Pointers to creating virtual monitor drivers for OS X

Asked 7/9, 2010 at 11:58 Answered 4/9, 2011 at 21:26

I'd like to create a virtual monitor driver for OS X. What I mean by virtual is a monitor driver that does not drive an attached monitor, yet fools OS X into thinking there is such a monitor attached.

The purpose? It can tunnel display data to some other device over some other protocol, say VNC.

I believe this has been done before in one form or another (perhaps those apps that turn your iPad into a secondary display).

Any coding/kernel hackery pointers on this would be appreciated!

Kiarakibble answered 7/9, 2010 at 11:58 Comment(2)

Well someone has done something along these lines - as commercial I doubt they'd want to share the information but suggests it's definitely doable. I presume as there other product is a VNC client it's VNC over a virtual window on the main machine. screenrecycler.com/ScreenRecycler.html – Labium 7/9, 2010 at 12:19

Any pointers to an open source OS X display driver? – Kiarakibble 20/9, 2010 at 10:36

After days and days of attempts, I found http://code.google.com/p/ioproxyvideofamily/ which works like a charm. Tried EWProxyFramebuffer, tried iDisplay, but this is the first one that actually works!

- Update -
Sounds like ioproxyvideofamily hasn't been kept up to date with new OS's. I haven't tried it (or any alternatives) since 10.7. If you find a better alternative, create a new answer to this question.

Conqueror answered 29/7, 2011 at 7:0 Comment(4)

Nick and @Kiarakibble - Is ioproxyvideofamily still working for you with the latest versions of OS X? – Binal 17/7, 2013 at 16:58

Sorry, I haven't had a need for it for a while. I think I last used it on 10.7, and it was fine. – Conqueror 17/7, 2013 at 20:25

Hey Nick, can you tell me if IOProxyVideoFamily was hardware accelerated? How fast was the display? – Fogel 21/10, 2014 at 21:0

Hey @Nick, I was looking for the same thing and just spotted your answer. Unfortunately the project hasn't been updated in a long time and doesn't work on osx 10.11. Would you happen to know an alternative ? – Oration 30/8, 2016 at 15:35

https://github.com/mkernel/EWProxyFramebuffer can do what you want. You have to compile it with xcode yourself and to install EWProxyFrameBuffer.kext to /System/Library/Extensions and EWProxyFrameBufferConnection.framework to /System/Library/Frameworks. Make sure all rights of the installed files are 755 and owner/group is root/wheel. Using EWProxyFrameBuffer.app, you can then de-/activate the monitor.

Indic answered 13/4, 2011 at 15:7 Comment(1)

This isn't hardware accelerated, though. Is there any way to do so? – Fogel 21/10, 2014 at 21:1

I try to get http://code.google.com/p/ioproxyvideofamily/ working. Is it Lion or is it me? Because it doesn't show in System Information/Software/Extensions. Also the provided applications doesn't work.

I'm about to check out the source to see if there is something fishy in there.

Blatman answered 4/9, 2011 at 21:26 Comment(1)

So now I downloaded the source, updated the builds to 10.7 SDK with 64-bit support. Corrected any errors and warnings. After installation, still nothing :( – Blatman 4/9, 2011 at 22:51

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