would have the same effect. I’m just not holding my breath on it lol.🍻
