"Multiboxing" on a laptop

[Aarelan]

Well not really multiboxing - more single boxing but with multiple accounts (anybody got a name for that?)

Anyway - I've been away on a job for a week (I'm in the sports technology industry so this happens a lot) and haven't been able to do anything with my team. My problem is, that since I went to 5 toons, my laptop won't hack it anymore (I can run 4 with the graphics cranked down on all of them). Even when running 4 I sometimes run into a problem where my machine overheats and shuts down.

Does anyone run 5 accounts on a laptop. If so, how successfully, and what machine do you use?

[mikekim]

last year i had to purchase a laptop for someone to use for multiboxing. (i work for a famous royal family - so money is not an issue when they want something)

I decided to use an alienware M-17 (8gb ram, 7950m x2 running SLI GFX & 17" screen). this machine was quite happy running 5 accounts at between 35-50fps.

I myself run a Macbook Pro for multiboxing when i'm travelling - depending on foreign internet connection speeds i can get a playable game running between 3-5 accounts at once.

basically you need to get a machine that has a reasonable gfx card and 4-8gb of ram

[Toonarmy]

Aarelan,

Try the Sager 9280. Here is the link from a few weeks ago when issue this was discussed.

Laptop for 4 wows. (http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=23094)

[Sychosys]

I had a long griping post but Ill shorten it up

Dont buy Alienware. Its a rebranded Something at this point in time and all that extra money actually gets you less. Sager laptops are actually what Alienware used before they were bought out by Dell, they are good solid laptops and are generally half the price with a wider spec range. They also used to have really good back to school time specials for their systems. Another brand of computer are the Falcon Northwest laptops. I have never used them cause they made Alienware look like cheap systems but they have always gotten good reviews. Do a google search for gaming laptops, you will find quite a few other brands out there.

[aboron]

I can manage to run 5 on a laptop, but very marginally, enough to keep up with dailies mostly. I had to turn down to minimum on all 5 and then also make sure the windowing software is allowing the actual resizing of the game. Like if you are running in a 200x150 window on the clones, then that is all the game is trying to render. IS prefers to normally run all instances at the same resolution as the main window and then scale to fit the preview windows, this helps the pip swap action speed, but when it does that on my laptop, all 5 at full size it too much to handle.

This is running on a dell 1720 w/ Core2 2.2Ghz 4Gb ram Vista 64 bit and the weak link: nVidia GeForce Go 8600M

It's a fairly sad experience in dalaran, but for a simple daily run it gets by. And of course it works tip top for my #2 use of wow, in game chat.

[Xtremepayne]

I also use an M17 to multibox. I am using 4 gigs at the moment. I do have a question for the person using the M17, where did you get your 8 gig sticks from? I didn't know it could go higher then 4gigs. Also planning that for my desktop system. With 3 instances of Lotro running, memory per Logtitech keyboard lcd screen says I am running at 90 percent and sometimes its been as high as 97 on the desktop system which is XP64. Laptop is Vista32, and I know I will have to upgrade the OS.

[emilg]

Umm, i can run it great? i bought this bad laptop for like 800$ or so.

Infos: 4,00 GB Ram, Dual core, t4200 @ 2.00 Ghz 2.00 GHz

A Packard bell Easynote mh36

[Esca]

I run 5 accounts on a two-year-old Dell M1710. It has 4GB RAM, 32-bit Vista, and a 2.33 dual core processor. The key graphics feature that made a huge difference for me was setting the max fps. On the slaves I have it set max fps for backgrond and foregound to 5. Then on my main I set the max fps foreground to 30 and background to 5. With those settings I run all 5 accounts very smoothly on this old laptop.

[Aarelan]

Thanks for this. The sager seems really good, but I'm a bit concerned that the i7 is not a mobile processor - I had a computer like that some years ago, and it was a battery hogging (about 30 mins) heater (too hot to have on your lap).

I actually use my laptop for work as well, so I occasionally need to do an hour or so on batteries. The m17x has stealth mode (which sounds cool in concept) but I'm really concerned about the comments by Sychosys.

I also once had a supplier collapse on me, so have a small concern about "smaller" companies if I'm spending serious (for me) money. What is the company who supply the Sager like for delivery / support etc. - I'm pretty competent so don't need help on switching it on, but if it breaks...

[Otlecs]

last year i had to purchase a laptop for someone to use for multiboxing. (i work for a famous royal family - so money is not an issue when they want something)

Ohhh, come on! You can't dangle that little tidbit and then NOT name the famous royal who multiboxes!!!!!

:cursing:

[Vantalim]

last year i had to purchase a laptop for someone to use for multiboxing. (i work for a famous royal family - so money is not an issue when they want something)

Ohhh, come on! You can't dangle that little tidbit and then NOT name the famous royal who multiboxes!!!!!

:cursing:Word!
Heheh. But with all the critique wow gets in media, famous people would probably not want to get dragged into some kind of media drama...

...specially not when playing 5x wow accounts at once will be seen as 5 times worse than just an "ordinary wow addict" ;-)

[keyclone]

i work for a famous royal family - so money is not an issue when they want somethingi second the need to know :D

or at least... can we get a pic of someone multi-boxing in a castle? (that'd be cool)

[Tonuss]

Now I'm wondering if the term "multiboxing" means the same thing to a member of a royal family. For me, it means I control all of the accounts from a single keyboard and mouse. For Prince John Doe, it might mean that he is barking commands to his staff of MMORPG slaves. 8o

[Aarelan]

Brings new meaning to the term "my slave is not responding properly"

[Psybercop]

I'd be more interested in which side they play on.

[Dawnstrider]

I say we keep the Royalty Family name a secret. You think the gold beggars are bad now, imagine what they would be like if word got around that royalty was playing on their server.

As far as Alienware goes, I have had several Alienware computers and have loved them all. My current laptop is about 3 years old and runs on 4gigs of DDR2 and Duo 1.47GB processors. I use it for all my computing needs and can handle 4 wow's before I notice any difference at all in performance. Once I load a fifth Wow, however, I can notice my toons skip a step every now and then but nothing major. Game plays nice on it while 5 boxing. Only thing I cant do is have all 5 toons hearth to Dalaran at the same time. But other than that I always get good Frame rates and low latency. I have never tried another brand of computer since Alienware was the first computer I ever bought and have not ever had a reason to change brands. Sure they are more money, but you get what you pay for. IMO.

[Greythan]

I bought a Gateway at Best Buy (P-7805U) some time ago and I run 5 just fine. Yes, I have most graphics turned way down. Also, I can not run all 5 toons in Dalaran. However, I really don't ever need to run all three in Dal.

[Ñightsham]

I myself run a Macbook Pro for multiboxing when i'm travelling - depending on foreign internet connection speeds i can get a playable game running between 3-5 accounts at once.

How do you setup M/B'ng on a Macbook?

I have a MacBook Pro w/4Gb and am interested in doing so.

[Toned]

I use an HP pavillion dv7. Has 6gigs of ram, 2.0ghz quadcore, ati hd 4650... Works great for 5 :P

[suicidesspyder]

Dell xps m1530 dual core 4gb memory. 4 accounts no problem 5th adds a litte strain no overheating tho since i have it levitated off the surface so air flow gets to bottom of it. Lets see it lags in av but i can still play in a turtle. I can run in every majoy city no problem but dalagaran. Talk about 1fps.

It takes 5-10 mins to go from vh portal from wg to horde portals to cities lol. So i bought a new computer for wow this one now does surfing and the occasional log on a 6th account to do banking lol. Thank god gf plays to i got banker toon now without me paying an extra 15 a month.

[mikekim]

How do you setup M/B'ng on a Macbook?

I have a MacBook Pro w/4Gb and am interested in doing so.

simple really create multiple copies of the wow application, use clonekeys or clonedkeys to broadcast the keys to the other windows


Ohhh, come on! You can't dangle that little tidbit and then NOT name the famous royal who multiboxes!!!!!

:cursing:

I cant tell you any names, but their country is making quite a lot of news for the wrong reasons atm... Don't know if there will be unlimited budgets next year :eek:


i second the need to know :D

or at least... can we get a pic of someone multi-boxing in a castle? (that'd be cool)

I can probaly post an old screenshot of one of the gaming suite setups (basically they rent a couple of hotel suites for 3 months and play warcraft constantly - we have that good a relationship with the hotel, they have allowed us to install our own 100mb leased line just for this purpose) - the screenshot was taken in one of the smaller rooms pre WOTLK, but even then they were using Quad Core machines, 8800 Ultras and 30" dell / apple screens. (we currently have over 30 of these machines ready to be deployed when required - (most now upgraded to i7, GTX 285 or 295)

[mikekim]

http://img145.imageshack.us/img145/9637/imgp2738.jpg

[Raskaz]

Geez, that is sick but pretty cool at the same time.

[Gomotron]

I've always wanted to try a MB setup with this one from Lenovo:

Lenovo W700ds (http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/special-offers.workflow:ShowPromo?LandingPage=/All/US/Landing_pages/ThinkPad_notebooks/2008/W700/W700ds)

http://www.lenovo.com/shop/americas/content/img_lib/landing_pages/2009/W700ds/W700ds_keyfeatures_357x253.jpg

I'm just not sure I want to spend the $4000-$5000 it takes to max the system out.

[lacitpo]

How do you setup M/B'ng on a Macbook?

I have a MacBook Pro w/4Gb and am interested in doing so.

Check the software forums for Plexer. It's a pay solution but totally worth the $25 and active development.

Then just run multiple instances of wow. Check wowwiki's mac page for more info on setting up multiboxing on OSX.

[simpletom]

I cant tell you any names, but their country is making quite a lot of news for the wrong reasons atm... Don't know if there will be unlimited budgets next year :eek:


$80 billion debt would do that