My Dual Account Experience: 1 Computer - 1 Monitor
The site has proved interesting so far, and i hope you don't mind if i contribute so of my own observations.
With the release of the Burning Crusade, i desired something a little more interesting than a 10 level grind, so i turned to Dual Boxing. Now, I'm not wealthy or even well-off. In fact, I'm a dirt poor community college sophomore. So, instead of expanding to multiple computers, i worked to run two WoW's on the same computer. Putting together what i knew, this is what i managed to come up with.
System requirements:
Ram: 1024 will work. 2048 is great. I managed to get 512 to work... but a single AoE will make you cry.
Video card: 128 works just fine, so long as its not the 30$ walmart kind.
Processor: 2+ ghz. The Processor usage isnt too big of a deal with wow. Anything within the past 3-4 years will work fine.
Monitor: WoW will not be running full screen, so anything under 17" will be difficult to enjoy.
This last piece is very important.
A clean background. As in, your background processes are at a minimum and programs like AIM, MSN, ect are not running at all. Of course, the better the computer, the less important this is. But either way, cleaning it up will help.
Having these specs allow your computer to do what im about to say next...
Switching between both windows
This is where i struggled. I needed a way to tell my second window what to do, and using someones injection program is something i am against. After all, i want to stay within the rules as much as i can. I resorted to using the only "language" i am at all familiar with, and set out to create a script with autoit (www.autoitscript.com/).
Well, since wow blocks functions like Controlsend(), i resorted to alt-tab. Before you say "NO!", hear me out. I used Autoit to create a alt-tab script for my numpad. What this does is simple. Lets say i hit #1 on my numpad. Well, the script turns that "1" into the following sequence.
I hit numpad 1
It Alt+tabs to my priests screen
It hits Hit #1
It Alt+tabs back to my original screen.
This happens in about 1/2 second, which is why i stressed the system specs earlier.
<Script example in my reply>
Anyways, that is how i am currently dual boxing on a single computer. As you can see, i keep my warrior screen at a large size, as it is the one i play with. The Priest's screen is 800x600 and stuffed down into the corner so that i can see my bar and the first line of chat.
Picture
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y10...a/dualbox1.jpg
When both are 29, i will attempt some Battlegrounds, as i have not yet had the time to do so. As far as world pvp goes, its just been 1v2 (they run away) or 1v2 (??lvl), so i havent tried that either.
Also, tomorrow i will look at the autohotkey program, but i get the feeling its not much different from autoit.
O.o almost forgot. I run my system at full gfx settings on both wow windows and keep about 45 fps. I also get the .5 sec alttab time easily, and could probably shorten it, but its already just a flicker, so not at the top of my list.
AMD 64 X2 4200+
2048 ram
Nvidia 7900 GT
My next step is to try to put a movie player somewhere on the screen :wink:
I edited the title to Dual "Account" since Dual boxing just isn't the correct term for this.
