Too good to be true?

[wowunderachiever]

I decided to try dual-boxing again. (I tried once back in BC then left the game)

First few days - literally lots of headaches. I need to finish a paladin and shaman I was leveling with my son before he lost interest.

My intuition told me to play the paladin tank and slave the ele shaman. I just had a lot of problems. Between getting software to work, getting Jamba set up correctly, goofing with macros and keybinds, I was about to give up. The final straw was that half the time when the caster would run up behind me, it'd get turned around, faced the wrong way, etc. By the time I got it fixed fight was basically over anyway.

Then I saw one of the posts here talking about how to solve the problem. Its in the stickies. That didn't seem to work well for me.

Then I decided to try playing the caster and use the tank as the slave. I use IWT and assist. To my astonishment this is actually easier and more reliable so far. Its basically like controlling a hunter pet only with more pet abilities and better aggro control.

Is this how many of you do it? (those who control a tank among their team) Is this going to stop working for me at some point?

Why can't I get ranged classes to turn around and run toward a hostile target with IWT? That's what the sticky says works best for situations where team members get turned around or jumped or whatever.

I'd like to get that part figured out - I might take a pair of hunters to the bg or something.

Anyway, just also wanted to say this is an excellent community of players and this site has amazingly helpful guides, stickies, and forum members. Helped me out considerably. Things have come a long way since I tried this back in BC.

[Ualaa]

Almost everyone who plays with a tank and others, drives with the tank.
That's not essential, but you'll frequently have procs that you can "click" on the tank without those being on a keybind/hotkey, and therefore can manage them very well without interfering with the playing of the rest of the team.

I've seen people drive with their healer, and use IWT/CTM for their melee component, which can include a tank.

For IWT to do anything, you need to have CTM (click to move) enabled on that toon.
You can do this via (Escape - Interface Options - Mouse Options), and check CTM on.
You can also toggle this with (On: /console AutoInteract 1) or (Off: /console AutoInteract 0).

If you're just playing two toons...
You might want to spec the Shaman as Resto.
Having both a tank and a healer can make instances much easier to do.

If you want a ranged class to face their target.
They need to have Click to Move enabled.
You would then press their IWT keybind.
And then any movement key (such as down arrow), to break the movement.

If your software is something like IS Boxer.
Or anything that uses "Steps".
You can set a key to execute a step on "Press or Release".
And have the IWT keybind on Step 1.
And the down arrow, to break the movement on Step 2.
Make sure, "Hold Keystroke while Hot Key is held" is enabled.
Then you push the hot key (and hold it), and once all the desired toons are facing the target and moving towards it, release the held hot key.
This is an excellent "fear" recovery tool, as IWT has a much larger range than Follow... so you can regroup a team that has scattered fairly well.

You can only IWT towards a friendly NPC (quest giver, merchant, flight master, inn keeper), or towards a hostile (attackable) enemy NPC or Player.
You cannot IWT towards someone on your own faction, such as your tank.

[wowunderachiever]

If you're just playing two toons...
You might want to spec the Shaman as Resto.
Having both a tank and a healer can make instances much easier to do.

Oh heavens I haven't even considered doing any dungeons yet. That's light years away for me. I'm just doing quests. I wouldn't subject a group to running with me while I play two any time soon. My shaman is ele. I don't think it makes much difference questing.

I have not problem playing the tank. I probably wouldn't have any problem keeping myself healed. Where I fear I'd run into issues is healing the rest of the group while staying out of the yuck muck and peeling adds and all the other stuff that has to happen.


If you want a ranged class to face their target.
They need to have Click to Move enabled.
You would then press their IWT keybind.
And then any movement key (such as down arrow), to break the movement.

If I hadn't done exactly that I don't see how it could be working so well for my paladin. I thought I mentioned above that I'd already seen the IWT instructions, followed them, and it worked for the melee but not for the ranged. I'll double check. Maybe I fat fingered something. It looks to me like ranged respond differently than melee.


If your software is something like IS Boxer.

Macintosh.

So far I'm not completely happy with any of the software options I've tried. Plexer, MultiLaunchBox, and Clonekeys. MLB seems to be the best of the 3 choices. I like it because I can see at a glance whether I'm broadcasting or not, but don't like that I can't hotkey the on/off thing. The keybind the author claims does it won't work.

Plexer has a keybind that works but there's really no good way to see whether I'm broadcasting.

Minor issues I guess.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

So, just to recap some of the general quirks with multiboxing (forgive me if you know some of these already):

latency will cause rubber-banding, which may cause characters to reposition repeatedly, sometimes ending up with them facing the wrong direction.
Hammering your CPU (causing each client to fight with the others for thread priority) may cause rubber-banding, same as above.
Slow disk access (read or write) may cause stuttering and Ye Olde rubber-banding again.
IWT+CTM sends the toon to the spot where the target was at the time you clicked the IWT button. What this means is that if the target moves, the next IWT keypress will attempt to reposition again. All of the above factors can greatly increase the waypoint "wobble" (usually observed as the IWT toon running away and/or running in circles around the target).
Spamming the follow, IWT/CTM, and other movement keys can back up the queue, especially if you are on a populated server or in a heavily-populated city or area, resulting in the above rubber-banding and follow-breaking, etc.


There are various other things that can exacerbate the above. You might do some poking and prodding at your CPU usage, thermal profile, process/thread affinity and priority and disk activity and see if you notice any areas where things are exhibiting inconsistent or wildly variable performance. I'd give you some specific things to poke at but I'm not a mac nerd.

[edit] One thing you might try if you haven't already is manually clicking/pressing keys on your slave character and see if you see the same problems you see while using broadcasting software. If not, then it's something to do with the software itself, or maybe that your processes are fighting with the game clients for CPU cycles. If you can do it, you might try setting all the game clients to LOW priority so they free up things every so often.

Good luck!

[wowunderachiever]

I don't know how I can explain this any better. The whole IWT thing works great for me. It works fine. So far no rubber banding, no weird stuff, the slave does exactly what I want - stops what he's doing and runs directly at the mob. If he gets turned around because the mob moves or throws him, I tap the IWT key again and the slave faces the mob again and goes back to fighting. It all works great.

*************************
***Except with the hunter***
*************************

I double checked everything and tested it again. If the hunter slave is already facing the mob, IWT will cause him start auto-shooting. But if he is not already facing the mob, the IRT does nothing except cause him to start auto shooting when another action of some sort on my part causes him to face the mob.

Hunters will not face the mob in response to IRT unless *maybe* they are in melee range, but I haven't tested that because I don't want mine to melee if I can avoid it. In fact, avoiding them being in melee is the whole point.

I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the class, not my hardware. I'm getting decent FPS - often up around 100 with both clients running.

[Ualaa]

Because it is only the Hunter that you have the issue with...
Which would have helped to know earlier (assumed this was the Elemental Shaman)...

I'll assume it has something to do with the Hunter option to auto shoot.

Checking my configuration...
If I have (In Options - Combat Options) "Stop Auto Attack" checked, then everything works fine.
I have a mob targeted, and its in range to be attacked, and I'm facing the wrong way.
I press my IWT keybind, and my Hunter turns towards the mob and starts to shoot it.

When I uncheck "Stop Auto Attack", and have the Hunter facing the wrong way.
Pressing my IWT keybind doesn't do anything for me.
Even though CTM is enabled, etc.
As soon as I turn to face the mob, the auto attack turns on.

Check that, and see if that is the culprit.

[jstanthr]

on your hunter, are you sure the IWT command is being broadcasted? I really really suggest trying out keyclone or isboxer, they are both great boxing apps, each have their own stong points and weak points. The next version of KeyClone (release TBA) prolly in the next month or so, will be more pvp oriented from what im hearing, with mouse broadcasting and some other custom queing bg releated features. ISBoxer rocks, the setup can be confusing if you let it be, but if you watch any of the million videos out there, you'll be pwning in no time. I apologize for being OT, jst thought id throw that out there.

[wowunderachiever]

I'll assume it has something to do with the Hunter option to auto shoot.

Checking my configuration...
If I have (In Options - Combat Options) "Stop Auto Attack" checked, then everything works fine.
I have a mob targeted, and its in range to be attacked, and I'm facing the wrong way.
I press my IWT keybind, and my Hunter turns towards the mob and starts to shoot it.

...
Check that, and see if that is the culprit.

I checked that, it was unchecked and I fixed it. Still doesn't work.

However...

The functionality works fine if its a NPC or corpse. It will turn around and run to a corpse to loot it but won't turn around to shoot.

I thought for sure you had told me the solution, but I checked stop auto attack, relogged, etc and no joy. Still the same behavior on hostile targets.

Could it be a difference between WoW clients for Mac and PC? doesn't seem like it would have anything to do with the game client...

[Ualaa]

Really not sure on that.

Does your IWT/CTM stuff work for a ranged class other than the Hunter?

You said it works for the melee characters.
Does it work for your Shaman, when you're Enhancement spec but not Elemental spec?

If you want to try PC boxing software options, as Jstanthr suggests...
I believe you can use "Bootcamp", or something with a very similar name to boot windows on a Mac.
I don't think the Mac client would be different from the PC client, but there are much better PC boxing software options than Mac boxing software options.

[Khatovar]

Hunters are the exception to the rules because they are the only class who's "autoattack" is always ranged.

http://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/45324-IWT-hunters-vs-mages

If you do move to using Bootcamp and use something that can easily do steps like ISboxer or HotKeyNet, you can configure the hunter to use follow or a focusing crystal macro as the first step of IWT to insure that the hunter is facing the right way, then IWT.

[Ualaa]

I don't have any issues with my all Hunter team, as far as IWT with a hostile mob that I'm not facing.
And I don't have any form of unique set up for the Hunters.

In the Toolkit, the Hunters IWT exactly the same as every other team.
They're not in my "Melee ATG" (Action Target Group), so don't receive IWT as I spam my DPS key.
But if I push my manual IWT key, they do turn (the same as my Caster teams) towards the hostile and auto shoot it.

I remember Hunters having a few unique settings within the Warcraft interface.
And having some kind of an issue.
I didn't want them to auto assist and auto shoot, a new target... which was initially an issue with them.
But whatever my settings are, the Hunters act exactly the same as Warlocks, Priests, Elemental Shaman, Boomkins, etc, as far as IWT/CTM goes.

[wowunderachiever]

Hmmmm.....


I press my IWT keybind, and my Hunter turns towards the mob and starts to shoot it.

...or....


Hunters are the exception to the rules because they are the only class who's "autoattack" is always ranged.

http://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/4...nters-vs-mages (http://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/45324-IWT-hunters-vs-mages)

I don't know which to believe. I read the thread and it seems pretty settled hunters can't do it, but if Ualaa figured something out I'd be interested in knowing what makes it work. So would all the other people out there who think it won't work on hunters.

[Khatovar]

I don't have any issues with my all Hunter team, as far as IWT with a hostile mob that I'm not facing.
And I don't have any form of unique set up for the Hunters.

In the Toolkit, the Hunters IWT exactly the same as every other team.
They're not in my "Melee ATG" (Action Target Group), so don't receive IWT as I spam my DPS key.
But if I push my manual IWT key, they do turn (the same as my Caster teams) towards the hostile and auto shoot it.

I remember Hunters having a few unique settings within the Warcraft interface.
And having some kind of an issue.
I didn't want them to auto assist and auto shoot, a new target... which was initially an issue with them.
But whatever my settings are, the Hunters act exactly the same as Warlocks, Priests, Elemental Shaman, Boomkins, etc, as far as IWT/CTM goes.

I don't see any additional hunter options in the game options. Attack on Assist and Stop Autoattack are both listed as generic options. No matter what I set up, if I'm facing at a 90° or less angle from the target, they will attack with IWT, but any greater and they will not, unless they are far enough away from the target that they need to run into shooting range. If you've got other settings changed somewhere, that'd be very useful to know.

[jstanthr]

i looked back over my hunter team settings, and on the pvp setup for them the iwt key also sends down arrow as a second step with ctm ON. hunters default atk is still melee, if you have ctm on and u hit iwt, they will run to it. (unless something has changed in past month or so) so the down arrow as step 2 breaks the movement, but still allows iwt/ctm to turn them, sometimes they really are turned even though the camera doesnt reflect it. once u put them in motion again the camera will "spin" sometimes

[Khatovar]

Also found this during a search

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/3657427180

If it doesn't work, it may be a bug, but I haven't found anything from a blue on it. So you may have to use a workaround anyway.

[Ualaa]

I don't see any additional hunter options in the game options. Attack on Assist and Stop Autoattack are both listed as generic options. No matter what I set up, if I'm facing at a 90° or less angle from the target, they will attack with IWT, but any greater and they will not, unless they are far enough away from the target that they need to run into shooting range. If you've got other settings changed somewhere, that'd be very useful to know.

I was mistaken...

Just played my Hunter team, for the Grizzly Hills dailies.
If they're close to 90° to the target, they do turn towards the target with an IWT.
But they won't turn towards the hostile if they're more than 90° away from the target.

Have a video of the run.
And at the end the settings that my Hunters use.
http://www.twitch.tv/ualaa/b/307652035

[MadMilitia]

I drive as heals and yes, it is far better.


Pros:
No broadcast latency.
No grid
No clique
Better eyes on area, not up a monster's behind.

Cons:
Melee run offs
Requires more maps for the important peels/abilities of melee who aren't drivers.


I put up with the setup because quite honestly, broadcast healing is horrible. I found it to be truly unreliable even on a very good piece of hardware.

[Khatovar]

I put up with the setup because quite honestly, broadcast healing is horrible. I found it to be truly unreliable even on a very good piece of hardware.

I broadcast heal and have for years and it works beautifully. My broadcast healing is as reliable in multiboxing as it was soloboxing a healer, and I don't now, nor have I ever used a healing mod like Grid or Clique. All it is is HotKeyNet and mouseover regions (http://genus-industri.us/wp/2011/11/08/hkn-script-v2-part-2/). I know the same things can be done with ISBoxer via VideoFX (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qHo0FTuGV0) or Clickbars (http://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/33614-ISBoxer-Click-Healing-without-addons-(IMAGES-ADDED-by-REQ)).

Driving from the healer is always an option, but there's many, many users who run the healer as a slave with no issues.

[MadMilitia]

I broadcast heal and have for years and it works beautifully. My broadcast healing is as reliable in multiboxing as it was soloboxing a healer, and I don't now, nor have I ever used a healing mod like Grid or Clique. All it is is HotKeyNet and mouseover regions (http://genus-industri.us/wp/2011/11/08/hkn-script-v2-part-2/). I know the same things can be done with ISBoxer via VideoFX (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qHo0FTuGV0) or Clickbars (http://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/33614-ISBoxer-Click-Healing-without-addons-%28IMAGES-ADDED-by-REQ%29).

Driving from the healer is always an option, but there's many, many users who run the healer as a slave with no issues.


If you've not seen it, or maybe it's just my hardware not being up to snuff, there is a good half a second when you move your cursor over a broadcast region that it takes to appear on the slave window.

To me, that half a second is life or death in an intense PvP or PvE encounter. Sending what you thought was a heal that went into that abyss of a half second can be a wipe easily.

[Khatovar]

I don't even see my mouse leave my screen, even when I use ground-target AOE on all 5 windows. In exceedingly heavy combat, I might see my cursor flicker, but it's still instantaneous.

You can also use mock mouseover where you don't actually send your mouse to the other window. You simply set up a region where moving or clicking your mouse at X,Y sends a keypress only to the slave and the keypress triggers a hardcoded macro. That is what I use for dealing with procs.

[MadMilitia]

I don't even see my mouse leave my screen, even when I use ground-target AOE on all 5 windows. In exceedingly heavy combat, I might see my cursor flicker, but it's still instantaneous.

You can also use mock mouseover where you don't actually send your mouse to the other window. You simply set up a region where moving or clicking your mouse at X,Y sends a keypress only to the slave and the keypress triggers a hardcoded macro. That is what I use for dealing with procs.


This most likely has to do with the way your setup is configured.

I'm a former grid user, so it makes the most sense for me to click what I think needs healed quickly. Now I use blizzard's raid frames with mouseover macros to eliminate the need for additional addons.

I'm curious to your setup. When you heal party or raid how do you deal with healer targeting?

[Khatovar]

I use mouseover for healing and rez. Mock mouseover for decursing, procs, cooldowns, interrupts. This is my setup

http://genus-industri.us/wp/2011/11/08/hkn-script-v2-part-2/

[Ualaa]

I don't notice any heal lag, with a Repeater Region over a Grid Frame.

I'm using Grid + Grid Custom Layouts.
So my team (any composition of my toons) appear in column one (five toons).
And the rest of the raid in columns two through eight.

No pets show up, could add that but didn't want to.

With Grid you need Clique to interpret the clicks.

The Repeater Region sends the mouse stuff to only my Paladin on the Pally/4x DK team.
But it sent it to 3x Shaman on the Pally/Warlock/3x Elemental Shaman team.
On the 5x Resto Druids, they all got the mouse stuff.
Set it how you like.

With a Repeater Region and an identical grid frame across all toons.
You can drive with any toon.
And heal as effectively, as with the main toon.
Or at least as effectively as you configure your Grid.
On the Pally, Grid gets me (Set Focus, Clear Focus, Quick Heal, Big Heal, Cleanse).
On the Druids, Grid gets me heals on Left, Alt Left, Ctrl Left, Shift Left, Right, Alt Right, Ctrl Right, Shift Right clicks, and Scroll Up and Scroll Down; 10 binds instead of 5.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

If you've not seen it, or maybe it's just my hardware not being up to snuff, there is a good half a second when you move your cursor over a broadcast region that it takes to appear on the slave window.
Tell us about your setup. It sounds like you've got something funky going on. I had my healer in Rift set up with a click region (did not process anything until I actually clicked on something) and I never noticed any lag at all. It was effectively exactly like driving from the healer.

[edit] Correction: due to ISBoxer's awesomeness, it was actually faster than driving from the healer, now that I think about it.

[MadMilitia]

Tell us about your setup. It sounds like you've got something funky going on. I had my healer in Rift set up with a click region (did not process anything until I actually clicked on something) and I never noticed any lag at all. It was effectively exactly like driving from the healer.

[edit] Correction: due to ISBoxer's awesomeness, it was actually faster than driving from the healer, now that I think about it.


Q9650 core 2 Quad
WD Caviar Black 1TB
8GB Nvidia Ram
EVGA 780i
2x GTX nvidia video cards (device manager is showing 460 but they are not 460s. Generic driver I suspect). First card runs the display interface, second handles physics (for other games obv).
Razer death adder left handed edition
Logitech G510
Win 7

Standard AV running during the game play.


The latency between broadcasts is very prominent in that second. Even in a 3s game.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Forgive me for not being more clear. I meant your ISBoxer, HotKeyNet, etc. setup. As in, how do you have your keys bound, what macros are you using, how does your broadcasting software control your alts, etc.

[Ualaa]

http://isboxer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=13&sid=54dcb494e03dfbe651b49f593580e7c0

Although you can share the profile here or there.
Or in both places.

But that's how to share an IS Boxer profile.

[MadMilitia]

Forgive me for not being more clear. I meant your ISBoxer, HotKeyNet, etc. setup. As in, how do you have your keys bound, what macros are you using, how does your broadcasting software control your alts, etc.

I see.

I usually stick to 1-9, -, = to be clear. I only use isboxer unless I'm grid/cliqing from the tank or dps perspective.

The macros are all standard cast with mouse mods. Meaning, clique is told to cast healing wave on left click, GHW on right click.

I put the repeat region over the grid/clique setup then make sure it is broadcasting to my healer. This all works as expected for the most part.

As soon as I hit the wall (thinking this is cpu related), the whole thing starts experiencing noticeable latency.

I've ditched one video card to see if that was the issue. I've tried testing memory and also checking the hard drive for failures or hard swaps.

I don't do anything out of the normal wizard setup and the repeater region that is documented clearly. The only distinction might be the wow macros I use in the client itself which are standard mod macros like:

#showtooltip
/castsequence reset=6 riptide, healing wave, healing wave

Or

#showtooltip
/cast [mod:rshift]Totemic Recall;Call of the Spirits


Pretty basic stuff. If I had to pick a culprit it would definitely be the Q9650, which just hits the wall hard on 5s and seems to hit the wall during intense 3s.


Ualaa,

http://www.privatepaste.com/b62534a937

[Ughmahedhurtz]

I'm betting this is not CPU or memory but a leak in either a driver or some software you have installed, or possibly a bad keymap config buried in all those mapped keys you have(!). I highly doubt it's ISBoxer itself as I have yet to see anyone complain about ISBoxer having issues after long play sessions. For that matter, I can't remember any of the broadcasting software having reported issues with memory leaks, crashes or corruption once they were out of beta.

[edit] I do recall some folks having issues where a keypress in a high-pop/high-stress environment that triggered certain spells would be tough on certain video cards but yours doesn't seem to fit with my vague recollection of that problem.

[MadMilitia]

I'm betting this is not CPU or memory but a leak in either a driver or some software you have installed, or possibly a bad keymap config buried in all those mapped keys you have(!). I highly doubt it's ISBoxer itself as I have yet to see anyone complain about ISBoxer having issues after long play sessions. For that matter, I can't remember any of the broadcasting software having reported issues with memory leaks, crashes or corruption once they were out of beta.

[edit] I do recall some folks having issues where a keypress in a high-pop/high-stress environment that triggered certain spells would be tough on certain video cards but yours doesn't seem to fit with my vague recollection of that problem.

Well,

To summarize it when I stand in front of a portal or some other highly active graphical feature my setup slows to a crawl in single digit numbers when 5 boxing.

I don't see how that could be normal. Maybe my hardware is slightly overheating due to being on fan cooling. Thinking of switching to water cooled soon but don't want to water cool a setup I'm going to replace anyways.

[MiRai]

Well,

To summarize it when I stand in front of a portal or some other highly active graphical feature my setup slows to a crawl in single digit numbers when 5 boxing.

I don't see how that could be normal. Maybe my hardware is slightly overheating due to being on fan cooling. Thinking of switching to water cooled soon but don't want to water cool a setup I'm going to replace anyways.
First of all, don't water cool your current setup.

Second, it could be very normal depending on what your video settings are set at. The quad-core you're
currently boxing on can't handle a whole lot after the graphics engine update that came with Cataclysm.
You also don't list your video cards. You say they're nVidia GTX but, there are numerous nVidia GTX cards
available.

[MadMilitia]

First of all, don't water cool your current setup.

Second, it could be very normal depending on what your video settings are set at. The quad-core you're
currently boxing on can't handle a whole lot after the graphics engine update that came with Cataclysm.
You also don't list your video cards. You say they're nVidia GTX but, there are numerous nVidia GTX cards
available.


Graphics: All on low settings.

Cards: I bought these a year or more ago. I don't remember what they were because I don't have the boxes and windows insists on telling me they are 460s due to the generic driver. They are in actuality 275s from what I recall.


Isn't WoW far more cpu intensive than it is gpu intensive?

In any event it seems you agree with me that the Q9650 is the bottleneck here.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Before you go upgrading hardware and spending money, you can check a couple of things to narrow down your variables:


If you're using the latest NVidia drivers, it has a GPU temperature monitor. Open that when you're having issues and post what temps you're seeing. Typically <80C is OK for GPUs. If you're going over 80, it needs attention.
Download CoreTemp and run it. Report what your core temps are (all 4) when you're seeing the problem. Typically, sub 75C is fine. A good air heatsink should keep a Q series below 55-60C even when multiboxing.
Go into the WoW advanced video settings and start disabling checkboxes one at a time and see if one of those makes the problem go away. You will have to restart the clients for some of those. As an example, my old ATI 5850 would absolutely choke (5fps) when I turned on terrain highlighting. Disabling that one setting and the card would run liquid smooth at 60fps.


[edit] Despite setting things to LOW graphics, some checkboxes may still be enabled.

Also, you can go into the NVidia control panel and set the 3D settings to "high performance" and turn off things like anisotropic filtering, antialiasing, etc.

[Apps]

I just skimmed but looking at the ISBoxer file, it looks like you are trying to 5 box with all background on 30fps, and foreground on 60fps, while using a quad core system, I can only guess the RAM is likely DDR2?

I may be off here, but running that much is quite a load on your pc. If you are seeing a 1 sec lag on your repeater regions in more graphic intensive areas, I'd consider myself lucky. What are your game graphic setting on? all low? if not, they should be.

[MadMilitia]

I just skimmed but looking at the ISBoxer file, it looks like you are trying to 5 box with all background on 30fps, and foreground on 60fps, while using a quad core system, I can only guess the RAM is likely DDR2?

I may be off here, but running that much is quite a load on your pc. If you are seeing a 1 sec lag on your repeater regions in more graphic intensive areas, I'd consider myself lucky. What are your game graphic setting on? all low? if not, they should be.


All low settings and the head is fair.

The RAM is DDR2 yes.

Ughmahedhurtz,

The temp right now on my 275GTX is well within normal. 51 degrees Celsius.

The CPU is hitting approximately 85-95% usage even at idle positions with the 5 accounts rendering.

I'm gonna try and drop the FPS to the slaves down enormously as I don't usually look at these windows. We'll see how it goes.

By the way, thank you all for showing an interest in this sub topic. ;)

[Apps]

Good call. Id lower the Background too. Even at 30 fps, you're likely straining the 275GTX. By the looks of it, you are tweaking the last little bit of performance out of your current system. You should be about done. Let us know how you did. Good luck!

[Ualaa]

There's a point (FPS), where the slave windows will start to lose follow.
I'd not put them below 15 FPS (I think it's around 12 FPS, where follow breaks in Everquest; I know we're talking Warcraft here).

[MadMilitia]

Guys,

Just to update from where we left off.

5 boxing 60/30 TANKED in Ogrimmar routinely and also in some intense encounters.

60/10 is not tanking anywhere and Ogrimmar is holding at 25-30 FPS on the main. Works at about 40 in cata dungeons so I'm good for now.

Low settings on 4 slaves, High settings on master. Works just fine.

Going to give grid/clique a second chance too, to see if there is still that latency between sessions.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

One other thing possibly worth noting: if you have a ton of addons installed, it will kill your client performance. Sucks, but LUA is what it is. :p

[MadMilitia]

One other thing possibly worth noting: if you have a ton of addons installed, it will kill your client performance. Sucks, but LUA is what it is. :p


Yep, figured that would be costly too.

So recount and isboxer is it. Nothing else.

If I do run grid/clique again it'll be grid/clique on heals, just grid on tank.

Feeling I really do need to be on the tank now as doing a dungeon crawl is a LOT different than running after players in PvP.

[Apps]

you could do without clique now, and just use grid plus repeater regions. Or better yet, make your own grid by using clickbars... which are already built into ISBoxer.

[MadMilitia]

you could do without clique now, and just use grid plus repeater regions. Or better yet, make your own grid by using clickbars... which are already built into ISBoxer.


I'm assuming what you mean is to create a click bar cell for each party member and click those for heals?

Isn't that a bit much? Why not just click the grid cell?

[Apps]

Is it? Given your computer resource limits, personally, I would prefer to do the clickbars vs the memory load the addons will do, when the ability to do the same thing is already being used by ISBoxer.

And I think the time towards making the clickbars is very comparable to the time to locate the addons, download them, put them in the folder, restart WoW, and then spend more time configuring them.

But yes. I mean to say make a clickbar for each one of your toons. Hell, make it "Grid-shaped" if you want, even with the grid colors...

[Ualaa]

I personally like the addon more than Click Bars.
But like that you can do close to the same, without needing an addon, which means in just about any game.

The addons aren't hard to find or install, once you've used an addon or two that process is simplistic.
Either:
a) Vuhdo
b) Healbot
c) Grid + GridCustomLayouts + Clique

An alphabetical sort, or a copy paste of someone's CustomLayout doesn't take too long.
For me, making the ClickBars would take much longer, but the practice in using a useful IS Boxer feature would be good.
The IS Boxer ClickBar would eventually be exactly as you want it to appear, rather than exactly the same as someone else configured their addons to appear.

I like that the addon (Grid, Healbot, Vuhdo) can show relative health levels.
As in 75% of the Grid is one color, representing a 75% loss in health.
I like that you can show buffs or debuffs on the Grid frame.
I could be wrong here, but I'm not sure you can have the ClickBar change color (as a percentage of the bar, proportional to damage taken by the character).

Both are good tools.
You could easily configure the ClickBar to heal based on where you click it.
You could easily configure it to be a specials or Battle Rez tool, and manage BR across the entire team fairly easily.
A ClickBar is a graphical clicked upon trigger for mapped keys, which are far stronger than a healing addon at running say round-robin effects.





How would I go about making a ClickBar that shows any combination of my five toons (one per account) in column one.
And the rest of the raid (up to 35 other players) in the remaining columns.
In such a way, that the ordering is the same for every character on the team?

Is there a way for a ClickBar to change color based on the health of the unit it represents.
Could I go "Green" when at full health, "Yellow" when between 50-75% health, "Orange" when between 25-50% health, and "Red" when under 25% health?
Or even display proportional coloring (as the Addons do), showing the relative health of the unit the bar represents?

[Apps]

Sorry Ualaa. I think perhaps, my point got lost at some time. I didnt mean to imply clickbars were better. Just thought he could accomplish nearly the same thing solely for the sake of his resource issues with a lower performance system. Especially given that hes about capped out at what he can do.

Im not anti-Grid. I used it. I like it. But then again, my computer systems tech is much improved from the previous posts.

anyway, that was the point.