qalarc.com / projects / linux-gaming-splitscreen

Linux Gaming Splitscreen

A project by Qalarc — AI systems studio, Sydney, Australia. Built, shipped and maintained by Qalarc.

Two Steam instances on one screen — local co-op on Linux with sandboxed accounts and controller splitting

LinuxSteamProtonGamescopeFirejailBashVulkan

Two Steam instances running on one Linux machine — local co-op gaming without a second PC.

Linux makes what Windows hides possible: two full Steam clients, two sets of input devices, and a split-screen window layout on a single display. Each player gets their own session; the compositor divides the screen.

The project documents the setup end to end — sessions, input separation, window management — so couch co-op doesn't require buying a console.

Capabilities

Two simultaneous Steam instances
Gamescope splitscreen
Controller input splitting
Works with Proton/Wine
AMD RDNA 3.5 optimisations
MangoHud per instance

Linux Gaming Splitscreen

Capabilities

Tags