System Specs - 2 Box and beyond...

Ewenmarc · July 04, 2006, 12:04:19 AM

Ok, since this board has been extremely helpful in the past, I'm looking for the fine advice of those that are more tech savvy than myself :-D

I'm starting a 2 box with 2 different boxes (as opposed to 2 boxing on one machine...that comes later in this post) - Yay! I'm going to list the specs and let this post go where it may...

1st Box is a desktop w/ P4 3.0 GHz Processor, w/ 512 MB RAM and a NVIDA GE Force FX 5900 Ultra Video Card w/ 256K (DirectX version 9.0c)

2nd Box is going to run off a laptop...(shudders!!!) yes, a laptop. I know there will be critics - but adding another monitor and keyboard...I just don't have the space and it will bother me to look at the clutter when I'm not playing - so, I can fold up my 2nd box and get rid of it when I'm not playing. I see some good stuff on Dell's outlet site - looks like I can get about 2000 RAM w/ a 256K Video Card for less than I paid for the desktop that I'm using. I didn't mention the Processor because all Pentium 4 and up will work just fine, right?? How about Pentium M? I see a lot of those and am not familiar w/ that line - are they superior to P4?

Here's where I'm going with this post - I know I need 500 more RAM on the desktop to add another bot to it - and the laptop should be fine to make another - or would I be better putting 3 toons on the laptop (2000 MB RAM) and having the mele alone on the other machine?

I'm going to have a Pally, Shammy, Necro and YTBD - please advise how to set these 3/4 toons up on the above 2 machines and advice on what to add as a 4th in order to have a 4 box that can hunt named mobs and raid when they get to the right level.

Thanks all!

Ewen

hakaaba · July 04, 2006, 01:24:02 AM

I can't recommend a dell laptop for gaming. Mine's constantly underclocking itself because of heat issues. Do alot of research before you buy for sure and don't trust their specs :p

Khauruk · July 04, 2006, 03:34:43 AM

I'd go w/ mage or cleric for 4th personally. Or replace necro w/ mage (I love how mages can pull crazy stuff w/ green fire pets at higher levels). With cleric/shammy for heals, you can fight some heavy hitters, or move shammy into dps role w/ their DoN proc spells. Mages do good dps too....and have resist debuffs for their spells, though not as high dps/high debuffs as the necro. I do believe that the mage pulling capability would make up for it, esp. if you're trophy hunting. Lots of those things can be hard to pull.

Either way, I'd tie healers into hotkeys, on the second machine, as they're easily botted. If you have them on the first, tie them into a Nostromo gamepad, or similar. Mages would be easily botted too....just experiment w/ it for a bit, and see what works. It shouldn't take more than a couple days to find a good setup.

Merescata · July 04, 2006, 08:15:22 PM

I have a friend that uses a Dell I6000. 2 gigs of ram and a 256 meg video card are on it. It runs EQ very nicely. No heat issues either.

Taiglin · July 05, 2006, 05:18:22 PM

If you haven't boxed more then one toon on the same computer I would do that first to see how you like it before committing to running 3 on one. I know there are folks who do that normally (and do it well by all accounts) but I just don't find it fun. I run 3 accounts on 3 systems. To help manage desk space I have my second computer and a laptop hooked to a KVM and have a Nostromo N52 attached to the computer that is usually played "blind" 90% of the time. Works very well for me.

Griksh · July 06, 2006, 11:39:37 AM

Quote from: Taiglin on July 05, 2006, 05:18:22 PM
To help manage desk space I have my second computer and a laptop hooked to a KVM and have a Nostromo N52 attached to the computer that is usually played "blind" 90% of the time. Works very well for me.

How exactly does the Nostromo N52 work? I often have 2 or 3 toons running on one computer (all casters) and my Bst on the main computer. This sounds like a great device to stop me from having to change keyboards and mouse all the time in order to cast or move. Anyone able to tell me if i could set it up to run my ingame macros on each of the casters?

Taiglin · July 06, 2006, 12:40:05 PM

It is a USB gaming device that can let you program up to like 100 keys, buttons, macros, whatever. In its simplest form you tell it that when you click a certain button on the device that tells the game you pressed the number 1 button or whatever. The number 1 button is already tied to your first hotkey so the game processes whatever macro or command you have in that spot. You can also do things like build delays into the button so that it repeats the command every x sec or even repeats it until you press it again. You can also program it to type out commands in game (ie depending on what I am doing it types out to target one of my other toons and then the follow command). Anyway, not an overly great write up but you hopefully get the idea. Do a search in this section for the n52, n50 (less keys) and strategic commander. The downside to the n5x is that you can't program buttons while in the game itself so I tend to set my macros in game and have it just to single button pushes; I am not taking full advantage of in that regards but it works for me /shrug.

As to your particular situation are you running all three instances from the same folder? If so I think it will only process the command on the active instance but could be wrong. If they are running from separate folders you could, in theory, buy one of these devices for each folder. I think WinEQ or something like that has a deal where you can program it to switch instances with just one button. In that case (and in theory again) you could create a button that when pushed hits the number 1 key for one instance, switch instances, hit the number 6 key in the new instance, switch to the third and hit some other key.

darury · August 22, 2006, 02:59:12 PM

Quote from: Taiglin on July 06, 2006, 12:40:05 PM
It is a USB gaming device that can let you program up to like 100 keys, buttons, macros, whatever. In its simplest form you tell it that when you click a certain button on the device that tells the game you pressed the number 1 button or whatever. The number 1 button is already tied to your first hotkey so the game processes whatever macro or command you have in that spot. You can also do things like build delays into the button so that it repeats the command every x sec or even repeats it until you press it again. You can also program it to type out commands in game (ie depending on what I am doing it types out to target one of my other toons and then the follow command). Anyway, not an overly great write up but you hopefully get the idea. Do a search in this section for the n52, n50 (less keys) and strategic commander. The downside to the n5x is that you can't program buttons while in the game itself so I tend to set my macros in game and have it just to single button pushes; I am not taking full advantage of in that regards but it works for me /shrug.

As to your particular situation are you running all three instances from the same folder? If so I think it will only process the command on the active instance but could be wrong. If they are running from separate folders you could, in theory, buy one of these devices for each folder. I think WinEQ or something like that has a deal where you can program it to switch instances with just one button. In that case (and in theory again) you could create a button that when pushed hits the number 1 key for one instance, switch instances, hit the number 6 key in the new instance, switch to the third and hit some other key.

To expand a bit on Taiglin's comments:

I use the N52 in a limited fashion as well but combined with WinEQ from http://www.lavishsoft.com I can effectively 6 box on 3 computers.

Short summary:
Computer 1: Beastlord + Bard or Mage (depending on camps, pulls etc), Computer 2: Cleric + Druid, Computer 3: Shaman + Wizard

What I have is several variations on this hotkey for the N52:

Press Ctl-Alt-2 (switch to 2nd session)
Pause for 1 second
Press my /assist and nuke button (usually 2-3 nukes on 1 hotkey with appropriate pauses)
Press Ctl-Alt-1 (switch to 1st session)

Typically, the actual EQ macro will run much longer than it's actually ON the 2nd session. For instance, I can fire off 2 DoTs and snare with the druid in about 1.5 seconds of actual "screen-time" and have the cleric back to the active session for any heals.

The other thing I like to do, especially with the 3rd computer (since it's on KVM and basically blind) is to have my hotkeys in 2 different key-rows. So all of the shaman stuff such as slowing, debuffs, etc are row 1, while anything in row 2 is for the wizard. Just makes it a little easier to remember which key has who do what.

EDIT: Forgot to add, with WinEQ2 you can actually use different INI files for each character so it's not really necessary to have a new "install" of EQ for each character. I'm running about 5 different configs on my main machine depending on who I'm actually logging on at the time.