Boxing on a Mac- The Whats, the Hows and the Whos

[Vix]

(First post, so i'de like to start by saying Thank You to this community! I've been lurking for a long time and lately find my self 5 boxing and loving it! Without this community that would never have happened.)

As there aren't that many Mac related posts on the community i thought we could use one where the mac users of this community could talk about boxing and how we do it. Personally i refuse to use bootcamp :D and i'm happy with how things work.

Here is a very short summary of me, my hardware and my software i use.

Personals:

Male

Age: 36

Father of one

Work: Apple retailer

Europe


Hardware:

MacPro,

23" display,

Logitec mouse with 7 buttons


Software:

5 x World of Warcraft

Butler (for Macros)

Steermouse (for asigning keys to my mouse)


Game play:

I don't use a key press broadcaster. I chose to use Butler to write macros to broadcast a key press to the 5 instances of WoW. Then i mapped the macros to my mouse. Using modifier keys i have 21 keys hot mapped in WoW. Pressing a button on my mouse will trigger a macro that will press "1" in my current application (my main) and then switch to WoW2 press "1", switch to WoW3 press "1" and so forth and finally return me to WoW1 and my main. Butler does the switching so quickly that can't actually see the switching. It happens in the background so to say. In addition i have macros for my Function keys doing the same thing.

Note on the macros. Every macro ONLY broadcast one key press that is a hot key on WoW except one that is my stop following command. This key brodcasts "S" to all my slaves. I need to have them stand back when i gather a groop with my Paladin for some AOE fun. (I play a paladin, 3 mages and a holy priest.)

I will send a PM to Zia's to check out his Keybroadcaster. Looks interesting!



Window layout:

Not sure how to do this yet. As i only have one display i have all 5 windows on the same screen. In my current setup i have my slaves in 800x600 resolution and have made the windows as small as i can. Each window sits in its own corner and my main is in the middle slightly overlapping every window of the slaves. This looks messy and i don't like it. I haven't found a window maximizer for the mac. Anyone have a good solution for this?

Anyway lets hear who else box on a mac and do all of you actually do it under Windows or do some of you stick with X?

Vix

[TheBigBB]

What's your reasoning for not simply broadcasting your keyboard presses? I can't think of an advantage to your way. What does your left hand do?

I do multibox on a mac. I can smoothly run 5 instances per Mac Pro, and I am going to purchase a second one soon to do ten boxing. Right now my other older Macs aren't good enough to properly run 5 more instances, so I need the second one. Anyway, these two will have the same specs: 4GB RAM, dual quad core 2.8 mhz Intels, and the 512MB video card. I use the Keyclones program and a USB multicaster to send information to two Macs at once.

I think the architecture of the Mac Pro is pretty well suited for multiboxing, being that it's so overkill with the two quad cores. I actually use that power, so it's great stuff. The only time I get hardware lag is when I'm in a crowded city at prime time hours.

[Valorin]

BigBB, what do you use to broadcast keys on one machine?

I have the hardware setup, so I'm totally different. My main is a G5 Tower, 3g RAM, 128M gc (old), running 10.5. I have 4 slaves that are all Dell's because they were cheap ($550 a piece including flat screen monitors, OS's and gc upgrades, they run wow about 60fps). I bought them bulk from Dell Small Business. Anyway, I use the mac version of keybroadcasting synergy server and the keybroadcasting synergy clients for windows on the slaves. It took a little while to set up because windoze doesn't recognize mac network names, but when I reworked it all with IPs, it works fine now. So I have a single keyboard, mouse and nostromo that run all 5 boxes.

So basically, I can't really help with maximizer or Clonekey types of things since I 5-box, but I have used Butler before my dells came and it's pretty sweet, altho its got a lot of features that I didn't need. I looked at Clonekey just to see what it did (Clonekey was after my time) and it seems a lot smoother and more boxing-specific.

As for gameplay, I typically run with the keybroadcaster on all the time and I have my game macros setup with focus targeting and lots of options for the same keybind, like: attack focus target if hostile, heal focus target if friendly, attack current target if no focus target if hostile - that kind of thing. I play all druids, so class synergy is automatic and all of the toons basically have the same keybindings, the tank being the only one a little different and a few "I only need one cast of this" things like a dedicated tank-poison debuffer (because cure poison pops the tank out of moonkin form). I also Jamba in game, and it's AWESOME altho the auto follow thing I ended up turning off and I use a follow button because in instances, I like to have my tank forward as well. The "BLANK stopped following" yell in Jamba rocks. The quest and flight echos are really handy too as well as the autosell, autorepairs. Oh, and another awesome Jamba feature is the "push to slaves" where once you get the main setup and the slaves only need to add the main's name to their jambas for communication and all other settings can be pushed. Major time saver. I'll even do changes in game for slightly different setups, push it, do some stuff, change back to kill-mode and push settings back. Doesn't seem as much as hassle as it should be.

Anyway, even though "Technically" I use windows, those machines do not do anything except run WoW and they can't use any of the software that won't interface with my main mac, so it's as if I'm a sole mac user. And I'll fight anybody who says otherwise! ;)

[antishadow]

Personals:

Male

Age: 30

Father of two (6yr & 16mo)

USA


Hardware:

Mac Pro dual quad core 3.2ghz with 10gb ram and the 512 video card

Two 26" LCDs

Typical wireless keyboard/mouse nothing special


Software:

5 x World of Warcraft

CloneKeys (I get some weird issues I only see with ClonedKeys so have to use a modified original)

Gameplay:
I've noticed that if you have adaquate ram you don't lag in cities. My processors are actually barely being used its all ram. Whenever I start to chunk though I run the following macro on all my clones and the main:

/console gxRestart

then click on each window (clonekeys loses track of them when you do this for some reason) and boom - back to top speed.

[Indestructigal]

I use ClonedKeys on my iMac to run three instances of WoW.

I have the same problem with window layout. It works okay, but I will usually switch over to Boot Camp so I can run Octopus after a while.


Indestructigal

[Feider]

I'm also a mac boxer. I'm still holding onto a cheap setup. 1 MacBook (2.16 Ghz Core 2 Duo, 2GB ram) and running Cloned Keys. I run 5 instances on the one machine. There are a few hardware lags here and there. Sometimes I lose a follower when traveling. Stormwind is impossible for me at the moment. I am going to soon try to use an older G4 iBook I have laying around to run 2 of the 5 via a wireless keyboard. We will see if that works.

I keep my windows set up the same way as you do Vix. Also, with all of the video settings turned way done I find that the smoothest play is when I can full screen the main toon. This is not always possible if I need to pick up items on the slaves but It cuts the lag for me.

yay Mac focused thread.

[TheBigBB]

I use Clonedkeys. My only problems with the broadcasting software are that if you spam too much it gets behind on the other windows. You really need to be able to relax and just hit a DPS key at a time, a heal key, a DPS, etc. Spamming a lot is bad news.

I have two widescreen monitors and each will display one tank as a large center window with one smaller window in each corner that I click on to immediately control the followers. I can only see a sliver of the windows in the back at any time, but I can control any of my characters within a mouse click. I can start the bombing run quests by clicking through the windows quickly enough to get credit all at once, for example. I wonder if this works well on Windows! I wouldn't know anything about Windows.

[Ken]

This is an interesting Mac link:
http://www.wowwiki.com/World_of_Warcraft_functionality_on_Macs

[minty]

Mac Pro, 2x 2.8 Quads, 10GB ram, 512MB video, 2x 24" lcd, plain old two button optical mouse (sorry, Apple, but the MIghty Mouse just doesn't work for games)

I like being able to see every window without any switching, so I run on two screens. Main client full on primary display at 1920x1200, four child clients on second display at 960x600. Now there is a little bit of overlap on the four small windows because of their top bars, but it's small enough to not bother me.

I use CloneKeys for key broadcasting, and agree with TheBigBB's assessment. Slow and steady wins the race. I'll occasionally have one client not receive a keystroke if I get going too fast.

And yes, I run all on Mac OS. I don't see why anyone would possibly want to Boot Camp over for WoW. (I did Boot Camp it to run the upgraded graphics EVE client and still feel like a bitch for doing so...)

Depending how I feel once I get up through the lvl 80 instances, I might graduate up to 10 boxing. If so, I'll pop in a second video card and get two more displays. Again that's mainly because I just want to be able to see everything at once. I think the Pro will handle 10 without even blinking. I often transcode video while playing with no problems. Can't let that CPU power just sit idle!

[succulent]

I've been boxing on a Mac since May or so. Originally I was doing 5 instances on a Mac Pro (12gb RAM, 30" monitor) using CloneKeys, but I had some issues with that setup and decided to switch to all-hardware. I actually just recently posted about my setup in this thread:

Hardware 5-PC multiboxing setup questions ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&postID=149598#post149598')

My follower toons are running on a 2-year old intel iMac, a one-year old Mac Book Pro, and two brand-new mac Minis. The Minis are fine for simple followers but you have to crank the graphics way down, mine are running 800x600 on 19" LCDs with minimal graphics settings. The iMac & MBP are running full resolution.

I'm a software engineer and I work at Apple, so I get a discount on the hardware -- this made the decision to go all-hardware easier :)

I agree the mighty mouse is poo for gaming. I use a fairly old microsoft wheel mouse with a total of two buttons, and keybind just about everything.

My issues with CloneKeys were that the modifier keys would often get stuck, where some of my followers thought the option key was down when it wasn't. Also problematic was the aforementioned key-spamming issue -- I spam sometimes, and buying more hardware was definitely easier than changing this behavior.

[MultiMacBox23]

Running Early 2.8ghz 8core MacPro, 16gigs Ram, (2x) Apple 8800gt's, just added another monitor to the camp so now i have
20" Apple LCD (rorated 90 degrees) -- 30" Apple LCD -- 30" Apple LCD -- 20" Apple LCD (rotated 90). standard mac slim alum keyboard, and wired mighty mouse.

1st 20" = System monitor stats + movie/TV
1st 30" = Wow full screen (2650x1600 @ all maxed settings except shadows, mac shadows glitch & act weird)
2nd 30" = 4 wows evenly divided in windowed mode (800x600 @ min settings, but windows streched to line up nice)
2nd 20" = Safari for access to thottbot/wowhead/wowwiki

Wow (Sym Linked) + ClonedKeys, Addons = IceHud, Dominos, Jamba, Party Casting Bars

What ive learned;

- trying to force fullscreen on 2nd 30" didnt work, fubared all the screens (put OPT-M on do-not-pass list for broadcaster)
just run windowed mode, and maximize window.
- more than 8gigs ram = no noticable improvement
- adding 2nd gfx card, and offloading clones to that card/monitor combo = no improvemnt of FPS on main.
- out of all the options symlinked worked best to reduce city/zone load lag, OSX automatically buffers frequently used
files in unused memory. all 5 wows have access to that buffer.
- clonedkeys/clonekey/keywire, all suffer "buffer backup" if you spam/roll-face-keyboard
- clonedkeys/clonekey/keywire, all suffer random keydrops quite often in 1 of the 5 windows (varies which window),
ive found that instead of a quick tap of the keys, a nice solid, depress-pause-release solves the problem.
- system information reports 25%-40% processor utilization with 5 wows depending on whats going on
- system information reports OSX is distributing workload to all 8 cores.
- FPS runs 19fps-45fps in Northrend on main, and 15fps solid on slaves (maxfps @ 60, maxbackfps @ 15)
- in the Mac client of wow, i havent found a way to force a non-standard resolution (changing the WTF does nothing)
- the GLfaster=2 mod is worth about 8-10fps on the main in some situations
- PS3 controller is very combersome to me, just like trying to play a FPShooter on a PS3 vs PC, need my mouse and kb
- Wii controller, ditto. trying aiming your pointer to loot the corpse, ugh
- havent found osx drivers for xkeys pads, but the zBoard Fang works out the box (but ididnt care for it on the mac pro at the desk
but it is nice to have when not at home and boxing on the MBpro)
- DVI-to-HDMI to use your 42" HDTV, looks "softer", color is off/darker, text harder to read, difficult to readjust resolution to
compensate for overscan area on televisions



Sorry if that was a mess, just typed as stuff was popping into my head.
-ray

[TheBigBB]

I think that the key spamming buffer issue isn't a big problem only because there's rarely a time when you actually need to spam the key that much, although it could help hasten your casting at times. If you press a key once per half second you are probably good, any faster than that and you might have your clones lagging a lot, depending on how long you spam for. I can almost always get accurate text if I type out a /use XXXXX or whatever, it's only on some boss fights where I got nervous that I found that the buffer clog made the healer quit. 90% of the keypresses were not serving any function.

I would love to play on a host of Mac Minis because they run one client of WoW great for a cheap price, but I am not too keen on all those monitors. My fiance would have a FIT.

[minty]

I can almost always get accurate text if I type out a /use XXXXX or whatever, it's only on some boss fights where I got nervous that I found that the buffer clog made the healer quit.

Huh... That's the opposite problem I have. I can usually keep a steady keypress rhythm during encounters, but typed commands is where I get going too fast and drop keystrokes to some windows.


MultiMac, how well do the 20" screens do in portrait mode? I've tried setting up my 24" rotated but they got glitchy. I remember hearing somewhere that it was the 8800GT that had issues with that. Are the 20" running 1680x1050?

[TheBigBB]

I can almost always get accurate text if I type out a /use XXXXX or whatever, it's only on some boss fights where I got nervous that I found that the buffer clog made the healer quit.

Huh... That's the opposite problem I have. I can usually keep a steady keypress rhythm during encounters, but typed commands is where I get going too fast and drop keystrokes to some windows.


MultiMac, how well do the 20" screens do in portrait mode? I've tried setting up my 24" rotated but they got glitchy. I remember hearing somewhere that it was the 8800GT that had issues with that. Are the 20" running 1680x1050?

Yeah, I really never have a dropped key press if I press more slowly or type for a short period of time UNLESS my hardware is struggling, which it rarely is. I run all windows out of the same directory with low settings and maxfps set at about 25. Most of the time this is overkill, but I don't like lagging, ever. I can function in a crowded major city at prime time like this. There are times of inexplicable lag, like one time I couldn't move in Everlook and had to basically restart the whole game. I'm going to try using the /console RestartGx that someone mentioned.

EDIT: Actually, I really don't have a good excuse not to run the main window on another directory, do I? I really ought to if only just to see farther into the distance on the main. I could drop follower FPS to like 5 or something.

[MultiMacBox23]

MultiMac, how well do the 20" screens do in portrait mode? I've tried setting up my 24" rotated but they got glitchy. I remember hearing somewhere that it was the 8800GT that had issues with that. Are the 20" running 1680x1050?
Works pretty well, i chose the 20" because of the 1680x1050 resolution, which when rotated 90, is almost the same height (pixel count and monitor casing size) as my 30's. Only thing i've heard about the 8800gt is random freezing with coverflow, but i havent encountered anything. it just sucks that the Apple display doesnt have a pivot in the mounting hinge, i just stole an idea i saw from someones flicker account of taking the allen screws out, and rotating the display and laying it up against the mounting leg. they just routed the cable through the hole and ziptied it in place to keep the thing from slipping. I used a little 3m double sided sticky tape to make it a little more secure, just incase i bump the desk i dont want it to slip and strain the cable.

Flicker pics i grabbed the idea from:

http://homepage.mac.com/aberranttendencies/webpics/2494723537_c53a2fdc29.jpg

http://homepage.mac.com/aberranttendencies/webpics/2867491626_f82d0d6006.jpg

http://homepage.mac.com/aberranttendencies/webpics/richp_acd_12.jpg

[Vix]

*drools*


I wan't more picturs!!!

Ok back to topic :D I really enjoyed reading about your setups! Thanks for sharing.

Guess i have to give Clonekeys a second chance. Will start with looking into keywire

The next step for me will be to get a second display (already have two graphics cards as i have a TV connected). Performance vice the macPro does very well. I have the early model with only 4 cores and 8 Gigs of ram. I also raid stripped two hard drives for better performance and i did cut back on my loading time zoning and starting. Rotating the displays is a good idea! I will have to look into that as well.

My left hand sits, like any hardcore WoW gamer, on WASD. I also use the left hand for modifier keys to get more action out of my mouse. Seems my fingers are always resting on WASD. Even at work typing this i find my fingers there.

[Fef]

I Run five WoW clients on my iMac. I discribed my setup in this post ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&postID=111158&highlight=iMac+five+boxing#post111158').

I plan to get a Mac Pro soon (upgrade any time soon, Apple ?). I am sure it will be a whole different experience. I might even give 10 boxing a try. Well, actually, I already thought of how to organize my screen layout to work with 1 main and 9 thumbnail slaves on a 30' Apple display. :)

[Vix]

I Run five WoW clients on my iMac. I discribed my setup in this post ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&postID=111158&highlight=iMac+five+boxing#post111158').

I plan to get a Mac Pro soon (upgrade any time soon, Apple ?). I am sure it will be a whole different experience. I might even give 10 boxing a try. Well, actually, I already thought of how to organize my screen layout to work with 1 main and 9 thumbnail slaves on a 30' Apple display. :)Looks like you are bootcamping, or am i missing something? Apple never tells when they have something new and Sexy ready for us. But my guess would be Mac Pro Suitable Nehalem (Core i7) Processors Due in 1st Quarter 2009. And no i don't work for Apple :) And yes its only a guess.


Your window layout looks really nice! *sobs"

[Gadzooks]

I'm running a 24" iMac, just purchased a few weeks ago, 2.8Ghz, 2600 HD PRO, 4 gigs ram, standard keyboard, and a Logitech mouse - runs 3 flawlessly. I was running 2 on a dual 2.0Ghz G5, but the video card (Radeon 9800 Pro) died, and I just could'nt see dropping $300 on a 4 year old video card, so I upgraded. :) I ran a 3rd copy from a Mac Mini, using Synergy. Never see any lag now, and the temp stays very low - the G5 pumped out massive amounts of heat dual boxing. It was getting pretty loud, too, the fans just got noisy. It is 4 years old, so it's resting now in it's box in the closet, when I get a chance I'm going to clean it, put the stock video card back in, a new drive, and donate it to a needy friend or family member. It's still a good machine!

I set up two trial accounts along with my 3 on the iMac, and it runs 5 no problem, but it's pretty cramped on the screen, so I'm going to try and see how well it does with my old acrylic 23" Cinema as a second monitor. It means adding more cables and stuff to my desk, but it would be cool to have it for Photoshop too.

The Mini is now doing what it was bought for: serving up iTunes and multiple hard drives for AppleTV, watching Hulu, and ripping video in Visual Hub. My place is now much quieter and less cluttered now, I love it. I'm putting together my choices for furniture (moved recently), and the Mini will probably live next to the Apple TV, and I'll access it via Apple Desktop Remote from the iMac.

ClonedKeys is all I need, I've only had lag once or twice, so I don't see any reason to change at the moment. I was going to play with a Bootcamp install and Keyclone, but that's for later. I havent used Windows in about a year, so I need to get up-to-date on virus/keylogger protection, there's no way I'm putting my accounts at risk until my Windows partition is locked down.

[TheBigBB]

I have made what I think is a discovery regarding software multiboxing via Clonedkeys. Last night I stopped running all my windows out of the same directory, and finally set a main window from a duplicated WoW directory to 30FPS with large view distance, and the follower windows down to 10FPS with low specs. Clonedkeys basically stopped working when I did this, despite having no hardware lag at all. It technically worked, but it took it way longer to send the signals. Even when I scaled back the main window even more, the difference was absolutely huge over before when I was running all windows at the same low specs. I don't think this issue is to do with my hardware, but probably something to do with how Clonedkeys works. I really don't know, or wouldn't know, but I can say with some confidence that the program sends keystrokes a lot better when you have the system devoting an equal amount of work to each window. Any thoughts? This may explain why someone thought that Clonedkeys was not sending keystrokes as well as I thought it was.

[MultiMacBox23]

I really don't know, or wouldn't know, but I can say with some confidence that the program sends keystrokes a lot better when you have the system devoting an equal amount of work to each window. Any thoughts? This may explain why someone thought that Clonedkeys was not sending keystrokes as well as I thought it was.Being that OSX is a *nix based operating system, I looked into a "re-nicer" program. this would allow you to modify the core unix priority levels for a process. I set clonekey at max priority, but it didnt make a difference.
(Duh..... during spikes i barely hit 45% average core usage)

Talking with the author of keywire, i recall him saying that after sending a keystroke to a window, the system would return a "operation completed" message. On the keystrokes that got dropped it still received the "operation complete" message from the system. I could possibly be a limitation or glitch in the OS, and that he would have to devise some sort of work around.

I'm currently at a crossroad personally.

1) make the mac pro my main, and build 4 more "hack-in-toshes" to each run a slave on their own 20"-er, just run the 30's on the macpro, and go hardware

2) bootcamp it, with vista ultimate 64 (yah yah i know.....Eeeewwwwwwww) and keyclone it. pull out a 8800gt and replace it with a GTX280 for use in bootcamp.
i've asked a few boxers on my realm and they use it and dont have a spam-lag on the key

3) gear up my 2 oldest accounts, and retire 3..... move back to dualboxing a pocket healer.

4) suck it up and quit bitchin

[Vix]

Well as I'm using Butler i don't have any problems giving commands to all the clients. Its hell to sett up but once up and running it works nicely! But i have to admit that i haven't played that much yet. Probably have around 15 hours now, but it has been smooth running all the way. Obviously it does not like spamming the keys, but that's ok.



I run all applications from different directories and with different graphics settings.

[Fef]

Looks like you are bootcamping, or am i missing something?

I am.
As much as I would like to completely stay away from Windows I could not run the game the way I run it without a good PiP (Picture in Picture) feature.
I don't want to use more than one screen, and I want to see all my characters all the time. So I ended up with this thumbnail scheme that works great for me. The alts are not playable as such, but I can do some basic steering (if a follow breaks, or to position them individually before an instance fight) or interact with NPCs very easily. Also, just one key press and an alt can become master and focus of the group, and be popped to the big picture.

[hertome]

Hi everyone,



im quad-boxing on a mac pro 1 x quadcore, 8GB Ram, 8800 GT

Im playing on very low details with all toon, as i get serious graphiclag turning details on. I have 4 seperate folders.

Running around in shatt my cores all to maxed out 100%. My Ram usage never goes above 6 GB.

Would it help to add a second processor, do play on higher details? i really like the new wotlk armor, it looks

way better then the oldworld stuff but i can see it quad boxing, also my view distance is turned down to min.



Thans in advance for any suggestions,



greetings Hertome



P.S. Sorry for my english, its not my native language

[Fef]

You should get better results than that.
Give us more details, what size/resolution are you four windows, do you play on one or two screens, do you limit the number of frames per seconds for windows that are in the background, did you reduce shadow quality, did you remove high level anisotropic filtering, ...

[hertome]

I use one 22" and one 24".

3 Chars in 800x600 on the 22" and the main char in 1900x1200 on the 24" all in Windowed mode.

I have lowered ALL sliders within WoW to low and disabled all shadows and such. Also the gloom effect and so on.

Everything i sturned off.

Limit Background FPS? i dont think, dont know how to do it.



Greeting Hertome

[Vix]

I'm running the stock 256 Mb card so with a 8800 you should have no problem running your main with alot of graphics turned on! I notised that if i turn up the sampling i tend to get really wired looking graphical problems. (the graphics go bana with loads of clutter and FPS drop to 2 or so. Unplayable!) So i have to keep sampling down to 1x samling and 24 bit if i remember correctly.

And i also only have 4 cores!

vix

[Vix]

Hi everyone,



im quad-boxing on a mac pro 1 x quadcore, 8GB Ram, 8800 GT

Would it help to add a second processor, do play on higher details? i really like the new wotlk armor, it looks
I guess you are running the same machine as i am. If so you have two prosessors already in your Mac. But they are both Dual cores (Intel Xenon 5100 Series "Woodcrest" 2.0, 2.66 or 3.0 GHz) If not you are running a very custom ride :)

[Fef]

Limit Background FPS? i dont think, dont know how to do it.

I am not at home now, so I cannot check, but there is something along the line of :

/console MaxFPS 30
(This will limit the number of frames per second on your WoW window to 30 when it is active.)
/console MaxFPSbk 10
(This will limit the number of FPS even further when the windows is not active or in the background.)

My 4 thumbnail-sized slave windows run with MaxFPSbk set on 5, it is only at that price I can get 30 FPS on my main almost all the time

[hertome]

Hi again,



i have 1 Quad Core Processor build in, so there is space for a second one 8).



If i limit the backgroundfps, will there still be able to follow an such? i really dont understand the usage of this

command, for me it looks like they not getting enough fps to get a follow work or a fight done.

Ok i feel like a newb now 8)

is there a line in the "ini" i can change for the fps?



Thank you all for your help.



Greetings Hertome



P.S. Which one is "faster" symlink install or 4 sep. folders on the same harddrive?

[Fef]

Your alts will follow you just the same. All this does is limit the number of frames (images) you client attempts to render (compute and display) every second.
All you may notice are slightly choppy animations on your alts.

On the other hand, this will set a lot of resources free which will hopefully allow you to crank up graphics quality on your main.

[hertome]

I will give the fps-command a try.



DO u have a macro made for it (i.e. u have to use this

command everytime u load wow) or can u add this to the wow "ini"?

[TheBigBB]

Clonedkeys was working fine again last night when I set my main window to lower specs and the follower windows to slightly higher specs, so they're more equal. Huh.

[Fef]

I will give the fps-command a try.
DO u have a macro made for it (i.e. u have to use this
command everytime u load wow) or can u add this to the wow "ini"?

This is done automatically by Octopus in my case, but I'm pretty sure you can put the /console command in a macro, and the ".ini" file will certainly work.

[hertome]

It works great thank for the info.

I added it to the config.wtf:

SET MaxFPS 30
SET MaxFPSbk 10



and it works. I play my main on fill Detaisl not (disbled Shadows btw.)



Thanks a lot everyone

[alphaquam]

For those that use ClonedKeys, just wanted to post here to let you know an update will be available this week that will allow creation of a custom key blacklist.

[TheBigBB]

For those that use ClonedKeys, just wanted to post here to let you know an update will be available this week that will allow creation of a custom key blacklist.

Thanks for the update!

I am just posting here to report that higher specs on my computer drastically increased the reliability of Clonedkeys and eliminated dropped keypresses. I tested this by mashing my keyboard for 15 kyes in my guild chat in Dalaran, and seeing how many of the 4 followers got it right. As usual with the Mac, it took Clonedkeys a bit of time to relay the info to them all, but finally they ALL got it right, and consistently. This would never have happened before, especially not in Dalaran. The bad news for people on a budget is that I am running now with 8 Gigs of RAM and TWO NVIDIA 8800 512MB Video Cards to make this possible in a place like Dalaran.

The other sad news is that I now have a powerful gaming PC to run another 5 (for 10 man raiding) and its key duplication does work quite a bit better with Keyclone, so I guess Mac users are at a slight disadvantage, though if you press keys at a slow, controlled rate it isn't much of an issue. I don't think this is an issue with Clonedkeys, but probably something to do with how a Mac works. On the other hand, the Mac's processing power on a Mac Pro is way superior for multitasking with its 8 cores. :-)

[alphaquam]

I apologize for not having a release ready yet as stated previously. It's quite close, just a few more details to iron out. I've also been researching the latency issue but have not made and significant progress as of yet.

[TheBigBB]

I apologize for not having a release ready yet as stated previously. It's quite close, just a few more details to iron out. I've also been researching the latency issue but have not made and significant progress as of yet.

Hey there, nothing to apologize for. I am sure you're doing the best you can, and I appreciate even having a program working for my Mac at all. Do you have any idea what the problem with the latency is? My brother is a Mac programmer for a living so I was thinking that if I dropped him an e-mail with some specifics maybe he would have some input on that issue.

[alphaquam]

After digging through the original code, I think it may have to do something with how the method that sends the key commands is handled. I believe it waits for some kind of return value indicating whether or not the key command was actually received by the target application. With one slave, that single round trip probably isn't noticeable. Once you have four slaves, though, that's a lot of extra time. If your brother could offer any advice, that would be great. The function of interest is AXUIElementPostKeyboardEvent ('http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Accessibility/Reference/AccessibilityLowlevel/AXUIElement_h/index.html'). The source is available on the project site.

[Zia's]

I have done many many tests with AXUIElementPostKeyboardEvent and I am also seeing the same results as you.


The function call seems to only return viable results when broadcasting to 2 or 3 applications, any more and the function result is unreliable, stating that the key code was broadcast correctly when in actual fact it wasn't. I've spent many hours working on this with Keywire and have finally succumbed to it.

Until Apple actually fix this in the OS any broadcasting software written for the mac will have this problem.