Hardware 5-PC multiboxing setup questions

[Cernunnos]

So I'm curious what everyone else is doing in WotLK. Specifically, I'd love to hear from Vyndree and Suvega (and any other active 5-PC multiboxers). Have you changed your setups at all? Any new addons, software that you're using?
So my questions are primarily this:
1. Doing anything different from when you started?
2. How do you handle selecting flightmasters, quest NPCs, looting quest items, etc. I find this to be a near total pain in the ass. I use the KVM to switch control to 1 PC at a time. RAWR!
3. Do you use an 'everyone does something' button that you mash or do you control each action separately? For example, pressing 'ALT-2' might be bound to a castsequence on all toons (or all DPSers + tank rotation).
4. What software + addons do you use?

My current setup:

Hardware:
- 5x PCs + 5x monitors
- X-Keys Pro
- X-Keys Stick
- Vetra KM and KVM (all PS/2 - thanks Xzin!)

Software:
- (currently none on the 5-PC setup)

Addons:
- Action Bars - Macaroon (Trinity replacement)
- Unit Frames - PitBull
- Jamba (makes some things a little easier)

Misc:
- I play PvE only with a paladin tank (might switch to a DK just for kicks), 1 priest, 1 mage, 2 warlocks
- using /assist with explicit keybind for slave targeting
- using /focus party1target for setting CC on individual slaves
- I've experimented with both single PC (keyclone) and 5 PC multiboxing
- I setup the 'main' char to use keybinds {1, ..., =} and SHIFT {1, ..., =}. All slaves have those mapped to a NOP macro (no-operation, does nothing).
- I setup most slave actions to macros bound to LALT {1, ..., =} and RCTRL RALT {1, ..., =}, etc.. These are all activated via X-Keys Pro
- I handle healing via NUMPAD (0, ., 1, 2, 3) are bound to healer targeting. NUMPAD (4,5,6,7,8,9) are bound to different healer spells.

Issues:
- Clicking over to individual PC control via KVM is such a PITA.
- Switching from mbox to solo play (e.g., go raid on my priest with friends) requires changing my keybinds. I'm hoping that Macaroon's profiles work ok for me here (last time I tested, they did not seem to function properly but I need to check again with the new build). I could switch to using /focus for targeting and set myself as focus when soloing, but I'd rather not do this unless I have to.

Possible fixes/changes:
- Use Synergy + Multibox software instead of switching to PCs via the KVM (might make it faster to select flightmasters/NPCs?)
- Could switch to /cast [target=focustarget] instead of explicit /assist, but I'd prefer not to. This would make soloing easier.

Thanks for any input!

[Sam DeathWalker]

Dump the cpu hog pitbull for xpearl.

[Cernunnos]

Dump the cpu hog pitbull for xpearl.

Yeah, I've used X-perl in the past. I switched for some insignificant reasons, but I'm really not having any CPU issues at all. The machines are quite fast for the purpose. Aside from the unit frames preference, anything else you've found to mitigate the issues I'm having, Sam? I imagine that you are not clicking those 25 characters one at a time for quests, are you? *shudder*

[Nitro]

I use the KVM to switch control to 1 PC at a time. RAWR!

Sounds like you need seamless software switching, this is what I use: http://www.kavoom.biz/km/km_overview.html

As for addons Jamba and KeepFollowing, my two fav addons.

[Gomotron]

Just a tip if you switch to xperl. If you run any DK's you'll need a replacement add-on to display runes. The current xperl add-on doesn't display them (that I can tell).

[Ishar]

Yeah, x-perl + dk = no runes. I use ICE HUD as well as x-perl and it does display runes, meh.

If you want a free alternative to kavoom, get synergy or multibox. Both are really good, I prefer synergy, but use multibox on occasion for mouse broadcasting.

synergy makes the clicking soooo much easier.....

A few suggestions for you, after reading your misc. (I am also 5x pc 5x monitor).. Tho, as a disclaimer, I haven't actually level'd my 70's to 71 yet, or visited the new continent. I'm procrastinating for some strange reason).

I assume you have (didn't explicity say) some method to broadcast keys, since you have NOPs....
Why don't you try to exploint synergy for things that you commonly do? I bought an x-keys pro but havent had a reason to use it yet. (I am a bad bad boy =x) I try to keep everything on the keyboard, sofar successfully. The pally + shammys are threatening to spillover tho. Hmm. I can see where with a mixed team you'd have alot more keys than me, but still, a certain amount of synergy can be obtained...
For instance:

theres a 'tank' key that cycles through agro abilitys for the tank (pally)

a 'single target' dps key (currently just /cast LB, but if i ever level in wrath im gonna turn it into a /castsequence for the shammies. for hunters it /castrandom's melee and ranged abilities and i spam the hell out of it along with disabling sfx, single target castsequence for dk's).

A multi target key...( Multi-shot on hunters, CL on shammy/prot shield talent for pally/castsequence ending in pest and blood boil for dks...)

I use ctrl 1 through ctrl = for various utilities that don't get hit 'every fight'. (Eg, totems, raise dead, my panic button that has everyone heal or fd or whatever ) and alt 1 through 5 for healing, so can pretty much do everything i need to without moving my left hand. right hand floats around for mouse targeting/turning slaves/doing all the other weirdo keyblinds that arnt part of the number keys. lol.

There are some serious advantages to having controls on the x-keys....(i used it extensively in EQ at first)...But its only really beneficial if you are partial to playing characters individually... (Wonder if it would be possible to have an addon that (out of combat, of course) switches between a solo and slave macro/keybind configuration. It'd be kinda cool to have a 'battleground' config too for us slackers on PVE servers. ) For me, my left hand literally hovers over my keys, and couldnt stand moving it a few inches to the x-keys regularly. synergy is key, lord knows we have enough keybinds as is..lol.

just my 2cents, take it with a grain of salt =0. I havent really changed anything since wrath. (other than build macro's for my new DK team)

With regards to addons, egads, im an addict:
Jamba is god. I use dominos, but I really should dive into macaroon, but im lazy.... Hmm, I use a ton of addons, but most don't pertain to multiboxing per sey. (I have this obsession with useless info...)
Smartbuff is pure gold, I couldnt play without it.
I keep switching between smartmount and livestock for a 'mount' addon. (Chiefly because smartmount broke with 3.0.2...(got fixed later but not before i swithced to livestock) and then I went back to it, but dk mounts don't work with it, so I'm back to livestock. meh. Smartmount is vastly easier to configure. (yes, im lazy and want to minimize macro's.)
Minipet because random vanitypets are just neat now that you can carry around 40 pets. LOL.
x-perl, and ice hud. (not really related to each other. I keep threatning to uninstall ice-hud but talking myself out of it).
altoholic(can search yer alts inventory, was useful during hallowween when iw as trying to collect all wands and trick or treating with alts)
Hmm, aloft is pretty useful nameplate addon.
Acheron is useful whenever you die horribly and are not quite sure why. This might only happen to me, tho. I installed it cause Mogor kept eating my pally, hehe.
Baggins is god. (well, get a bag mod, whatever you prefer. But baggins is nice. Ties in with outfitter to auto stick my outfits in a seperate category. really great for finding stuff in 5x inventories)
IHML - useful for daileys (so kinda useless right now, until new daileys.) Tho its configurable, so if you find yourself needing macro's in instances (eg, i made one for the HH fight to /target head of the horseman
Buffet - cause who has time to manage food. Also combines food and potion buttons, econmy of space FTW
bugsack - cause UI errors on alts are a PITA....
clique - for 'oh sh*t' unit frame casting on pally. (hand of protection/etc) and unit frame healing.
lightheaded - very nice for questing.
tourguide - sometimes i am efficient and follow its guides. mostly I jsut make things up. Should make a multiboxer tourguide guide some day. meh.
omen (threat yay),
advanced tradeskill window - nice for tradeskills. well, except enchanting.
talented - I love it on every char except my hunters. the new pet talent window doesnt jive very well with talented...
sct - scrolling combat text, very nice for main char at least.
outfitter - equipment switching, automation for mounted/unmounted sort of stuff
postal - kinda like mail-ct mod. useful if you auction stuff or get lotsa stuff in the mail
mrplow - item stack managment. very necessary if you use something like baggins and thus never look at yer inventory
quartz - very nice casting bar addon, i like that it highlights your latency in red so you can 'guess' when its safe to move yer char while casting.
lootfilter - semi broken since 3.0.2 (auto open clams/etc broken now), but still useful for 'select all greys and delete them' so i keep it installed.
spamsenty - blocks spam, yay! Sometimes it thinks things that are not spam, are, though. so check it when it says 'do yo want to report soandso.

all the standard (useless?) info addons...cartog, questhelper, atlasloot, atlas, recount, auctioneer, auditor2 (money tracking), auldlangsyne, gatherer, questguru (quest history), drdamage(theorycrafting on tooltips), fubar (equivalent to titan panel, looots of questionably useful info), historian, mobinfo2, prat 3.0(name color coding in chat, other cool but nonessential chat things), snapshot (gear history at ding) tradejunkie,

Hmm. apparantly my posts are somwhat like my desk...disorderly, lol.

[Meeo]

Im still in the process of redoing my ui/macro interfaces to get more efficient while playing especially during boss fights and higher confusion times.

Hardware i increased from a 2 x PC Setup (Dual Core AMD x2 6000+s) Single Nvidia 8800 GT and 3 gigs of ram, single harddrives, running 5 clients, to 3 machines.
Just added a decked out Area 51 to my computer team its a beast, to much stuff to add, but its overly beefy for what im using it for as im using it as my main machine, running 2 clients on each slave pc now, this increased my response time as well as frame rates dramatically. I also have been setting Software KVM/KMs such as Multiplicity, which im not 100% i like the cost, or other stand the costs much but its decent, some connection issues tho, i have not looked at kavoom yet, but i need to.

I still use my G15v1, G5, Xkeys, and n52, but id o not use the xkeys or n52 as much as i would like, im still working through the efficiences within my team. Also since switching from 1 paladin 4 shaman group to a 1 paladin 3 shaman (2 ele 1 resto) and 1 Boomkin.

[Frosty]

Just a tip if you switch to xperl. If you run any DK's you'll need a replacement add-on to display runes. The current xperl add-on doesn't display them (that I can tell).
I see "something" for the runes with my xperl. I had to enable it...but I'm not 100% sure if it's what I should be seeing. It's a bar with 6 dots on it. 2 for each rune type blood, frost, unhole (I think).
There's also a mana/rage/engery type bar that builds up during a fight.

The runes seem to have a cooldown effect when used...is there something else I'm missing? I've never tried playing a DK without it. :P

[succulent]

So I'm curious what everyone else is doing in WotLK. Specifically, I'd love to hear from Vyndree and Suvega (and any other active 5-PC multiboxers). Have you changed your setups at all? Any new addons, software that you're using?
So my questions are primarily this:
1. Doing anything different from when you started?
2. How do you handle selecting flightmasters, quest NPCs, looting quest items, etc. I find this to be a near total pain in the ass. I use the KVM to switch control to 1 PC at a time. RAWR!
3. Do you use an 'everyone does something' button that you mash or do you control each action separately? For example, pressing 'ALT-2' might be bound to a castsequence on all toons (or all DPSers + tank rotation).
4. What software + addons do you use?


Issues:
- Clicking over to individual PC control via KVM is such a PITA.
- Switching from mbox to solo play (e.g., go raid on my priest with friends) requires changing my keybinds. I'm hoping that Macaroon's profiles work ok for me here (last time I tested, they did not seem to function properly but I need to check again with the new build). I could switch to using /focus for targeting and set myself as focus when soloing, but I'd rather not do this unless I have to.

I switched to all-hardware about 2 months ago, and it's a huge improvement over trying to run all clients on one machine. Here's my setup:

1 Mac Pro (main machine with overkill specs)
4 Macs for the followers (which vary from overkill to just good enough)
Mods: SimpleMiniMap, Jamba, fubar with Questsfu, x-perl (main only), a few others
The only other piece of software in the loop is Synergy, which isn't vital but I find it far more convenient than using a KVM.

I do the wireless keyboard setup; one wireless keyboard, 5 receivers, all tuned to the same frequency. I also have a wired keyboard plugged into the main machine (for chat etc).

Now, as to dealing with looting etc, it's all about the spacial setup for me. My monitors are set up in a sort of U formation:

box3 ...... box4
box1 main box2

I have one mouse connected to the main machine, and a trackball connected to a KVM that feeds boxes 3 & 4 only. I use Synergy, hosted from the main machine, with boxes 1-4 as clients (this does require running my main in windowed mode, but followers can be full screen). Synergy is a little bare-bones and requires hand-editing a config file to set up, but I didn't find it particularly hard to do. Note that synergy not only moves the mouse to the other screens but moves keyboard focus to them as well, which comes in handy sometimes.

Box1 is always my herbalist. Box2 is always my miner. Box3 is always my skinner (though that one doesn't matter cause you can macro skinning). Mini maps on boxes 1 & 2 are scaled to 200% using SimpleMiniMap and placed as close to my main display as I can get them (so box2 has the mini map on the left side). When I see a node to grab, I roll up with my posse and just move the mouse over to the appropriate box to tap them. Same for looting quests; for looting on box3 & 4 I use the trackball, as they're farther away from the main monitor and thus more annoying to use Synergy to get to. When done with toon 3 I switch the KVM and start looting with toon 4. I don't bother with the trackball for quest pickups or flight masters, just for setting up for repeated looting for quests.

For fly points and talking to quest guys there's nothing for it, you have to right-click them on all toons. Jamba helps immensely with this though with its ability to have all your followers select the same options as the lead -- I highly recommend it (as well as donating a little sumthin' to the author if you like it too). I also heavily rely on questsfu to track quest progress, tho it hasn't been updated for 3.x and causes error text to disappear. I find I can live with that, I can't live without "work complete." I plan to dig in and fix this bug myself if there's not a new version by the weekend.

My boxing experience is mostly single-class with shammies, I've done a little bit of mixed-class in levelling a warrior + 4xdruid group (they're pushing 50 but world questing only, which let's face it is trivial). I find clicking buttons on the tank while key-mashing for dps/heals works for me, tho i'm a keybinder at heart so were I do to it more seriously I'd probably find a way to make it all work with keybinds.

I use the typical /assist macros, also have one that someone here posted to pickup and turn in quests, another accept trades etc, and one for skinning:

/assist party1
/cast skinning

If anyone knows the spell to cast for 'skinning' via herbalism or engineering I'd love to hear what it is.

As an aside, I find using Macs avoids some problems a friend is having using a PC as his follower machine, notably it getting very confused by the numlock and Capslock keys. YMMV.

Hope some of that helps!

[Hachoo]

In case someone hasn't answered this already...

X-Perl does in fact show runes just fine. You guys are lazy. The problem is when you play a DK it doesn't automatically SELECT the "show runes" option. Open your x-perl menu, go to the "Player" tab, and check the box to Show Runes :P

It took me all of about 5 seconds to check and see that this wasn't selected and then select it.

[Cernunnos]

Thanks everyone for all the feedback. I definitely appreciate it?

I'm using Vetra KM and KVM for broadcast (PS/2). I modified the original post with that information.

I'd still like to hear what other '5 PC' multiboxers are currently using. Anyone else willing to chime in? Maybe I should bump during next week's maintenance. Everyone's busy leveling!:D