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Okay, so here is my situation. I have some software which looks for an installed Video Input Card and based on if it finds anything launches 1 of 2 Renderers, one that launches as fullscreen render window (like a game) and the other just has a minimized preview window and outputs the render information to the output card.

However, I don't always have access to the output card, but some second software really needs the application to launch in the second render window type. So I need to trick the machine to thinking the output card is installed.

However, I don't even know where to start. Any ideas?

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If it is a video card you need to emulate (and thats what i gather from your question), you might be able to get away with using some form of desktop extention software like zonescreen or maxivista, since these create a second emulated video card which you can access using some client.

If its a specific sort of output card, its trickier, and probably would involve writing a driver that looks like one of those cards.

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> If its a specific sort of output card, its trickier, and probably would involve writing a driver that looks like one of those cards. In which case good luck. – Synetech Dec 24 '11 at 23:47
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From what I gather, it sounds like all you need is another display adapter for the other program. In that case, you could try manually installing one (eg basic SVGA) via the Add Hardware Manager, and either disabling it or leaving it enabled, with the not-found warning.

If that does not work, you’ll need to find a virtual display adapter driver (similar to a virtual CD/DVD drive). Unfortunately there do not seem to be many at all (likely due to the comparably more limited usefulness); the only one I could find is 3D-Analyzer. It lets you emulate a (variety of older) video cards. I’m not sure how your program works, but if you can select the display to use, then that should work, otherwise you may need to adjust your primary output device in Display Properties.

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Does this emulate a better video card for a game (which might be useful for me, actually) or emulate a seperate adaptor? – Journeyman Geek Dec 25 '11 at 0:11
@JourneymanGeek, it depends. It was released a couple of years ago to allow people with weaker video cards to run games that their adapters could not support. It supports several different (at this time obsolete) cards, so it depends on the card you have. The main purpose is to allow a user’s system to emulate a video card with more memory and gfx features than the actual card has. (This is somewhat akin to those old Glide->OGL/DX wrappers that let people run games like Tomb Raider with enhanced graphics even if they didn’t have a Voodoo, except those did not increase the amount of VRAM.) – Synetech Dec 25 '11 at 3:31

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