5-boxing monitor setups?

[jak3676]

Still waiting on my quad core PC and 2nd monitor to arrive, but I thought I'd see how some people have their monitors configured. I'm looking at a mix of hardware and software multiboxing and looking for the best performance.

Here's what I'll have for PCs:

Core2Quad Q6600
8GB DDR2 RAM
8800 GT (512MB version)
Win7 RC (64-bit)

Core2Duo E6300 - looking at upgrading to a C2D E6850 if I win an eBay bid :)
4GB DDR2 RAM
9600 GSO (rebadged 8800 GS - 384MB)
Win7 RC (64-bit)

For monitors I'll have 2 of the following - whichever one I don't use will go to my wife's PC.

28" WUXGA (1920x1200)
22" WSXGA+ (1680x1050)
19" WXGA+ (1440x900)


Here's what I see as options:

A) Hook the 28" monitor up to the Quad-Core box and the 22" up to Dual core box. Then I'd set my main to use the whole 22" and the slaves can each have 1/4 of the 28". So that gives me a 22" main @ 1680x1050 and 14" slaves @ 860x600.

B) Hook the 28" up to the Dual Core box and let the main take the whole monitor and then the Quad Core with all the slaves take 1/4 of the 22". That gives the main 28" @ 1920x1200 and 11" slaves @ 840x525

C) Hook the 28" up to the Quad-Core box, but set it up as though I was triple boxing - main takes about 2/3 of the screen and two slaves split the right 1/3. Then take the 22" hook it to the Dual-Core box and mount it in portrait mode (i.e. sideways) with 2 more slaves on it - one on the top half, one on the bottom half. On the 28' monitor the main would be 22" @1220x1200 and 2 slaves would be 11" @ 600x600. Two other slaves would be 15" @ 1050x830.

D) Hook the 28" up to the Quad-Core box, but set it up as though I was triple boxing - main takes about 2/3 of the screen and two slaves split the right 1/3. Then take the 19" hook it to the Dual-Core box and mount it in portrait mode (i.e. sideways) with 2 more slaves on it - one on the top half, one on the bottom half. On the 28' monitor the main would be 22" @1220x1200 and 2 slaves would be 11" @ 600x600. Two other slaves would be 13" @ 900x720.

I like the way the 19" looks in portrait mode beside the 28" The 19" (sideways) ends up being exactly as tall as the 28". That would also give me 3 toons on the main box, and 2 on the other box which seems like it may be better performance wise.

I think I'm going with Paly (Prot), Mage (Frost), Druid (Balance), Shaman (Elemental) and Priest (Disc). If I went with option C or D above then I could put my AOE classes (Mage and Druid) on the main screen so when I want to AOE I have easy access to them.

Thoughts? Any options I'm not thinking about?

Long term I'd like to buy another matching 19" and have a 3 monitor setup. The main taking the whole 28" and 2 slaves on each 19" in portrait mode - one on each side of the 28". But that'll have to wait for several months - already catching wife aggro for buying a "2nd computer that I don't need" and spending $75 a month on WoW. My next upgrade will probably be a SSD anyway.

[MarkHR]

I'd have to say bigger is better as I've currently got 4 on a 19" that, unless I switch screens with maximiser, is pretty illegible.

Have you looked at the 26" Iiyama ProLite E2607WS-1. It's not as large as the 28" one you mentioned but may be considerably cheaper and, with a 2ms response time, really looks good.

http://www.iiyama.com/ms_GL/Product/category/2/product/152

[lordmythic]

I've got a similiar setup and just started 5 boxing with 2 more trial raf accounts. I have my main on the 28", and use keyclone's maximizer to run 4 on the 20" widescreen. With the settings turned down on the slaves my main still runs at 60fps+ and when I was tripleboxing my main saw about 30-35fps in Dalaran. I use the 19" to browse the web and other aux activities.

[Sembiance]

I multibox 5 accounts on 3 computers

My main I run on a 23" monitor running at 1920x1280 resolution.

Then I have two other computers hooked up to the same monitor (one DVI, one VGA).
The monitor is 19" and is turned in 'portrait' mode making the resolution 1024x1280

I have the monitor virtually split up into two, so one wow instance is on the top half and the other wow instance is on the bottom half.
Each computer has dual core CPU's, so each wow instance is bound to a different CPU core.
The graphics settings are set as low as they can go, although I have plenty of horse power there, I could probably run higher, but no need to. I'm only looking at my 'main' screen 90% of the time.

I then just hit the 'source' button on the monitor to switch between DVI and VGA and access the four accounts that way.

Works pretty well.

I'm thinking about some day maybe going to 10 accounts.

At that point I'll probably have my main tank and secondary tank or healer on my main machine.
Then have 4 on each of the other machines, 2 on each CPU.
At that point I'll probably not try and divide the screen into 4, but find some sort of way to keep two up at once or something.

[MarkHR]

Fur, thanks, still learning the ropes but I know what you mean regarding multi-monitor multi-tasking (an old job) - it's easy to miss things.