Virtual Display Drivers Knowledge Base | Getting Rid From Display Dummy Plugs

[pavlobu]

Hi everyone 👋 Here you can share your knowledge or useful links on how to create a virtual display. Any link to source code is highly appreciated.

P.S. I accidentally removed old discussion thread on this topic. And Github does not allow to restore a removed discussion thread :( Luckily there was not too many posts in it. But the knowledge is gone and let's hope good folks will repost it here.
So let's start again, I'll make sure it will NEVER EVER happen again!

[pavlobu]

by @gcombaj

Hi,

I found a virtual monitor driver on this site
https://www.amyuni.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3030

Initial testing on Windows 10 64bit shows it works for me.
Could we use this driver for Windows 10?

my replies are here

PLEASE let's continue discussion here if a solution is only knowledge based, but does not have any code to make it work and interface with Deskreen

[Zoupers]

I tried it on win11 21H2, it works. And I find the resolution can be adjusted from 1024 x 768 to 3840 x 2160. The refresh is fixed to 60fps.

[ArendelleLeah]

I can confirm this method works.

However, the resolution and refresh rate are fixed (1920x1080@60fps) and there is no source code.

Please read the idd_instructions.txt, and there is more information there.

可以看看idd_instructions.txt 这个文档, 里面有更多信息, 其中包括了修改默认分辨率的选项.

[ArendelleLeah]

With this method the virtual display disapear on restart.
Not very practical if the user is not the administrator of the device...

You can simply set TaskScheduler or place a shortcut to the batch file in your C:\Users\YOURUSERHERE\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
I tried it, But I found a bug. I add usbmmidd.bat to shell: startup, this bat is a default config, It worked, But if I restart my computer, it will install a new display driver, finally, I checked this bat, and I found this: @cmd /c deviceinstaller64.exe install usbmmidd.inf usbmmidd. so if you are not using usbmmidd first time, you should only use @cmd /c deviceinstaller64.exe enableidd 1 or @cmd /c deviceinstaller.exe enableidd 1. TIPS: I'm using administrator. And I'm so sorry, I'm not good at English and learning it, I hope this comment is useful for you.

我测试了一下,然后碰到了一个BUG,我把默认的配置文件增加到启动项,然后运行正常,但是如果我重新启动系统,这个东西会重新装一个显示器驱动,最后我检查了默认配置的bat文件,结果发现这文件里每次运行都会安装驱动文件, 最后我把运行的代码单独复制出来,然后一切正常了.

[stevetb777]

Look for the Windows driver SDK solution below, that is by far the best solution for Windows I found. It persists on startup and is immediately available to any startup apps that are looking for the virtual display. Set and forget.
This amyuni solution worked for me but not always, which was a problem.. and I'd have to do work to make sure it loads before my other programs that need the virtual display on boot.

[Burke111-DEV]

I tried it on win11 21H2, it works. And I find the resolution can be adjusted from 1024 x 768 to 3840 x 2160. The refresh is fixed to 60fps.

This was the solution to a major pain point for me.
For my application, I need to set custom resolutions for the virtual display, to match a phone screen. Every time I tried modifying the registry to set custom resolutions, nothing would happen.

The trick, as you said, was to make sure the resolution is within the minimum and maximum resolutions of 1024 x 768 to 3840 x 2160, in which case it seems to work well.
I also seem to have been able to achieve 768x768 but it's not very reproducible. Not sure what's allowing/disallowing it when it does work.
Otherwise, this usbmmidd tool works quite well on windows 10 for me.

Hope this helps someone out.

[pavlobu]

Christophe Leske shared this to me:
https://virtualmonitor.github.io/

works on older version Windows below windows 10

[gcombaj]

Looking around in Windows driver SDK I found that there is a Indirect display driver model.
More here:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/display/indirect-display-driver-model-overview
Microsoft also provided example code
https://github.com/microsoft/Windows-driver-samples/tree/master/video/IndirectDisplay

[pavlobu]

Thank you for sharing it here🙏 it was lost in old post that i accidentally removed :/

[Zeik0s]

I was thinking of Virtualbox, because i thougt it might as well have something in the source code there, and for this website also describes that the software is based on Sourcecode from Virtualbox. So someone understanding the virtualbox sourcecode could help.

[stevetb777]

This is the best method for Windows I have found!
Here's a discussion about this with links to drivers you can download and use without understanding how it works.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MoonlightStreaming/comments/rzpcpc/moonlight_streaming_without_monitor_no_dummy_plug/

[Artemis-chan]

This is the best method for Windows I have found! Here's a discussion about this with links to drivers you can download and use without understanding how it works. https://www.reddit.com/r/MoonlightStreaming/comments/rzpcpc/moonlight_streaming_without_monitor_no_dummy_plug/

Thanks, it works really nicely. It even got the source code.

[pavlobu]

Here is a virtual display driver for osx:
https://github.com/icedman/EWProxyFramebuffer

[rafaelverger]

Link is dead

[pavlobu]

Macos virtual display, fresh code there (latest Oct 24 2020)
https://github.com/rikhoffbauer/macos-virtual-display

[mischievous]

Link is dead

[pavlobu]

Linux virtual display:
https://github.com/dianariyanto/virtual-display-linux

Some users reported that it worked for them

[abe-101]

I just had success with this on debian 11 with KDE Plazma 

[pavlobu]

VirtualMonitor seems created for febian (no updates since 2014)
https://github.com/VirtualMonitor/VirtualMonitor

[pavlobu]

Weylus - use your tablet as drawing device for linux, may get some idea on how to use virtual display driver from there:
https://github.com/H-M-H/Weylus

[DominikNovosel]

This functionality is based on xrandr (already discussed below), specific to Intel drivers and the author cautions us about potential breakage of the X.Org server:
Intel's drivers support creating virtual outputs that can be configured via xrandr.
But first a word of warning: The following configuration may break starting the X server. This means you might end up without a graphical login or X may get stuck and just display a black screen. So make sure you know what you are doing or are at least able to recover from a broken X server.
Considering Deskreen is supposed to be simple to use, recovering from this would be very difficult in comparison.

[adammmmm]

This seems to do it well on macOS, and without kext-files

https://github.com/tml1024/FluffyDisplay

[alectrocute]

This is amazing. Excellent find.

[cristian-milea]

I managed to make MacOS 11.3.1 share a virtual screen to a Ubuntu 20.10 using FluffyDisplay and Deskreen.
It's a little bit laggy, but ok to use for chat apps.

[xros]

Thanks this works. But it doesn't have portrait mode. So grab this one it works: https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDummy It works with M1 Mac

[mvid-servoy]

Hmmm found that BetterDummy it is called now BetterDisplay. It's working fine with Deskreen on my mac (Macbook Pro 2019 with Monterey) and a very old iPad (v 12.x I guess from 2012) , though a short lag is noticeable. Links here: https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/63642/betterdisplay. or here https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay

[jswhisperer]

BetterDisplay is great for all types of macos

[pavlobu]

create virtual display with xrandr on Linux (issue on Deskreen github #42)
people say works really well!

[nik-field]

I'm sure you're not looking to support Hackintoshes due to their legal state but I've found a way to do this through the Whatevergreen plugin for Lilu. It involves injecting EDID data.

I used Hackintool to easily get the device path of my GPU, then in my config.plist added the device and the AAPL00,override-no-connect property set to the EDID data from current monitor.

I use Opencore so my config looked like this (note from the Whatevergreen link, the second '0' in AAPL00 is the display number you want to use):

I tried FluffyDisplay but found this method was more performant with less delay.

[pavlobu]

I by no means support violating license, but this is some awesome insight and hacking skills presentation👍

[pavlobu]

user on reddit has shared links with virtual display solutions for Linux:

great project! i wonder if the dummy plug could be replaced by some kind of virtual monitor like here: https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/378373/add-virtual-output-to-xorg

Edit: or this: https://askubuntu.com/questions/453109/add-fake-display-when-no-monitor-is-plugged-in

[Daryes]

Note that this solution only works with an intel integrated (or not) GPU.
The "VirtualHeads" setting exist only on intel's

[Daryes]

Something completely independant I've found was the advamation driver :
http://www.advamation.de/produkte/embeddedpc/advaboard_rpi1/advaboard_rpi1-latest/doc/advamationfb.html
Source is here: http://www.advamation.de/produkte/embeddedpc/advaboard_rpi1/software.html => advaboard_rpi1-20140626.tgz

This driver allow to create any number of /dev/fb? on the fly, but the max supported by the kernel is 8 (arbitrary constant).
It's working up to Ubuntu 16 / kernel 4 as is, but not after as it requires some changes to work with a more recent kernel.
Which is outside my knowledge.

It doesn't support hardware acceleration, as expected as it runs in pure software mode on the CPU.
This can cause some glitches with desktop which doesn't have a software fallback. I had no problem with gnome flashback / Metacity as a desktop manager.

One thing required is to place this file for xorg under /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/ and reboot. Otherwise, it won't know what to do with it.
Notice the "fbdev" "/dev/fb1" that need to be changed for each virtual FB created.

# help source : http://xpra.org/xorg.conf

Section "ServerFlags"
  Option "DontVTSwitch" "true"
  Option "AllowMouseOpenFail" "true"
  Option "PciForceNone" "true"
  Option "AutoEnableDevices" "false"
  Option "AutoAddDevices" "false"
  Option "AutoAddGPU" "false"
EndSection


Section "Device"
    Identifier  "Advamation Framebuffer"
    Driver      "fbdev"
    Option      "fbdev" "/dev/fb1"
    Option      "IgnoreEDID" "true"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
  Identifier "dummy_monitor"
  HorizSync   5.0 - 1000.0
  VertRefresh 5.0 - 200.0
EndSection

Section "Screen"
  Identifier  "Default Screen"
  Device      "Advamation Framebuffer"
  Monitor     "dummy_monitor"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier   "Advamation_Layout"
    Screen       "Default Screen"
    InputDevice  "dummy_mouse"
    InputDevice  "dummy_keyboard"
EndSection


Section "InputDevice"
  Identifier "dummy_mouse"
  Option "CorePointer" "true"
  Driver "void"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
  Identifier "dummy_keyboard"
  Option "CoreKeyboard" "true"
  Driver "void"
EndSection

```

[Daryes]

edited with the link to the source

[pavlobu]

@Daryes thank you for sharing it. It may help someone

[pavlobu]

by Christophe Leske,

just a quick note that on Windows 10, there is an easy way to add a virtual second monitor
Just hit the Windows key + P for getting the dialog to extend the monitor. By doing so, even if there is no other screen attached to the PC, you get a VGA monitor added in the settings:
and that one can then be modified and shared as second screen.

[Jogai]

This used to work on older windows 10 versions, but not on the latest one (at least not for me)

[multimedial]

I am puzzled by your comment, I think my Windows 10 version is pretty recent?

[pavlobu]

@multimedial maybe meaning older minor versions of Windows 10 it used to work? But now seems not working on newer minor versions of Windows 10

[behnamgolds]

I use xrandr for managing my real monitors ,turn off/on , move ,etc. Just tested deskreen with xrandr virtual mode on Archlinux and it works like a charm.

xrandr --addmode VIRTUAL1 1366x768
xrandr --addmode VIRTUAL2 1366x768
...

Also worth to say, it does not need root access.

you can also move the created display (left, right, ...) with xrandr itself or arandr its GUI frontend.

[behnamgolds]

Check xrandr's output by itself, see if there is any DP-0 already present there with the said resolution. I suggest since DP-0 is going to be a virtual display , just rename it to something else and try again.

xrandr --addmode VIRTUAL1 1366x768
xrandr --addmode VIRTUAL2 1920x1080

Since I dont have an nvidia card at my disposal ,I can't really try and regenerate your problem. But I have a feeling its not unresolveable.

[finia2NA]

+1 for xrandr on linux, I just copy-pasted myself a script together that works great :)
I just modified the script for vnc from This site.

#!/bin/bash
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
# "THE BEER-WARE LICENSE" (Revision 42):
# <k.bumsik@gmail.com> wrote this file. As long as you retain this notice you
# can do whatever you want with this stuff. If we meet some day, and you think
# this stuff is worth it, you can buy me a beer in return. - Bumsik Kim
# ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

    # Configuration
    WIDTH=1024  # 1368 for iPad Pro
    HEIGHT=768  # 1024 for iPad Pro
    MODE_NAME="mode_ipad"       # Set whatever name you like, you may need to change
                                # this when you change resolution, or just reboot.
    DIS_NAME="VIRTUAL1"         # Don't change it unless you know what it is
    RANDR_POS="--right-of"      # Default position setting for xrandr command
    
    # Parse arguments
    while [ "$#" -gt 0 ]; do
      case $1 in
        -l|--left)      RANDR_POS="--left-of"  ;;
        -r|--right)     RANDR_POS="--right-of" ;;
        -a|--above)     RANDR_POS="--above"    ;;
        -b|--below)     RANDR_POS="--below"    ;;
        -p|--portrait)  TMP=$WIDTH; WIDTH=$HEIGHT; HEIGHT=$TMP
                        MODE_NAME="$MODE_NAME""_port"  ;;
        -h|--hidpi)     WIDTH=$(($WIDTH * 2)); HEIGHT=$(($HEIGHT * 2))
                        MODE_NAME="$MODE_NAME""_hidpi" ;;
        *) echo "'$1' cannot be a monitor position"; exit 1 ;;
      esac
      shift
    done
    
    # Detect primary display
    PRIMARY_DISPLAY=$(xrandr | perl -ne 'print "$1" if /(\w*)\s*connected\s*primary/')
    
    # Add display mode
    RANDR_MODE=$(cvt "$WIDTH" "$HEIGHT" 60 | sed '2s/^.*Modeline\s*\".*\"//;2q;d')
    xrandr --addmode $DIS_NAME $MODE_NAME 2>/dev/null
    # If the mode doesn't exist then make mode and retry
    if ! [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
      xrandr --newmode $MODE_NAME $RANDR_MODE
      xrandr --addmode $DIS_NAME $MODE_NAME
    fi
    
    # Show display first
    xrandr --output $DIS_NAME --mode $MODE_NAME
    # Then move display
    sleep 5 # A short delay is needed. Otherwise sometimes the below command is ignored.
    xrandr --output $DIS_NAME $RANDR_POS $PRIMARY_DISPLAY
    
    # Cleanup before exit
    function finish {
      xrandr --output $DIS_NAME --off 
      xrandr --delmode $DIS_NAME $MODE_NAME
      echo "Second monitor disabled."
    }
    
    read -p "Press any key to delete the second screen..."
    
    trap finish EXIT

The finish function shows how to delete the 2nd screen when the program closes, that's why I thought I'd post it here

[tomchor]

I tried the xrandr --addmode VIRTUAL1 1024x768 command and the script from @finia2NA, but I keep an error:

$ xrandr --addmode VIRTUAL1 1024x768
xrandr: cannot find output "VIRTUAL1"

I'm not using any proprietary software that I know of, and I'm not very familiar with xrandr. I've also tried stuff like this, but it kind of split my laptop screen into two.

Any tips?

EDIT:

I was able to make it work after reading this: #42
Although it reset my wallpaper to be completely black. So another method is preferred....

[LJ-Court]

It's working for me but I'm getting a wierd issue where it basically tears on screen I've attached a photo of the issue

I use an amd rx5500 xt gpu and have amdgpu-pro drivers installed

any and all ideas are appreciated

[werzum]

hey, I had the same xrandr approach and same issues with the tearing screen. I found some SO answer (which I can not seem to find any more) that attributed this to GNOME not drawing/refreshing the "offscreen" area.
I however found an acceptable fix with deskreen for me :
use desckreen to share an application (eg. firefox for me) instead of the screen (still shows up as glitched) and move the application window offscreen. Voila, you have a working second monitor!
This probably works around the "Not refreshing" bug you are experiencing, since the app is always repainted anyways (which is probably horribly technically inaccurate, but you get the idea).

[ZhangTianrong]

There is this driver for Windows 7 and 10 here. I am just putting it here but not actually recommending it to everyone. Its description is written all in Chinese, it’s not free (costs $1.5 per installation, need to contact the developer directly) and is reported virus by Windows Defender, but it does work and has the option to change resolution, preview the virtual display and it seems possible to change the graphics card in use, which feels like more customizable than this.

[pavlobu]

Hi @ZhangTianrong . Thank you for sharing this solution with us. Although it is not free and not open source. It is good that you shared this with us and alerted the others about limitations of this solution. Maybe it will help others with their use cases.

Cheers,
Paul

[iSylleo]

The driver's author explained some of his development experiences here, here and here (this article needs VIP for reading), but they are written all in Chinese. I hope it will help.

[jswhisperer]

this works like a dream for macos I'm on ventura m1 chip
https://github.com/Stengo/DeskPad

[jswhisperer]

Also on macOS https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay#readme

[gomme600]

On debian, I can run these commands to create a virtual display:

xrandr --newmode $(cvt 1680 1050 | grep "Modeline" | sed 's/Modeline[^"]//')
xrandr --addmode HDMI-2 $(cvt 1680 1050 | grep "Modeline" | sed -n 's/."(.)"./\1/p')
xrandr --output HDMI-2 --mode $(cvt 1680 1050 | grep "Modeline" | sed -n 's/."(.)".*/\1/p') --left-of DP-1

You will have to change the resolution, DP-1 and HDMI-2 to something available on your system. You can see the available interfaces by running xrandr. DP-1 is my real display and HDMI-2 is the virtual one.

After this, the second "display" shows up in deskreen !

[ABeltramo]

Hello there 👋
I'm the creator of Games on Whales lately I've been working on Wolf: a GameStream backend (aka Moonlight) that allows to stream virtual desktops to clients with a particular focus on gaming.

It's currently Linux only, but I'm working into making an API so that anyone can use the core functionalities (make a virtual desktop, audio sink, input device, and so on...) without having to re-write it all; you can see an initial rationale here: games-on-whales/wolf#32

It would be cool to join forces in building this instead of duplicating the efforts!

[tvaknin]

Any idea how Spacedesk does it? anyway, the IDD sample drivers works great on windows 11
https://github.com/ge9/IddSampleDriver

[spudpiggy]

Seconded. This is what I use and, can confirm, it also works on Windows 10.

You can set custom resolution/framerate combos in the config and refresh by just disabling/re-enabling the display adapter in device manager. Put your clients' exact screen resolutions here so you can use the screen to its full extent.

btw, it supports up to five virtual monitors at once.

[lrq3000]

Yes I am also using this since a few months as I wrote above, still works great! #86 (reply in thread)

[pakair]

I'm interested since I bought a bunch of hdmi plugs so I can access my remote servers. using Mint 21.1 Cinnamon.

[luomoxu]

share two project
https://github.com/nomi-san/parsec-vdd
Standalone ParsecVDD, create a virtual super display without Parsec, upto 4K 2160p@240hz.
https://github.com/KtzeAbyss/Easy-Virtual-Display
Create virtual displays in Windows with ease, supporting a range of resolutions and refresh rates (such as 4K 240Hz). Ideal for remote control or graphics card spoofing.

[lrq3000]

Very interesting, especially the one with an easy GUI, and both are optimized for high refresh rates, thank you for sharing!

[oleg-rom]

Hello, maybe it was already asked here. I am using linux (ubuntu 23.10) with wayland. I bought the video adapter, but can only share an application screen. When sharing the entire screen, everything stays blank, nothing at all on my second screen. I've tried that on my android phone, and also on Google TV. I've used firefox, brave and chrome, but still nothing on the screen.

[tobycm]

I think it is because of the old electron version that doesn't support wayland screen sharing yet

[alosslessdev]

I downloaded and installed ultravnc and selected the virtual display driver during installation, then I opened and set up the included ultravnc viewer program according to their virtual display guide and clicked connect using the last IP address that appears on the windows system tray when hovering over the ultravnc server icon and then closed the ultravnc viewer window and opened deskreen to share the virtual display

[alosslessdev]

This was all done on a Windows 10 system

[Viper912]

https://github.com/itsmikethetech/Virtual-Display-Driver/discussions
THIS IS PERFECT SIMPLY A NEW VIRTUAL SCREEN without needing to be be a Developer , Follow the steps then Share the 2nd screen using deskreen or weyles or whatever you like

[t-chab]

Windows only though.

[jacob-talroo]

For Fedora Linux 40 / Wayland / Gnome, I just followed https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/119njgz/comment/kbsq2o9/ to use my Pixel Tablet as a travel monitor:

$ cat .config/systemd/user/org.gnome.Shell@wayland.service.d/persistent-virtual-monitor.conf 
[Service]
ExecStart=
ExecStart=/usr/bin/gnome-shell --virtual-monitor 2560x1600

It appears to be working pretty good on testing. I am still looking into running Deskreen in native Wayland and enabling GPU acceleration.

[aaravrav]

What about something for, something like, KDE?

[Jogai]

Windows driver made in rust for virtual desktop: https://github.com/MolotovCherry/virtual-display-rs?tab=readme-ov-file#virtual-display-driver (easy to get going.

[sofmeright]

Virtual Display Driver: Wizard
A GUI tool that can integrate with other software such as Sunshine for efficient manipulation (Install / Uninstall / Reload / Configure) of Indirect Display Driver Sample (IddSample) implementations like the HDR capable Virtual Display Driver from itsmikethetech that works on Windows 10/11. This installer/configuration tool is intended to provide a more elegant solution in place of needing to edit configs or use Device Manger for driver installation.

[katastrophe92]

Hello y'all. Which method works now without a Dummy Plug on Windows 11 and is there a step-by-step guide for noobs? I want to extend a virtual display on my Redmi android 14 tablet. Thank you.

[sofmeright]

Hello y'all. Which method works now without a Dummy Plug on Windows 11 and is there a step-by-step guide for noobs? I want to extend a virtual display on my Redmi android 14 tablet. Thank you.

Any indirect display driver is intended to be used without a dummy plug. I'd like to think the tool I created is as easy as it gets. There's also a few other implementations that do similar things but this one just plugs and plays nicely with sunshine in my testing. You could also use it with a different streaming backend if desired.

[enfp-dev-studio]

Hi! If you're looking for a simple way to extend your Windows 11 display onto an Android tablet, you might want to check out Tab Display, an app I developed. It's easy to set up, and works well with a Windows-Android combination.

[CyrilSLi]

For people using SwayWM on Linux, you can use swaymsg create_output to create a virtual display with the name HEADLESS- followed by a number. The resolution, scaling, and position can be set the same way as other outputs.

[jswhisperer]

Kinda vague is this sway https://llandy3d.github.io/sway-on-ubuntu/#introduction ? @CyrilSLi

[Honigmelone]

Hey, you can add a kernel parameter to fake an output: I have documented it for Ubuntu 22.04: loki-47-6F-64/sunshine#47 (comment)

[aspiers]

I would suggest using the GitHub wiki for knowledge base pages, instead of the Discussions feature which is not designed for that purpose. The Discussions feature is great for discussions, but using it as a knowledge base means that anyone who comes here searching for a solution has to wade through hundreds of historical messages in the hope of finding the info they need. A wiki page could collect and provide the info in a much more concise manner.