Did anyone consider this hardware setup yet?

I got this idea while I was thinking about 5 new accounts, once I'm finished with my current guys, in order to 10 box. I'd need a new state of the art pc with another 2 24 monitors. That brings me in the range of 1750-2250 euro's total. Then I was worried where I have to place those new toys in my office (already using 4 + laptop) in terms of space. Not to mention the noise it's causing (to reduce that it would be another extra $). My favorite computer is my EEE netbook. I often have it open next to my keyboard while I'm working or playing WoW, just for general surfing/irc/IM. It's oh so silent, doesn't produce any heat and works like a charm.

So I wanted to know what it would be to install WoW on that EEE (linux os). After some tweaking iI got it working with reduced graphical settings. As an EEE costs around 300 euro's, i could buy 4 more and be ready for my 5 team. With a remote desktop I could take over any session on my main comp.

It's not only cost effective, but also, required space/overview/ noice, heating & electrical bill wise. Not sure about the last, but 2 24 inch monitors and a huge machine eat quite some electrics. 5 netbooks should use way less (could be totally wrong there, its just what i expect).

Not to mention that I'm mobile. On a business trip I could just take 4 extra eee's with me next to my laptop. Plug them in in my hotel room and box. The extra weight is minor. Only see a problem when I go through customs and they see a bunch of EEE's :D

Can only think what it would be to run a 10 box team with 9 netbooks and 1 normal computer. It would look really cool and cause a lot of wtf's from people that 'd see it.

Anyone has considered cq done this before? And any pro's/cons i forgot?

RDP = Not viable for gaming. Period.

Well I wasn't specific enough about the remote desktop I guess. I do not intend to play the game that way. It's just to bring 1 client up to the screen to equip a new piece of armor, sell some stuff, repair armor, .... rather than having to move physical notebooks around. Not to play a toon. I've tested it and it works smooth enough for my needs.

Interesting discussion I am surprised you got it to work in the first place.

Let me get this straight. You are using netbooks to run slaves? So this means if I have a gaming laptop for "eye candy" and 9 netbooks, I could be hardware boxing 10 toons? And it's completely portable? Hmm, I am going to research the cost of this. The idea of having a portable 10 box team for business trips and vacations is very interesting.

Drommon

Why RDP at all? Are the screens on the netbooks too small? Just use HKN/Octopus/etc and have 1 mouse/keyboard to control them all

WoW on an Atom processor? Even at minimum specs?

I've not tested that myself, but I'd suspect that it would at least operate. Something with a dual-core Atom should be better and shouldn't add much to the price.

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Originally Posted by Fursphere

Gaming on a budget linux pc = fail

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Do you mean gaming on a low end pc in general or did you refer to the linux / low end pc combo? Because for the latter I disagree: on a typical windows system you run a bunch of security apps which cause performance issues. There are many cases where a native windows program (games) performs better under wine/linux than on windows (xp/vista, no clue about 7). Not to mention that linux is very flexible i.e. you can strip it down as much as you want. If you'd see a lightweight windows manager (like xfce) in action on outdated hardware running recent applications, you'd be surprised.

Basically: if I can match the same result (or at least close) with lower costs, increased security and more fun (+ some other advantages as I mentioned earlier), then i'd say its a win.

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Originally Posted by Drommon

Let me get this straight. You are using netbooks to run slaves? So this means if I have a gaming laptop for "eye candy" and 9 netbooks, I could be hardware boxing 10 toons? And it's completely portable? Hmm, I am going to research the cost of this. The idea of having a portable 10 box team for business trips and vacations is very interesting.

Drommon

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Pretty much. At first I'd go with 4 netbook slaves and 1 main (my current workstation, or a decent laptop when I'm on the road). I hardly ever look at whats happening on my resized screens ( 2nd monitor) nowadays; I do everything from my main (unless i get whacked and have to run back to the corpse of course). If thats a working solution, then the same should work (in theory) for any amount of toons, cause every slave uses the same dedicated hardware specs/power.

What I've tested so far: install/run the game on my EEE with 2gb ram & non ssd HD. The installation is no issue as I can do an install over the network. Running opensuse 11.0 / kde 3.5.9 (49.1). With medium to low visual settings i got 28 fps walking around in ogrimmar. Walked through all fights/duels that were going on without any lag. Pretty sure I can do a lot on the OS end to strip it down/tweak it to get even better performance.

I haven't tested how it acts in raids/arena/bg's, as I'm still leveling up. And that seems to be Fursphere his biggest concern. I did read forum posts from players who play only 1 toon on their EEE: some claim it's no prob at all to raidl, others find it a pain. My only guess is that they use/want/need too much graphical detail. That is no real issue for a multiboxer cause as from what I've heard/read most use the lowest visual settings on their alts anyway. Again: nothing really changes for your main.

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Originally Posted by Fizzler

Interesting discussion I am surprised you got it to work in the first place.

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Depending on your geek level, being crazy and stubborn enough, you can get a lot of things to work ;)

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Originally Posted by Ghallo

Why RDP at all? Are the screens on the netbooks too small? Just use HKN/Octopus/etc and have 1 mouse/keyboard to control them all

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I'd say that the screens are comparable to 1 alt screen using maximizer on my 24" screen (1/4th of a 24 inch). As for remote: tt's just a matter of preference. I'm used to take over remote desktop sessions/vnc for a decade now (not for games). I don't really see issues to use an other strategy, as long as it works for you.

What I have in mind for now is:
- tweak/strip linux on 1 netbook to get the best results, make an image to distribute to other slaves
- use a network key broadcasting tool like synergy (as its 1 toon per comp there is no real need for an aditional broadcasting script)
- run wow either under cedega or wine, depending on the performance (there is no real consensus as to what runs best on linux i've noticed, seems to depend mainly on your hardware)

Again, I can only see advantages. However it wouldn't be the first time that i run with my head into a wall :P (if thats proper english)

Thats pretty much it. Later this weekend it should be able to run some tests with 3 eee's and I'll let you know how things work out.

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Originally Posted by Fursphere

FYI - Atom processors are usually compared to Pentium 3 CPUs, performance wise.

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Well after doing some research I found that the Atom proc can run WoW. Netbooks with win XP, atom, 1 GB of ram and the onboard graphics like Intel GMA950 meet the minimum spec to run WoW. However the minimum specs will change with cataclysm. In addition the framerates will be in the low teens.

On the other hand what if Blizzard made a WoW lite? Something like this could be playable on a netbook. This could increase thier subscription numbers and thus their bottom line. Suddenly, people who are gadjet junkies might consider multiboxing as well as those who couldn't afford a desktop or laptop can now play.

After all said and done, IMO, multiboxing 10 mans should be done hardware wise, meaning high end desktop(s).

But if you can pull it off with 5 netbooks and enjoy what you are doing then I am glad that it is working for you :)

Drommon

Slightly off topic ->

I have personally seen wow run on virtual destops.

Whats more interesting is that the VM (virtual machine) also had a VNC session running on it. The user used his iphone and the VNC share app to access his WoW sessions remotely. It was choppy as hell but he was just using it for AH analysis buy/sell.

So I am just saying, if you owned a server, you could set up 10 virtual machines and run a copy of wow from each VM. I am just curious now, what would be the cost of that? <-- NVM to expensive :)

Drommon

I would think, while the minimum settings to play the game will play the game, you'd want to exceed the minimums by a fair margin for the game to playable and not just loadable.