Mac Question...

Hi Everyone,

I've been trolling the forums for a while now and am ready to give this a go. My first question is one about hardware. I have Apple computers both due to my work and personal choice. The one constant so far is that everyone seems to be using Windows machines. Here is what I am considering: I have a couple setup choices. 1) Using a single tower, Mac Pro w/ 2 x 3.0 GHz Dual-core Intel Xeon processors or 2) using 3 iMacs, all w/ Intel Core 2 Duo processors between 2.0 and 2.4 GHz. I can (and have) ran Windows on several of the Macs at work for some specific rendering software and for our 3-D modeler/prototyper. Windows will function natively (not emulated) and flawlessly on these machines.

However, being Apple hardware, PS2 for keyboard/mice/KVM will not be an option (not sure if PS2 is even needed yet, still researching the forums.)

Another option, although less desirable since I already own these machines, is to purchase/build a new beefy quad core Windows box.

My 5Boxing plan is to run w/ either 5 Shaman or 4 Shaman and a Prot Paladin. I already have a very well geared lvl 70 Prot Pally and a lvl 63 Shaman on separate accts. I plan to carebear up the 4 new shaman to match the higher level one and then 5box them on up or perhaps play musical shaman and rotate each one out per instance.

Thanks for any suggestions and advice.

Im currently running all 5 of my toons on 1 Mac Pro, although its the new dual Quad-Core.

I would guess that your dual Dual-Core Mac Pro would run 5 ok with enough RAM. How much do you currently have in there? I had 4 when I started, lagged quite a bit in Capital Cities... upgraded to 8 and no issues anymore... a little lag on initial load in cities, but manageable.

You should go ahead and sign up for the free trial accounts and give it a shot.

Also, I am running the 4 additional accounts as Symbolic Links off of the main account.

hey bud not hijack your thread or anything but i have a few questions for you. i also use a mac for WoW at the moment..... do you recommend running WoW from windows instead of OSx? this would allow for the use of higher end mice right? i have been running it on OSx but i can't seem to find a good mouse for mac with programmable buttons (more than 2 extra buttons is what i'm after) and have been considering re-partioning and re-installing WoW ugh...

Hijack away, any answers for you will help me also. Looking at a prior post from a poster using a mac, looks like they are running Mac OSX (dock at the bottom), but I cant tell if that is their actual multiboxing OS or normal running OS for normal online activities. I can see a single WoW window running but not multiple.

A few noob raid boss' downed!


I am also curious if this can be done in our native OSX or if we must go to the dark side.

I run my pair (arms war/enh sham. Go double melee.) on a dual core macbook pro. Using clonekeys for the key broadcasting and OSX's "Spaces" to manage the two screens, running in full screen windowed mode.

I tried clonekeys using my current 3 accts and it worked. My problem with is was that it also broadcast the ASWD keys for movement which broke the following macro, I had to run around holding down both mouse keys, which worked but is not how I'm used to it. I logged in remotely to work and reformatted an extra Mac Pro and have it ready for Windoze installation in the morning when I get in. Going to try using Keyclone and the other software talked about on dual-boxing and see how that feels.

For what its worth, my home iMac, an older 24" model w/ 2.33 Intel Core 2 Duo and 7600GT video card and 2GB of Ram, ran 3 instances of WoW flawlessly at 63ish FPS.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 'Nerfed',index.php?page=Thread&postID=65001#post65 001

I tried clonekeys using my current 3 accts and it worked. My problem with is was that it also broadcast the ASWD keys for movement which broke the following macro, I had to run around holding down both mouse keys, which worked but is not how I'm used to it. I logged in remotely to work and reformatted an extra Mac Pro and have it ready for Windoze installation in the morning when I get in. Going to try using Keyclone and the other software talked about on dual-boxing and see how that feels.

For what its worth, my home iMac, an older 24" model w/ 2.33 Intel Core 2 Duo and 7600GT video card and 2GB of Ram, ran 3 instances of WoW flawlessly at 63ish FPS.

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I run my WoWs in Windows (despite it being a mac :S ) but am eager to switch it over to Mac only tbh.

as for your problemo with WASD you can overcome this sooo easily :) get ready to /facepalm

Currently, I don't block any keys except for spacebar and tab. for targeting/jumping issues... I do allow WASD to be broadcast but I removed WASD from my clones' movement keybinds (inside WoW keybindings)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by 'Ðeceased',index.php?page=Thread&postID=65010#post 65010

I do allow WASD to be broadcast but I removed WASD from my clones' movement keybinds

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Simply genius.

I'm nearly done w/ getting the windows set up and running, currently installing WoW. I'm going to try both ways, Mac and PC and see how it performs. I'd love to stay Mac, some creative hotkeying and that might be the solution. I have a 30" cinema and a 23" cinema and will probably play my main on the 23 and divide up the 30 for the 4 pet toons.

Ok, I'm up and running in my native Mac OS X. Have my 5 shaman rolling and killing together so far, still need to work on macros and coordination but this is crazy fun. I'm using a previous generation Intel tower, 4 cores at 3.0 GHz with 8GB of ram but the video card is a little on the shy side, an X1900 that came in it. I just ordered a new 8 core 3.2 tower w/ 8800GT video card. Cant wait.

I named them: Nerfed, Nirfed, Norfed, Narfed and Nurfed. I have one shaman at 63 who actually Nerfed and will join the group once I get them up there w/ my prot pally. Should be a nice combo. 1 Prot Pally and 4 Shaman for PVE and 5 Shaman for PVP.

Thanks for the advice,

Nurfed

I've recently started 5-boxing with my Mac Pro too and my biggest problem so far seems to be ridiculous lag when hearthing to Shat -- so much so I lost all 4 clones to the Aldor elevator boss last night /doh. I'm on a high-pop server so there tends to be a lot of people in Shat.

My setup is 4gb ram, 2 hard drives. Main drive (where the OS is) runs two instances of WoW, the other three run off the secondary drive. Sym links are already in use and help a lot but not nearly enough >.<

So upgrading to 8gb RAM would further help to alleviate this problem? Can anyone recommend a good place to buy Mac Pro RAM?

Using Spaces is a brilliant idea -- so sad I didn't think of this! Tho it would make eyeballing the clones to make sure they're on follow etc a little harder, I'm still trying it tonight.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by '.ag.',index.php?page=Thread&postID=64845#post6484 5

I would guess that your dual Dual-Core Mac Pro would run 5 ok with enough RAM. How much do you currently have in there? I had 4 when I started, lagged quite a bit in Capital Cities... upgraded to 8 and no issues anymore... a little lag on initial load in cities, but manageable.

Also, I am running the 4 additional accounts as Symbolic Links off of the main account.

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[quote='succulent',index.php?page=Thread&postID=692 30#post69230]Can anyone recommend a good place to buy Mac Pro RAM? [/quote]

[url='http://www.newegg.com']New Egg[/url] Just make sure you buy the correct speed RAM for your machine.

i bought 8gigs @ 349.95 (4x2g moduals for my mac pro 8-core early 2008 model)
and 4gig (for my mbpro early 2008 trackpad model) @ 89.95

from OWC (www.macsales.com)

they shipped fast, was packaged well, and came with very good directions as to why the mac pro memory riser boards had to be filled in a specific order for maximum speed.

I ended up ordering another 8gb from OWC, got it today. Hopefully 12gb total ram will solve my ShatLag problem :p

I tried out using Spaces as well, and it makes a simply huge difference in frame rate on my main account as it's now the only instance visible most of the time. Apparently the OS is smart about not using video card resources for the windows that aren't visible. I'm back to 60fps and loving it. I highly recommend hiding your clones in their own Space, it really helps a ton.

I just started last night on my Dual G5 with 2GB of ram. Still only level 6 with my 3 dudes but had a ton of fun with no lag issues, yet. I haven't been past Brill though :) so I will see how bad it gets.

Are you skipping all drop quests? I did a couple that were not too bad but needed to click to loot in each windw of course. Reading the boards here some people skip them and some people don't. I guess if I moved the ALTs onto another desk I wouldn't have a choice.

This whole thread has been great for me - the WASD trick was perfect and I would have never thought of it.

-Casp

Let me point out that you might also use the three iMacs just fine by running main on one, two copies on the other two and use the Mac Synergy to broadcast and Clonekey to pick it up. I don't know if anyone has tried a setup like that, I use one account per machine, but the Mac Synergy works great. RAM is a big issue though, so make sure you have plenty.