views:

109

answers:

3

i want to create a virtual monitor. The way this would work is that the virtual monitor would appear in a window on my desktop. As far as Windows knows it is just another monitor.

It occurs to me that it would, as a practical matter, have to be done as video card driver (i.e. rather than the video going out a wire to an LCD panel, it would go into another window on the desktop).

Does what i'm describing sound, technically, possible? (from a DDK point of view)

Note: i can't use a virtual pc, because no virtual PC has resolutions high enough for my needs. Also because it's not what i asked for.

Note: My reasons are unimportant, but i can make some up:

+2  A: 

I'd say it's definitely possible, since that's what virtualization tools do for their guest utilities, but I wouldn't be able to tell you how in details. I'd suggest looking at the VirtualBox guest driver code as a starting point: http://www.virtualbox.org/browser/trunk/src/VBox/Additions/WINNT/Graphics

(This is released under GPL as far as I'm aware.)

Bruno
I agree that it's possible. There are also drivers that output to an USB device, or the null driver from Windows XP Embedded, which prove that there's no need for a hardware graphics card.
OregonGhost
@OregonGhost Do you have any names, or links, of these things you're talking about? i've not heard of such things before.
Ian Boyd
Looks very useful as a starting point. You can in the source history where they extend the capabilities of the virtual video card to include features required to run Aero on Vista, and then Windows 7 features.
Ian Boyd
@Ian Boyd: Samsung has some USB screens (search for U70, for example) which come with a virtual display driver, though I guess they won't supply the driver code. The null driver is part of Windows XP Embedded (and likely later Embedded versions of x86 Windows). I think there's a trial, but I think that the driver code again is not available, even though it would be great, since it sounds like a really simplistic driver.
OregonGhost
@OregonGhost Honestly i'm not much interested in writing one - i'd like one. But i already asked the question about if one exists, and got no answers. So i'm resigned that i'd have to write one.
Ian Boyd
+2  A: 

It's definitely possible, see for example the UltraVNC mirror driver. But I don't know of any virtual video driver that makes source code available.

Ben Voigt
A: 

Don't know about Windows, but for X (Linux) there is Xvfb (X Virtual Frame Buffer), which is quite a useful thing.

troelskn