Specs for Multiboxing on 1 PC - Feedback requested

[Ellay]

I'd like to generate some feedback from the community on what type of settings you feel are the minimum requirements to Multibox off of on 1 PC.

There would be 3 categories,

2 Boxing

3-4 Boxing

5 Boxing

From there outline the processor power, ram, etc so we can outfit newcomers with what they need to know to get started easily. We can review these setups every couple of months to make sure they are up to par :)

[Sina]

Reserved ( creating post )

[zanthor]

3-5 Boxing on a single box.

AMD Athlon Phenom 9600 (2.3ghz)
4GB Ram
3 SATA Drives, however OS is on one, WoW on the 2nd, and the 3rd is for FRAPS dumps.
Nvidia 8800GT w/512MB Ram
Windows Vista

I can run 5 copies without problems, Shattrah can be laggy at times. I set graphics settings to low on 4 slave accounts, high on the main client.

Without adjusting the details (high on everyone) I can easily run 4 clients, but sometimes the drive will start to spin as memory pages out and the system obviously slows down a lot there.

[KSboxers]

I five box on one PC. I do get a little lag in town but other than that i'm fine. So mine would probably be the absolute min to operate without getting angry.

Pentium 3ghz

Single hard drive (only partition i have is my OS backup)

2GB ram (i would like to bump it up to 4GB but that would require a new OS)

Windows XP (vista would probably require more... resources hog!! (Please don't tell Bill Gates on me Ellay!!))

Old Radion 1600 w/512MB

I set main on high graphics settings and slaves on far lowest. I also set keyclone to run slaves at max 10fps since i don't look at those screens except to loot.

[brasssmunky]

i run 2 chars
running
e8400 at 4.0ghz
6gigs ddr2 800mhz ram
geforce8500GT (yeah, i need a new card for sure.)


i run my main WoW window with max settings AND the commands to make everything look just a bit prettier
lol
and my other WoW window is lowest settings, because i dont care about it
i have my main window set to 45/31 FPS (focused/unfocused)
and the other one to 45/31
everything runs greeat

[Sn00k]

Hi there

I run 4-5 characters on a single PC. One pala (70), three shamans (45) and a priest (45). These are my specs:

Pentium Dual Core 2.13 Ghz

4GB Ram

400 GB HDD

Nvidia 7500 LE

Windows Vista

Runs fine, just some lag in Shatt. Main account got a lot of addons and graphics set to medium. Slaves got a minimal amount of addons installed and graphics set to low. The key imo is to make sure i got all the latest drivers for my graphic card and the latest version of keyclone installed. :D

Good luck mate, Sn00k 8)

[Babbaganoosh]

I run 5 on my pc as well. I used the technique in this link to symbolically link 5 directories together. Essentially it allows multiple directories to run the common files from 1 directory. It lightens the load on your HDD and your PC in general. I really think it is the key to getting good performance from a single PC running 5 copies.

PowerShell script to create symbolically linked (mklink) copies of WoW ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=4854')

It also allows for only needing to update one set of mods/addons while keeping the custom settings seperate for each directory. It's a little techy, but its worth trying.

oooh, forgot my specs

c2d E8400 processor (3GHz)
4gig ram
1 380g HDD (7200 rpm, nothing special)
nvidia 8800gtx vid card

I can run 5 instances of wow across 2 monitors with Winamp and a Firefox open in the background. I have almost no problems except for high pop cities like Org.
I have my FPS capped at 55 on my main window and at 20 on my slave windows on the second monitor.

[BobGnarly]

I think there is important information that you need to know before you can answer this question.

A big one is the screen resolution that you are planning to run. I run 2560x1600 on my main client, which has been fine until I just recently hit outlands. Now, it's a slideshow and I'm convinced I just need to upgrade the video card (8800gtx atm). So while an 8800gt might be OK at some resolutions, it might not at others.

Another is what you plan to do. I can deal with a little less framerate/more lag for pve, because it's predictable. In pvp, that gets you killed.

There are others, but those are the big ones. If you are asking because you are considering it for yourself, maybe just let people know what specs you are considering. If you are thinking of a resources for this site, maybe we'll need some sort of table or chart format?

[-silencer-]

There are so many factors involved, and most of it depends on your budget.

However, if someone needs to start from scratch without blowing too much cash, here's my advice:
Don't bother 5-boxing on one monitor. I tried 5 windows on 1920x1200, and it's tough to see the smaller windows, especially when opening the bank/bags. Don't bother with dual-core. Yes, it can be done, as I had 5-boxed on an overclocked E6600 for a long time. Don't do it - you're running 5 process-intensive applications, so give it 4+ cores and set affinity properly.

Monitors: Any size monitor for your main, but at least a 20" widescreen for 4 alt windows (4x windows at 840x525). It is a very helpful upgrade to put the alts on a 24" (or any 1920x1200 resolution) monitor. Each window is now 960x600. Another possibility is 3 monitors: one for main, and 2 similar 19" (1280x1024) or 20/22" widescreen (1680x1050) monitors for two alts each.

CPU: Due to how inexpensive (sub $200) the Q6600 is, I'd put that as a recommended minimum for 5-boxing. Preferably the Q9450 for 12MB cache and 45nm process, yet still be relatively affordable.

Mobo: P45/X38/X48/680/750/780/790 chipset motherboard. You want at least 2x PCI-x16 slots (preferably x16 electrical on both, but x8 isn't too bad for secondary video), but SLI/Crossfire isn't necessary. RAID support is a plus. ICH9R or ICH10R do well.

RAM: 2x2GB (4GB, with 2 slots open to expand to 8GB if running many add-ons or background tasks) Speed isn't important, as long as it's at least as fast as default FSB rate. DDR2-800 = FSB 400MHz. Q6600 = 266MHz FSB = DDR2-533. Q9450 = 333MHz = DDR2-667.

Videocard(s): 8800GT 512MB or higher as a minimum. You'll get higher fps for more money.. 9800GTX, HD4850, GTX260, HD4870, GTX280, HD4870x2. Remember that larger/more monitors = more pixels to render, so more expensive/multiple cards may be necessary depending on your displays.

OS: Vista64. There's no reason to limit yourself to ~3.2GB RAM with 32-bit or bad multi-monitor fps with XP.

Hard Drives: At least a 7200rpm drive. This will be playable most of the time, but there are times where you can spend a lot of money for higher speed. Using symlinks is important. Having WoW on a separate 7200rpm drive from your OS will be an improvement. RAID0 is a plus for transfer times, but faster access from 10k rpm drives or SDD is more important to reduce lag in high-traffic areas.

Software: KeyClone, Octopus, HotKeyNet, AutoHotKey, etc. It's your choice, but there's a reason KeyClone is so popular.. it'll save you a lot of time getting set up, and is much easier to adjust on the fly than AHK.

[Nitro]

I noticed a few of you choose Vista

Why would someone choose Vista over Windows XP. I've spent tons of cash on hardware trying to add this and that to sqeeze out as much fps out of my 5 box setup and I also ran XP vs Vista vs Vista64.

XP Pro 32 with 4GB ram, multiple harddrives, dual monitors in span mode (3200x1200) and a single top end video card won out every time.





OS: Vista64. There's no reason to limit yourself to ~3.2GB RAM with 32-bit or bad multi-monitor fps with XP.



You dont need more than 3.2GB RAM to 5 box and if you run spanned mode in xp its actually better fps than vistas multimonitor support.




My current Setup:

Q6700 Processor
ASUS Extreme Striker MOBO
8GB RAM (3GB Available under Windows XP)
Dual 9800 GTX (I only use one card under XP to run both monitors spanned at 3200x1200)
5 x 10k RPM Raptor Drives
1 x 500GB OS Drive
2 x NEC MultiSync LCD2070VX
Dual Boot Windows XP Pro 32 / Vista Ultimate 64


If someone thinks I should really be better off under Vista 64 please let me know what tricks im missing out on :p

[emps]

It's hard to define minimum requirements as "minimum" falls under what's acceptable FPS/Quality to a gamer... However, it may better help as a guide to just post our setup (sw/hw) + FPS + game settings. This is so that everyone has a measure of the game's performance w/ multiple setups prior to buying/building any system even if it's not "minimum".

I have 2 specs I can list here (plus another in a couple more days). The only ware changing from one spec to another is the video card.

SPEC1 (5 wow instances)




MB: Asus Rampage Formula X48
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (2.4Ghz)
RAM: 8GB DDR2 1066
HDD: 3x SATA 3.0 80GB (all 3 in raid 0 - stripe)
VID: EVGA Nvidia GTX 280
DISP: 1x Samsung TOC 22" and 1x Gateway 24" (both running on 1 vid)
OS: Windows Vista Ult 64 (note the amt of ram)
Game settings




Main screen runs on 22" @ 16x10 res (full) and 4 clones run on 24" @ 16x10 (entire monitor is split evenly into 4 screens 960x600)
Game settings are set to medium w/ vert sync enabled
FPS - mid 20s-high30s on main screen in Shat while flying (hovering up and down) w/ main (atop flightmaster area) and clones are in Shat bank - density of people at the time, med-high.
SPEC2 (5 wow instances)




MB: Asus Rampage Formula X48
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (2.4Ghz)
RAM: 8GB DDR2 1066
HDD: 3x SATA 3.0 80GB (all 3 in raid 0 - stripe)
VID: EVGA Nvidia GTX 260 (temp replacement for an RMA'd GTX 280 for overheating)
DISP: 1x Samsung TOC 22" and 1x Gateway 24" (both running on 1 vid)
OS: Windows Vista Ult 64 (note the amt of ram)
Game settings




Main screen runs on 22" @ 16x10 res and 4 clones run on 24" @ 16x10 (entire monitor is split evenly into 4 screens)
Game settings are set to medium w/ vert sync enabled
FPS - mid10s-low20s on main screen in Shat while flying (hovering up and down) w/ main (atop flightmaster area) and clones are in Shat inn.

SPEC3 (5 wow instances) [GTX 260 will be replaced with ATI 4870 X2 and will post when it arrives]

I hope this helps a bit. Shattrath is a killer anyway.. So expect a good 10-20 FPS outside of Shat. Also the dual monitors are probably taxing my card as well. Let's see what the 4870X2 is made of...

EDIT: I chose to put 8GB of memory as my instances are taking around 400MB each (need to verify this later - addons). That's already around 2.5Gb.. Then feed vista and the rest with 700ishMB? Hrm, I don't think so.

[Sam DeathWalker]

If you are only going to run 4G ram then you don't need vista. I have a motherboard with 512K ready boost on it:

http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?threadid=240224 which may or may not help asus M2N32-SLI premium vista edition. Its a nice board cause its also silent and will take am2plus.

Anyway I see 3.66 gig in the task manager, which is great cause I use Win2K. So I can use a non memory hog OS (dont use norton eaither), and have 3.6g ram available.




vista and the rest with 700ishMB? Hrm, I don't think so
Which is why I use win2K.

Just got a 9600 nvidia on my main computer (again no fans), and the 9550 quad core phemon (by far the best price per perfomance ratio). Again the X600 (6600, 7600, 8600, 9600 is the price perfomance area of the nvidia line). So although others do have better systems, I thinks bang for the buck my system is the best.

http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/index.html?dir=qa&location=ben_perf_vs_cost&langx=en&a=

anyway point being dont get 64 bit vista unless you going to 6-8 GiG. I have EQ / Wow on a 80G or so raptor.

And if you want to drool a bit, I have FOUR 1920 X 1200 HP 2335 monitors (which have the EXACT SAME PANEL as the 23 apple monitor), and two Dells 20 inch which also have the same panel as the 20 inch apples. http://www.apple.com/displays/specs.html

The poster above me does have a much better system, as compared to anyone of my computers but I think my six will overall do better. Of couse Ill only be running one instance on my main computers and 5X on the other 5, so Ill have the benifit of very high effects on the main with very high fps (running one instance doh).



To get back on track the OP advise I think should be that you should get the best your budget allows, and then just get more computers of the same if you budget is bigger, and set up your total system to take advantage of a larger number of best for the buck computers vs. same money on single or two better computers. So, quad core AMD with whichever nvida X600 you can afford (and 4 gig ram, and a raptor or raid). Then just more of the same if yur rich. Or upgrade to 64bit os and 8 gig ram (but no 64bit os with under 8 gig ram). XP is fine, Im using 2K cause Im still using the same registry I had 7 years ago - can you belive it? I just keep moving the same OS/Registry to my new computers lol ...

[wowphreak]

I run 3box on p4 3ghz with 2 gigs of ram running XP I can run 4 inside an instance. And if I slap on another 2 gigs I would be able to 5 box with ease.

This is basically running them all at the lowest res with all the effects turned off.

For all those people who dont understand about XP and 4 gig limit:
Xp can use up to 4 gigs of memory. If yeh dont see 4 gigs displayed its because its being used for something.

Vista is kinda a side grade it aint no upgrade. If yeh get vista64 yeh trade off performance for the ability to use more the 4 gigs of memory.
If yeh get vista 32 yeh loose performance and still cant use more then 4 gigs of memory.

So if yeh get vista64 get over 4 gigs of memory and at least a dual core.

if yeh get vista32 and have 4 gigs of memory be prepared to lag a lil in any major city with lots of people in it.

if yeh got vista yeh need a semi decent graphics card anything that was made in the last year or so.

Most people dont have a problem with hardware its the software they cant grasp.

You dont need a quad core anything to be able to 5 box with decent fps.

[emps]

anyway point being dont get 64 bit vista unless you going to 6-8 GiG. I have EQ / Wow on a 80G or so raptor.

And if you want to drool a bit, I have FOUR 1920 X 1200 HP 2335 monitors (which have the EXACT SAME PANEL as the 23 apple monitor), and two Dells 20 inch which also have the same panel as the 20 inch apples. http://www.apple.com/displays/specs.html

The poster above me does have a much better system, as compared to anyone of my computers but I think my six will overall do better. Of couse Ill only be running one instance on my main computers and 5X on the other 5, so Ill have the benifit of very high effects on the main with very high fps (running one instance doh).




1. I agree on only using Vista if you're going more than 4gigs.

2. Disk I/O on 2 or more small drives, raid 0 is recommended for best performance. This is why i opted for little drives (littlest I found in my local B&M).. Only if I can easily buy 40GB drives i would have gone for it and bought 4 (again on raid 0)..

3. I am definitely drooling. I don't quite have the space for them as my office has been converted into a nursery or at least 3/4 of it.. 8|

4. 6x independent systems running one client each > 1 system running 5 clients (i'll check the FPS when the 4870 arrives)... Though i must argue that when I ran one instance alone with max settings on 19x12 (vert sync off) i was up to 80+FPS on Shat doing the same thing. This was on the 280. Not sure about 260.

Edit: I got curious and started to lookup AMD Phenom 9550 and Intel Q6600 - AMD is cheaper by 20 bucks but is lagging behind on the tests i've seen.. (benchmarks starts here http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-phenom-athlon,1918-16.html) Again, i'm not raising anything.. I just got curious.

[Mokoi]

I can run 5 just fine. Loading shattrath is no picnic, but instances and arenas, BGs and most world areas are just fine.

AMD 6000+

2Gigs of RAM

1 HDD

9800 GTS

that's all. you dont need anything more fancy.

[emps]

Suggestion: It'd be nice to get actual FPS on main screen and the resolution and settings used... Reason being is, gameplay varies per user. While one maybe content with 20FPS with low settings another's baseline maybe 40 FPS with med settings.. etc.. Being objective in this regard is more helpful, IMO.

[wougoose]

Note that there also is a performance difference if you are capping the alternate instances to a certain FPS limit. This limiting can make a big difference on what hardware you need :)

How many pixels do you want to render? (How many monitors? How big will each instance be?)
What kind of FPS is considered playable to you? (Varies from person to person)

I agree with others that we should list hardware specs based on FPS desired. Maybe benchmarks in a given area (Shat maybe?)

[Elix]

My 5 Boxing setup:

Q6600 clocked @ 3ghz
4gig RAM
ATi HD 4870
3x SATA HD's (OS & acc1 on main drive, 2 acc's on each other one)

22" Widescreen monitor filling up the 1980 x 1050 res with all the wow windows
I locked the main to high & 60fps, all others 30fps

Only get lag in shat really.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Never put in less then 4 Gig in your machine, ram prices is dirt cheaps.

[Zaelar]

Pentium 4 3.0 ghz
3 gigs of ram(I don't remember it's speed but it isn't the fastest)
ATI raedon x600 w/ 256 mb ram

Runs 5 on minimal settings in slightly shrunk windows at a playable state. Does lag notably in org though, haven't done 5x shat yet.
Runs 4 without shrunk windows pretty smoothly.
Runs 3 great.

With only 1 gig of ram it did not run 3(would crash after a short time). Running 2 was ok, but I don't remember how well it was.

[Kaynin]

I wouldn't go anything less then dualcore at the least and quad core for 4-5 characters.

[Steph]

Intel Quadcore Q6700, MSI P45 Ultimate, 8GB, 2x ATI Radeon 4850, Vista Ultimate 64bit.

The Q6700 runs at default 2.67GHz. The P45 chipset has a shortcomming that I was not aware of when I bought the board, it supports only 8x, if both PEG slots are in use, instead of 16x on both like the X48 does. There is a compatibility issue between P45 and ATI 4800, resulting in system freezes as soon as the crossfire bridge and the drivers are installed (I tested each card and slot separately, it's not a defective card or slot). Ultimate is not necessary of course, but 64bit gets rid of the annoying 32bit memory limitation. I saw 6GB memory used as max when fiveboxing so far, so that should really help. I don't use any fancy fast HDDs, two generic 500GB Samsung SATA drives in Raid 0 do the trick for me.

I have two woW installations. This is just me being lazy with settings and addons, keeping a full monty and a barebone installation.

[Fef]

I run five character on an iMac :

- Windows XP Bootcamp partition
- Dual 2.8 GHz processor
- 4 GB RAM (not all usable because of 32 bits windows XP)
- Overclocked Radeon HD2600XT

The alts are ran on tiny 400x300 windows with graphical detail set to low and only 5 frames per seconds (all details available in this thread (http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=12409).

I get close to 30 FPS on the main window most of the time, but it can lag when entering capitals.

All in all not only playable, a very nice gaming experience.

[Aethon]

Never put in less then 4 Gig in your machine, ram prices is dirt cheaps.Make sure your OS can handle more then 4 gb of ram, first.

[emps]

Intel Quadcore Q6700, MSI P45 Ultimate, 8GB, 2x ATI Radeon 4850, Vista Ultimate 64bit.

The Q6700 runs at default 2.67GHz. The P45 chipset has a shortcomming that I was not aware of when I bought the board, it supports only 8x, if both PEG slots are in use, instead of 16x on both like the X48 does.

What do you get FPS-wise from Shat around the flight master while flying/moving around?

Wow! I didn't know about the 8x/8x limitation on the p45. That sux!

[Coke]

5 Boxing.
Intel Q6600.
Powercolow HD4850.
4 Gigs RAM.
850 watt PSU.

[TheBigBB]

I'm running a dual-quad core 2.8 GHZ Mac Pro with 4GB Ram and NVIDIA 8800 512MB video card.

I can run 5 windows at once with mid settings, but that will lag up in a town, so I keep it all at low settings and it's usually fine. The only time I ever have any jumpiness is when I hit the center of Shatt or around auction houses. I don't have the FPS or screen resolution set any different on any windows, since I really would rather be switch mains on the fly if something bad happens, but I'm sure I would run 100% smooth all the time if I did. This setup is definitely A+ for 5-boxing. It can even hit up to 60FPS on each window at times.

[Sanctume]

Computer 1. Alienware 9750 (laptop) Core2Duo 2.6 Ghz, 2GB DDR2 RAM, 2x SLI 8800GT.

with a single 17" LCD @ 1920 x 1200 res, 4-box using maximizer was still playable with the "main" having a larger resolution.
with 2 monitor 17" LCD + a 20" wide LCD, 5-box was great.

Computer 2. Home built. AMD 64 X2 4400+ Brisbane Dual Core AM2, 2GB DDR2 800 RAM, 1x Asus 7600GT 256MB 128-bit PCI x16.

with a 20: wide LCD @ 1680 x 1020, 4-box was kinda sluggish, and harder to "see" having 4 equal resolution split in 1 monitor.
with a 20: wide LCD @ 1020 x 1680 (portrait), 3-box is workable for a slave-box, with UI scaling, chat window is still readable.

Computer 3. Home built. AMD 64 X2 4400+ Toledo Dual Core socket 939, 2GB DDR 400 RAM, 1x eVAG 7800GT 256MB 256-bit PCI x16.

functions the same as Computer 2.

With those 3 computers, I can 10-box comfortably.

[Hachoo]

A lot of what people say is required to run something is way higher than you actually "need".

I'm 5 boxing on a single PC, my specs are:

Athlon X2 2.2GHz
3GB RAM
GeForce 8600GT graphics card
2 7200RPM SATA II drives

2 copies of wow on the first drive, 3 on the second, 2 copies on CPU 0 (main and 1 clone), 3 copies on CPU 1

Primary account is set to 1024x768 with objects set to far, all other details set low
4 clones are set to 800x600 with objects set to far, all other details set low

This is actually very fast outside, and completely bearable in Org (not high enough to go to Shatt yet but org has just as many people clustered in the bank/mailbox/AH area so I assume it will be pretty similar).

I could definitely see being able to run the main account at 1152x864 or maybe 1280x1024 without issues, just haven't tried it.