Hardware And other boxing Questions

[Shambler]

Im curently away from my PC hardware for an extended period.. and I am contemplateing some possible upgrades, and boxing more accounts. I would like to LDON alone sometime heh. Also, I may be able to take some easy to Bot(non melle / no pets) DPS along to raids with me If I didn't lag as much on them.

Presently I can 2-box on
P4 1.7GHz
Geforce 4 128MB (I don't recall exact model I bought)
1.5GB RAM
~70GB 7200RPM IDE U100 HD

I am wondering how many will I be able to Box with a 9800 pro added to that (costing me ~$200).
1024x768 with a smaller /viewport
Sound Off on all.
Models on?
Models off?
I would be willing to turn models off If absolutely necesary :). I have been playing without sound since sometime in Veilous.(I think I turned it off so I didn't have to hear the skeletons cackle as they still chased me through West Commonlands.. despite my level versus theirs..)

My fallback plan.. if  that dosn't work, keep that computer as is, and transplant it to the old 450,Mhz case, pitching its remains, save the CD drives, floppy. I have some spare PSU's powerfull enough for it.

Then I could get new core components for about ~$600 total
P4 2.8Ghz + Motherboard  ~$200
9800 Pro 128Mb                ~$200
1GB ram                          ~$100
SATA Hard drive               ~$100

Then in the future when I want to upgrade the 9800 Pro.. I can put it in the 1.7Ghz machine.

Any clue?
Anyone box more than 2 on one machine?
How fast and how far could 4 wizards go? :)
Does 4 Mages sound like fun w/ pets, or a pet managment nightmare?

I am thinking of a trinity + a ranger for new characters, or Just jumpstart PL a trinity with my druid.
clr war ench ranger

but then I think 2-boxing is 1 thing.. 4 sounds obsesive :D

[danaconda]

I currently box 3 chars on 2 machines. My main machine which I consider to be my "good" machine is pretty wimpy by today's standards. It is a P4 1.5ghz 640M RAM (PC133), just upgraded my vid card to a GeForceFX 5200 128MB RAM, 40GB hard drive 5400RPM. Like I said, nothing spectacular.

This is the machine I use 2 chars on (BST and CLR). I keep all models off (except Troll and Dark Elf males because that's what chars I play and also horses on) because I could care less what everyone else looks like. I don't get much lag with that combo. Only time I get lag is when rain starts (in Dulak's Harbor at least). I think that has to do with the fact that my sound is actually ON on one char.

I think if you were going to upgrade your video card you should be fine. Also I believe on Test Server (I could be wrong, I don't play there) SOE is fixing EQ so that it no longer uses so many resources when it's in the background. If that goes live I am going to be extremely happy!  :D

[Shambler]

using less resources would be great :)

I wonder if I took the Vodoo3 out of my 450MHz machine.. and put the Geforce4 in there.. if it could run 1 Character with all models off and no sound at a lower rezolution (say a bot cleric or wizard or bazaar trader). I used to use the Vodoo3 machine to keep my bazaar trader up. That worked up untill the DirectX 9 patch.. so I wonder if it can be done :).

[danaconda]

Doesn't hurt to try. I don't see why it wouldn't work. I used to use my Celeron 400mhz as a bot box also. Who cares about models anyways on a bot box?

Only reason I upgraded the box was because I wanted to try my hand at building a computer. Bought myself an Athlon XP 1700, bought up 512MB of PC133 RAM, picked up a new case and gutted my old Celeron. Works perfectly. I use all models on that box, but have graphics turned to "medium" in the settings.

Let me know how it works out  :)

PS. Running one of your bots on another machine is SO much easier! But if you're gonna use that character in combat, why not make it an active participant (if you're 3-boxing)? I use my necro on my bot box, and have my beast and cleric on same box. Cleric is incredibly easy to just switch screens press the heal button and switch back while he casts it. You will see much improvement in your groups abilities.

[Shambler]

I will be back home and able to play Aug. 12th or 13th (A total of 3 months of not having acess to my computer or Games.. ack)

I will try out a more active character on the second box to see how that goes. My only problem may be, if Im looking at one screen with luclin models on and then I look at one with models off, I get confused or motion sick from the visual diference :)