My 5 man setup, work-in-progress

[Stabface]

My system setup:

AMD X2 6000+
ATI x1650 PRO
2GB RAM
2 LCDs @ 1280x1024 in Stretch mode

I am using KeyClone and running 5 instances of WoW from 5 separate installs.
I use Maximizer to run 4 windows at 640x512 on one LCD and another at 1280x1024 on the second LCD.


Performance is fine in instances or out in the world so far, typically in the 30-40 FPS range.
Shattrath is laggy because my machine starts to swap, but nothing that more memory won't fix.
I tested with 4GB I swapped out from another machine and got 25+ FPS.

Here is a screen cap I snapped and stitched together - the white borders are simply for delineation purposes between the images.
On my LCDs the windows are seamless. I will try and get a camera to take photo of it. 4 warlocks 1 priest right now, level 16-17.


My UI sucks I know - it is a very much work-in-progress thing at the moment.
Waiting on KeyClone to fix the extended keys before I put much work into it.





http://img411.imageshack.us/img411/5527/stitchedscreensrg4.jpg

[Anton145]

That looks really nice, its awsome that you can run 5 copies of the game that smooth. I would love to see a RL picture of your rig if that was possible please. :)
How many Ghz is that CPU? Is it 6 ghz? How many cores does it have?
Cause I have a AMD X2 3800+ (2 core) processor I can only run 2 copies of WoW because it reaches about 90% then..

[Xzin]

What you are doing is probably the best way to go short of buying dedicated boxes.

My thumbs up to you :)

P.S. Windows cannot really address 4 gigs of memory with XP 32 bit. Just thought I would throw that out there.

[Stabface]

It's dual-core, 3ghz per core. Here is the CPU specs:
http://products.amd.com/en-us/DesktopCPUDetail.aspx?id=149

Motherboard is an ASUS M2R32-MVP, I use the stock heatsink that came with the retail version of the CPU. It's fairly quiet and 100% stable.

I do somewhat regret not going with a quad-core Intel machine but this cost probably 1/2 or 1/3 of what I'd have spent on a quad core box.

w.r.t. the 4GB memory limit in XP 32-bit, yep even with various boot.ini switches you'll never see more than ~3.5GB or so. I've heard that some motherboards have some BIOS trickery to get around this, but it appears mine does not. I do have a copy of XP 64-bit, and a copy of Vista... both of which would fix the problem. In the next week or so I'm going to try them out - separate installs onto spare HDDs - to work out any driver problems and compare the performance.

[Xzin]

WoW is mostly GPU limited anyway. Do you ever top out at 100% now?

[Stabface]

I hit 100% when I start to swap, which only happens in Shattrath so far - when I added the extra RAM I was at around 90% CPU while running around there. Normal usage seems to be in the ~60-80% range when actively playing depending on where I'm at and what I'm doing.

I'm just a bit concerned that I will run into a CPU ceiling when I start tweaking my UI. It's not like I'll be doing 5x Auctioneer scans or anything, but some mods and even macros take up a non-trivial amount of CPU / memory. And any CPU/memory hit is multiplied by up to 5 if I push it to all clients, so I have to be careful with what I add.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Dang how can you see anything in that? That is a smart set up for just 2 monitors though.

As you can see I go for a more minimalist approach.

Here is my UI on my main computer (others are at three monitors at 1024 and 2 at 1650 for 6 total) this is 1920 X 1200:

http://img167.imageshack.us/img167/7548/1920auk7.jpg

[caldvn]

I lose that sense of role playing when I see Sam's signature...it's not so much the picture of a living human being that plays game...I think it's what he's wearing...At least if you wore a bikini I would understand that you were wearing a bikini, but WTF are you wearing?

[Xzin]

I don't know but I am really close to asking him politely to stop posting it or temporarily suspend his posting privileges until he alters it. It creeps me out. And I am not easily creeped out.

[Shogun]

FireFox. Right click, block image, return to sanity ;)

[Xzin]

Opera too.. still.

Doesn't stop others from being goatse'd by it unknowingly.

[Shogun]

Opera too.. still.

Doesn't stop others from being goatse'd by it unknowingly.

I actualy laugh when I see his post, with no sig under it on my screen, knowing that some unsuspecting member/guest is going to get an eyefull ^^

[Sam DeathWalker]

It a leather pair of shorts, I dont see what the big deal is. I'v worn them to 100's of concerts.

Whatever let me work out a change in the sig. Be about 30 minutes.

Ok there is me onstage at Pantera and shaking Phils hand backstage.

[Sovereign]

Sig doesn't bother me at all. I don't see why it should

[unit187]

who the hell are you? are you working in circus? oO

[Stabface]

I'm not trying to be a dick, but can I request for a moderator to move all the discussion that isn't related to the topic off to another thread? Basically the last 8 posts, and this one as well - everything after Sam's EQ(?) screenshot.

I don't take any offense at anything here... I just want it to stay on topic and relevant. :(

[Ughmahedhurtz]

who the hell are you? are you working in circus? oODon't try to analyze Sam's appearance or motives -- you're almost guaranteed to guess wrong. ;) He doesn't follow most peoples' rulesets.

[Xzin]

Thats much more reasonable.

[DokujiN]

I'm running my current 4-box on this setup:

AMD 4200+ X2 @ 2.62GHz
2GB PC6400 800MHz (2 sticks in dual-channel for HyperTransport)
Radeon X1950XT 256MB

The only place I get any kind of trouble is in Orgrimmar and that is just slower loadtimes of characters. FPS is at 30+ at all times.
I bet I could make a similar setup like the poster and make it run extremely smooth if I got rid of the X1950XT and bought myself two X1950PRO since they work in CrossFire with nothing but software and cost like $120 each.

So you don't really need multiple machines to multi-box. It's just a lot more reliable^^

[imre]

is there any way of getting a nice write up of how you did it or a assembly video?

cheers the noob

[Naum]

Where can you find the maximizer program you're using?

[Stabface]

Hey guys sorry I have not gotten back to this thread (RL gets in the way some times...)

The Maximizer program can be found at http://worldofwarcraft.filefront.com/file/Maximizer;43576

and various other UI sites. There's a thread about it here http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums2/viewtopic.php?t=417


Setup is extremely simple.

Build computer, install XP, drivers, etc. Set desktop to Span between 2 monitors.
Install WoW and get all the updates.
Launch WoW, set resolution to 800x600 and toggle any options you want to keep for all clients. For example I turned NPC names on, turned on the extra action bars, and such.
Make 4 copies of your WoW folder so that you have 5 separate installs.
Copy WoW Maximizer into each folder, edit the maximizer.ini to set up your configuration. Here is the parameters I use:

#copy 1
margin = 0,512,0,1920

#copy 2
margin = 0,512,640,1280

#copy 3
margin = 512,0,0,1920

#copy 4
margin = 512,0,640,1280

#copy 5
margin = 0,0,1280,0

This puts 4 small instances of WoW onto my left screen @ 640x512 each and 1 large instance of WoW on my right screen @1280x1024.