computer specs for 5 boxing

[Goppie]

Hi there,

i am new to the world of multiboxing and i want to do it right from the beginning, 5 boxing that is :)

now i have some old rigs but im not sure how many clients they can handle, i have money for some small upgrades but not a whole new one (else i would buy a quad core...).

i have 3 pc's available:

one dual 3gig core, 1gig memory and a geforce 7600GT (256mb i believe), running xp
one amd athl 2600+ (2.09GHz), 512 mb and a ATI radeon 9200, running xp
and a laptop: amd turion64 2x 1.6GHz, 1gig memory and a intergrated ati radeon xpress 1100, running vista

one client on all these pc's give no problems but i never tried 2 or more.
I am going to upgrade the memory of my laptop anyway as Vista eats most of it and i cant do much without waiting...

I would like it the most to run all 5 clients on the first compu, or else run 4 clients on it and one on the laptop, but i dont know if it can handle it (with a doable fps)

can you maybe give some advice on upgrades, if needed? (oh, and the pc's have agp slots, so most new cards are not an option for me:()

Thanks

Rob

[aNiMaL]

I'ld try to go for 2 on the laptop and 2 on the dual 3gig and 1 on the amd athl 2600+,
and see from there how they handle.
I wouldn't reccomend running them all from one machine with that amount of memory.

I used to box on 3 single core machines at 3Ghz as my main and 2x 2.4Ghz for my slaves.
All had 1Gb ram and ran XP 32-bit
It ran quite smooth in Shatt,
I couldn't check for anything more demanding at that time.

I'm no expert tho (well, I can keep up the appearance to my boss)
I usually go by trial and error when it comes to these kind of decisions.

Do check out the symbolic links script ('index.php?page=Thread&threadID=4854') if you plan on running multiple copies from one harddisk
(yes i know, i linked it twice before this week, but it saved me a lot of time and gave me a great performance boost)
and get those graphic settings macros ('http://dual-boxing.com/wiki/index.php/Macro:Graphics_Settings') ready

[Goppie]

cool, tnx, i was already thinking in that direction, but i would like it most to use only 2 machines

does anyone know if putting 4gb in the dual core machine make it strong enough to run 4 instances?

[kura]

I run an q6600 quad, 780i, 4gb ram, and my trusty old 7800gtx. I can 5 box with 20fps on alts, and 60+ on the main. My bottleneck was video settings.. I turned down everything I didn't REALLY need, and it made a difference like night and day.

And if you want to know what I started 5 boxing on? An AMD 3000+ Venice.. that's 1.8ghz, 2gb ram, and a 7800gtx. I made 10fps alts, and 20(outside of cities) on the main. Didn't even bother trying to walk into a main city with all 5. Had to go one at a time. And I made it to 30 on my druids with that setup. :(

With parts prices nowadays.. I bought my q6600, evga 780i, and 4gb ram for 540 bucks out the door. Added my old case, hdd, 7800gtx, power supply, etc etc.. and I can run my 5 druids, plus my main without a sweat. Can even run in and out of Orgrimmar as I please! :)