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Split screen is a display technique in computer graphics
Computer graphics

Computer graphics are graphics created by computers and, more generally, the representation and manipulation of pictorial data by a computer....
 that consists of dividing graphics and/or text into non-movable adjacent parts, typically two or four rectangular
Rectangle

In geometry, a rectangle is a Closed set planar quadrilateral with four right angles. A rectangle with vertices ABCD would be denoted as .A rectangle with adjacent sides of lengths a and b has area ab and diagonals of equal length ....
 areas. This is done in order to allow the simultaneous presentation of (usually) related graphical and textual information on a computer display
Computer display

A visual display unit, often called simply a monitor or display, is a piece of electrical equipment which displays images generated from the video output of devices such as computers, without producing a permanent record....
.






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Splitscreen 16 9
Split screen is a display technique in computer graphics
Computer graphics

Computer graphics are graphics created by computers and, more generally, the representation and manipulation of pictorial data by a computer....
 that consists of dividing graphics and/or text into non-movable adjacent parts, typically two or four rectangular
Rectangle

In geometry, a rectangle is a Closed set planar quadrilateral with four right angles. A rectangle with vertices ABCD would be denoted as .A rectangle with adjacent sides of lengths a and b has area ab and diagonals of equal length ....
 areas. This is done in order to allow the simultaneous presentation of (usually) related graphical and textual information on a computer display
Computer display

A visual display unit, often called simply a monitor or display, is a piece of electrical equipment which displays images generated from the video output of devices such as computers, without producing a permanent record....
. Split screen differs from windowing system
Windowing system

A windowing system is a component of a graphical user interface , and more specifically of a desktop environment, which supports the implementation of window managers, and provides basic support for graphics hardware, pointing devices such as mice, and keyboards....
s in that the latter allows overlapping and freely movable parts of the screen (the "windows
Window (computing)

In computing, a window is a visual area, usually rectangular in shape, containing some kind of user interface, displaying the output of and allowing input for one of a number of simultaneously running computer processes....
") to present related as well as unrelated application data to the user, while the former more strictly conforms to the description given in the above paragraph.

The split screen technique can also be used to run two aspects of an application, with possibly another user interacting with the other perspective.

In video games

Split screen feature is commonly used in non-networked
Computer network

A computer network is a group of interconnected computers. Networks may be classified according to a wide variety of characteristics. This article provides a general overview of some types and categories and also presents the basic components of a network....
 video games with multiplayer options.

In its most easily-understood form, a split screen for a two-player video game is an audiovisual output device (usually a standard television
Television

Television is a widely used telecommunication mass-media for transmitting and receiving moving , either monochrome or color, usually accompanied by sound....
 for video game console
Video game console

A video game console is an game development that produces a video signal which can be used with a display device to display a video game. The term "video game console" is used to distinguish a machine designed for consumers to buy and use solely for playing video games from a personal computer, which has many other functions, or arcade machi...
s) where the display has been divided into two equally-sized areas so that the players can explore different areas simultaneously without being close to each other. This has historically been particularly popular on consoles, which until the 2000s did not have access to the Internet
Internet

The Internet is a global network of interconnected computers, enabling users to share information along multiple channels. Typically, a computer that connects to the Internet can access information from a vast array of available server and other computers by moving information from them to the computer's local memory....
 or any other network.

The only alternative for multiplayer games would be to have a separate television set for each player - this would require the console itself to have separate output wires with different signals for each television. Although 82% of homes in the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 have more than one television (and this figure would have been even lower during the rise of consoles during the 1980s-1990s), very few people would have more than one in the same room. Therefore, games consoles were not designed to offer this facility for multiplayer games.

One specific issue with split-screen multiplayer is screen peeking, where one player examines opposing players' screens to gain a sometimes unfair advantage. Some console games have gone to the length of supporting tiny auxiliary displays in each player's controller as a counter-measure.

See also

  • Tiling window manager
    Tiling window manager

    In computing, a tiling window manager is a window manager with an organization of the screen into mutually non-overlapping frames, as opposed to the more popular approach of coordinate-based stacking of overlapping objects that tries to fully emulate the desktop metaphor....