Lotro Dual-Boxing Howto

Ok, after about two weeks worth of use and work, here goes the write up of my Dual box setup for Lotro. To begin with I am currently playing a Champion and Minstrel Duo, which seems to be working pretty good.

Hardware Specs:
2 pc's:

My main Pc has the following:

Intel Core2Duo E8500 3.16Ghz O/Ced to 3.80Ghz
8 GB of ram
Gigabyte 9800GT with 1 GB Ram
1xWD Velociraptor (main drive)
2x WD Black Label 640gb drives
Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit
Logitech G11 Keyboard and MX518 mouse

On the second Pc I have:

AMD 4400+ X2 2.2Ghz
2GB of ram
Asus 7300GT silent (256mb I think)
some crappy hard drives
Windows XP Home
A cheap Logitech Keyboard and Trackball

I have two 19" Asus LCD monitors attached to the main computer using the Digital cables. I have the right monitor attached to the second pc by the analog connector.
I change the option on the second monitor to go to the second pc when I am using it.

The two pc's are connected to a simple 10/100 5 port switch on my desk. The switch is attached to my WRT54G router, which is connected to my cable modem.

Software:

2x Copies of LOTRO (1 on each pc)
Logitech G-series Profiler (manages G keys on the keyboard, and macros 8o )
Logitech Set-point software for the mouse.
Hotkeynet (it's all over the forums) with a custom script file. This program rocks, many thanks to Freddie. (you da' man)

[align=left]At this point we will move on to software configuration. Go ahead and download HotKeyNet and save it to both pc's, we'll get to it later. If you are using a G11/G15 keyboard and the Mx518 mouse, make sure your software is up to date.
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To begin with you must have two separate accounts (i.e. paying for two or more accounts under different account names). I read somewhere you can have a "master" account and set up multiple accounts under it. I did not do this. I created two separate accounts with turbine and gave them different names, this helps me keep them apart. You will need Lotro installed and patched on both computers. You should log each account in on it's respective computer, while you have it logged in, make sure that DX10 graphics are turned off (important). I log my Champ (main) in on the main computer, and the Minstrel (secondary) on the second computer. It would also be a good idea to go ahead and roughly set your graphics options, one of my pc's runs at very high and the other runs at low. Once this is done and you are sure that Lotro works correctly on either computer log them out and we can move on.

Open up the My Documents folder on both pcs. You should see a folder called, "The Lord of the Rings Online". Under that folder there is a file called "UserPreferences.ini", open it in a text editor. There should be a line that says "AllowFakeFullScreen=True", change that line to say "AllowFakeFullScreen=False". In the same file, look for a line that says "ComputeUniquePort=True", change that line to say "ComputeUniquePort=False". Save this file, make sure you do this on both pcs. These changes will help alleviate problems later on.

This is the part where we move on to the HotKeyNet configuration. Before beginning you will need the IP of both of your computers. Also, make sure the firewalls on both pcs are turned off, (this is VERY IMPORTANT). (For this example my main PC will have the IP 192.168.1.112, and the second pc will have the IP 192.168.1.145) Once you have this you are ready to install/configure HotKeyNet.

You should have the current HotKeyNet (currently 169) file on the desktop of either machine. Go ahead and unzip these to the desktop(s). Open the new folder, right click the HotKeyNet executable and select Create Shortcut. Click and drag the new shortcut(s) to your desktop(s) (I do this to make it easier to run). Go ahead and run the shortcut on both machines, HotKeyNet will probably give you an error about not loading a script, ignore this for now. On the main machine click Options->Connection settings. This will open a new window. On this window check Yes under "Are you connecting PCs?" , check Server under "This PC is a...". Leave the port at the default (7399) and set a password in the Security box. Click the Apply button. Make sure you write the password down, you will need it for the second pc.

On the second pc, navigate to the same Connection settings window. Where it says "Are you connecting PCs?" check Yes, where it says "This PC is a ...." check Client. In the Settings area type the main machine's IP in the "Server's IP address" box. In the Security box, under Password, type the password you wrote down from the main machine. Click the Apply button. If everything is set up correctly the "Connected PCs" box at the top should indicate that the server/client is connected and display the other machine's ip. Once this is working, close HotKeyNet on both pcs.

At this point we have the two HotKeyNet instances communicating, so we need a script to load. I have posted a script that I use for Lotro on the next post. All you need to do is select all the text and copy it to a text editor. Save that text as a new file called "LOTROdual.txt" and copy that file to the HotKeyNet directory on the main machine. Once this is done, open HotKeyNet on the main machine and click File->Load Script. Select the "LOTROdual.txt" file and click open. From now on, every time you open HotKeyNet it will open this file as the default script.

Go ahead and fire Hotkeynet up on both computers. Open Lotro up and log each pc in with it's respective keyboard. Once you have logged your characters in, I recommend switching to windowed mode on either pc. Now, from the main computer press the ScrollLock key to make the HotKeyNet script active. Go ahead and press the number 1 key on the main keyboard, this should perform whatever is bound to the number one on the main pc and do nothing on the second pc. If you hold the tilde key (squigley by the number 1) and press the number 1, the second pc's character should perform whatever move is bound to hotkey 1 on that pc. Let's say you want to perform the move for the second character that is bound to alt+2, you would press and hold tilde, alt, and the number 2. This would tell HotKeynet to send the signal for alt+2 to the second pc. The script has all the basic keys, the numbers 1-0,-,+, ctrl, alt, and shift set up to be passed to the second computer. The exceptions to this are the movement keys (wasdqe) which do not get passed on to the second computer. (One small note, I have been unable to get tilde,shift,- and tilde,shift,+ to work on the second computer).

I'm getting tired now, so I'll leave this post here for now. I hope to post some info on how I use the G11 keyboard and My MX518 mouse, in the next day or two. The script I use is in the next post.

//Edited 04-14-2009, added movement keys for the 2nd character.
//
//================================================== =============
// SAMPLE SCRIPT FOR TWO LOTRO'S ON TWO PC'S
//
// Toggle the scroll lock key to turn hotkeys off and on. (You
// can change this if you want, just like you can change
// everything else with HotkeyNet.)
//
//
// The tilde key (~) (oem3) is used as a temporary modifier to send keystrokes to the second pc running the second instance of LOTRO
//
// Requires HotkeyNet build 147 or higher.
//
// For more info, go to www.hotkeynet.com
//================================================== ==============


//Set modifier key to tilde
<UseKeyAsModifier oem3>

//Define list
<KeyList MyList A-Z, F1-F6, 0-9, Enter, Tab, Oem4, Space, Comma, Oem6, numlock, plus, minus, except W, A, S, D, Q, E, L>


//-----------------------------------------------------------
// DEFINE MAIL LABELS FOR SENDING KEY STROKES
//-----------------------------------------------------------
<Label w1 Local SendWin "The Lord of the Rings Online™: Mines of Moria™">
<Label w2 192.168.1.145 SendWinM "The Lord of the Rings Online™: Mines of Moria™">
//Change the "192.168.1.145" address above to the IP address of your second machine

//-----------------------------------------------------------
// DEFINE HOTKEYS FOR ALL KEY COMBINATIONS THAT WILL GET
// SENT TO BOTH LOTROS. ADD MORE KEY COMBO'S IF YOU WANT.
//-----------------------------------------------------------

<Hotkey ScrollLockon MyList; ScrollLockon Shift MyList; ScrollLockon Alt MyList; ScrollLockon Ctrl MyList>
<SendLabel w1>
<Key %Trigger%>

<Hotkey ScrollLockon oem3 MyList; ScrollLockon oem3 Shift MyList; ScrollLockon oem3 Alt MyList; ScrollLockon oem3 Ctrl MyList>
<SendLabel w2>
<Key %Trigger%>

//Movement for 2nd character
<Movement Hotkey up, down, left, right>
<PassThrough>
<SendLabel w2>
<Key %Trigger%>