5 wow clients - One pc vs two

[ockhamsrazor]

I have two pcs, and plenty of monitors, more than capable of handling N number of wow clients. I was curious what people thought of using multiple pcs with keyclone vs one pc. This would all be on Win7.

Possible advantages:

One pc makes for easier manual control of all clients (when needed) - no need for mutiple mice and keyboards and associated hassle
Less complexity overall - less junk around the desk :-)
Disadvantages:

Using mainstream graphics cards I can only use two monitors (I think)
Anything major I'm missing?

[Jubber]

With the use of programs like Input Director you dont really have to mess with multiple mice and keyboards.

Edit: it let's you use your main mouse and keyboard across all computers on your network seamlessly.

[ebony]

Input Director is far the best one out there

[-silencer-]

Disadvantages:

Using mainstream graphics cards I can only use two monitors (I think)

Anything major I'm missing?

The new AMD/ATI Radeon 5000-series cards support up to 3 monitors through their Eyefinity tech, as long as at least one monitor as a DisplayPort. (Or you have an *active* DVI->DP adapter)
Many Dell Ultrasharp monitors have DisplayPort, and I'm currently running 5 windows on 3 24" Dell Ultrasharps with one Radeon 5870 videocard.

[Ualaa]

If you have a single PC which is strong enough to play all your clients, without straining its resources, I'd go with one PC.

If your single best PC cannot smoothly handle all the sessions you want to run on it, then multiple PC's is a good option.

You should be able to run at least two monitors on a single PC.
It depends on your available monitor sizes.
The main session should be large enough to see everything fine.
The slaves need to be large enough to notice if something is wrong.
With KC, the swap speed is not terribly fast, so the slaves have to be a bit larger then other options.

$20 per license is very little, but its worth mentioning.
You'd need one KC license per computer.

[ockhamsrazor]

I didn't realize the new ATI cards woudl let you run three monitors (with those caveats). That sounds like a great solution to me because I'd much rather run it all on one box.

With that in mind, I would probably use my 30" for the main wow instance and two 24"'s rotated for the slaves. Assuming I kept the slave's at low res, do you see any problems pushing those pixels out of one card for three large monitors like that?

[Ughmahedhurtz]

A few other considerations:


Do you like using PiP? Can't do PiP across multiple computers.
Movie recording. Your PC might be able to 5-box but can it 5-box AND record movies? If that's something you'd like to do, I'd recommend two PCs.
Redundancy. If your 2nd box can run 4 WoWs, it can probably run 5 with lowered settings. Meaning, if you lose one of the boxes, you can still multibox while waiting for your NewEgg shipment to arrive. ;)
KM switching. As others have noted, you'll need a KM software app like Synergy (not recommended due to noted bugs), Input Director, Multiplicity (not recommended due to the way it handles output when on your 2nd PC) or even Octopus so you can mouse over to an alt on the 2nd PC and type/drive/whatever.
Size of Alts. If you use 2 PCs with a 22" or larger monitor, your alts' windows will be big enough to actually see chat and such, depending on how you have 'em configured.

[Khemikal]

ATI has a 6 Display Port version of some of their cards coming out in the future. This will allow 6 monitors from a single video card, though with the stipulation you have the Display Port monitors or you use active DP > DVI converters.

[BobGnarly]

Biggest thing you're missing, as mentioned, is PIP. Depends on how much you use/care about that.

[Jubber]

When spreading your toons across multiple pc's PIP becomes less of an issue. Outside of alot of usage for PVP, in pve we tend to drive with a main toon anyways so it's rare to use PIP for any extended amts of time. What I like about using multiple pc's is being able to turn up the graphics for each of my instances of WoW. There's definately pro's and cons to both sides.

I do my dailies on 1 pc and if I feel like farming heroics or doing doing some PVP i tend to switch to 2 pc's. I like to set my main window and my healers windows to max graphics as I switch back and forth between them often. It also allows me to keep up important windows like IRC, Dual-boxing.com, and whatever else I am doing atm.. Hulu or Anime or whatever..lol.

[crowdx]

Has anyone tried running their master on a laptop and then using teh desktop for their slaves? I have often thought of trying this for times I want to do dailies etc but want to lounge on the couch. Notebook runs too choppy to 5 box on it (Dell Studio 1737 with Radeon 3500 and 4 gig memory)

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Yes. I do notice a bit of lag due to the WiFi being on the other side of my house but other than that, works fine. Can't glance over and see their screens, though, so I wouldn't recommend doing things like AV/BGs where your guys can get widely split up.

[crowdx]

How often do you need to go to the other machines to correct issues with the networked toons? I love being able to switch between toons but I am thinking simple dailies would be so much easier relaxing on the couch :)

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Well, the tradeoff is that you can't glance over to make sure all 5 guys actually picked up teh quest. Jamba's notifications help a LOT with that, though. Make it as spammy as you want. You might have trouble with things like one toon getting turned around or out of range to loot something due to lag or something similar. So many little things that a glance at your alts will confirm/deny.

Get a really comfy 'puter chair and it becomes a moot point, minus the TV in the background. :P

[Sam DeathWalker]

1 monitor per 1 computer is my motto.

Choose number of computers based upon the number of monitors you want, assuming one computer can handle all your accounts.

[-silencer-]

ATI has a 6 Display Port version of some of their cards coming out in the future. This will allow 6 monitors from a single video card, though with the stipulation you have the Display Port monitors or you use active DP > DVI converters.

Eyefinity SIX. Which was supposed to be out in November. Which also only uses 6x mini-DP ports. You can spend forever waiting on something that may or may not be released.. or accept a great solution now.

The reason to go with current 3x? Try pushing 6x 24" displays from one 5870 and check your frame rates. Also, if you want to play 1 character across 3x monitors, the center of your character is the middle of the center display. Look at the tech pics of WoW on 2x3 (6) displays.. bezel right through the center of your view. (True, 5x displays in portrait all in a row would be cool.. if the videocard can handle that many pixels...)

Eyefinity SIX is more for having a ton of real estate in 2D apps.. not really intended to have great frame rates across 6x 1920x1200 (or higher) resolution displays. Sure, it looks cool in a photo, but I'd bet at high graphic settings at that high of a resolution it plays like shit.