Specs for Multiboxing on 1 PC - Feedback requested

[Ellay]

I'd like to generate some feedback from the community on what type of settings you feel are the minimum requirements to Multibox off of on 1 PC.

There would be 3 categories,

2 Boxing

3-4 Boxing

5 Boxing

From there outline the processor power, ram, etc so we can outfit newcomers with what they need to know to get started easily. We can review these setups every couple of months to make sure they are up to par

[Sina]

Reserved ( creating post )

[zanthor]

3-5 Boxing on a single box.

AMD Athlon Phenom 9600 (2.3ghz)
4GB Ram
3 SATA Drives, however OS is on one, WoW on the 2nd, and the 3rd is for FRAPS dumps.
Nvidia 8800GT w/512MB Ram
Windows Vista

I can run 5 copies without problems, Shattrah can be laggy at times. I set graphics settings to low on 4 slave accounts, high on the main client.

Without adjusting the details (high on everyone) I can easily run 4 clients, but sometimes the drive will start to spin as memory pages out and the system obviously slows down a lot there.

[KSboxers]

I five box on one PC. I do get a little lag in town but other than that i'm fine. So mine would probably be the absolute min to operate without getting angry.

Pentium 3ghz

Single hard drive (only partition i have is my OS backup)

2GB ram (i would like to bump it up to 4GB but that would require a new OS)

Windows XP (vista would probably require more... resources hog!! (Please don't tell Bill Gates on me Ellay!!))

Old Radion 1600 w/512MB

I set main on high graphics settings and slaves on far lowest. I also set keyclone to run slaves at max 10fps since i don't look at those screens except to loot.

[brasssmunky]

i run 2 chars
running
e8400 at 4.0ghz
6gigs ddr2 800mhz ram
geforce8500GT (yeah, i need a new card for sure.)


i run my main WoW window with max settings AND the commands to make everything look just a bit prettier
lol
and my other WoW window is lowest settings, because i dont care about it
i have my main window set to 45/31 FPS (focused/unfocused)
and the other one to 45/31
everything runs greeat

[Sn00k]

Hi there

I run 4-5 characters on a single PC. One pala (70), three shamans (45) and a priest (45). These are my specs:

Pentium Dual Core 2.13 Ghz

4GB Ram

400 GB HDD

Nvidia 7500 LE

Windows Vista

Runs fine, just some lag in Shatt. Main account got a lot of addons and graphics set to medium. Slaves got a minimal amount of addons installed and graphics set to low. The key imo is to make sure i got all the latest drivers for my graphic card and the latest version of keyclone installed.

Good luck mate, Sn00k 8)

[Babbaganoosh]

I run 5 on my pc as well. I used the technique in this link to symbolically link 5 directories together. Essentially it allows multiple directories to run the common files from 1 directory. It lightens the load on your HDD and your PC in general. I really think it is the key to getting good performance from a single PC running 5 copies.

PowerShell script to create symbolically linked (mklink) copies of WoW

It also allows for only needing to update one set of mods/addons while keeping the custom settings seperate for each directory. It's a little techy, but its worth trying.

oooh, forgot my specs

c2d E8400 processor (3GHz)
4gig ram
1 380g HDD (7200 rpm, nothing special)
nvidia 8800gtx vid card

I can run 5 instances of wow across 2 monitors with Winamp and a Firefox open in the background. I have almost no problems except for high pop cities like Org.
I have my FPS capped at 55 on my main window and at 20 on my slave windows on the second monitor.

[BobGnarly]

I think there is important information that you need to know before you can answer this question.

A big one is the screen resolution that you are planning to run. I run 2560x1600 on my main client, which has been fine until I just recently hit outlands. Now, it's a slideshow and I'm convinced I just need to upgrade the video card (8800gtx atm). So while an 8800gt might be OK at some resolutions, it might not at others.

Another is what you plan to do. I can deal with a little less framerate/more lag for pve, because it's predictable. In pvp, that gets you killed.

There are others, but those are the big ones. If you are asking because you are considering it for yourself, maybe just let people know what specs you are considering. If you are thinking of a resources for this site, maybe we'll need some sort of table or chart format?

[-silencer-]

There are so many factors involved, and most of it depends on your budget.

However, if someone needs to start from scratch without blowing too much cash, here's my advice:
Don't bother 5-boxing on one monitor. I tried 5 windows on 1920x1200, and it's tough to see the smaller windows, especially when opening the bank/bags. Don't bother with dual-core. Yes, it can be done, as I had 5-boxed on an overclocked E6600 for a long time. Don't do it - you're running 5 process-intensive applications, so give it 4+ cores and set affinity properly.

Monitors: Any size monitor for your main, but at least a 20" widescreen for 4 alt windows (4x windows at 840x525). It is a very helpful upgrade to put the alts on a 24" (or any 1920x1200 resolution) monitor. Each window is now 960x600. Another possibility is 3 monitors: one for main, and 2 similar 19" (1280x1024) or 20/22" widescreen (1680x1050) monitors for two alts each.

CPU: Due to how inexpensive (sub $200) the Q6600 is, I'd put that as a recommended minimum for 5-boxing. Preferably the Q9450 for 12MB cache and 45nm process, yet still be relatively affordable.

Mobo: P45/X38/X48/680/750/780/790 chipset motherboard. You want at least 2x PCI-x16 slots (preferably x16 electrical on both, but x8 isn't too bad for secondary video), but SLI/Crossfire isn't necessary. RAID support is a plus. ICH9R or ICH10R do well.

RAM: 2x2GB (4GB, with 2 slots open to expand to 8GB if running many add-ons or background tasks) Speed isn't important, as long as it's at least as fast as default FSB rate. DDR2-800 = FSB 400MHz. Q6600 = 266MHz FSB = DDR2-533. Q9450 = 333MHz = DDR2-667.

Videocard(s): 8800GT 512MB or higher as a minimum. You'll get higher fps for more money.. 9800GTX, HD4850, GTX260, HD4870, GTX280, HD4870x2. Remember that larger/more monitors = more pixels to render, so more expensive/multiple cards may be necessary depending on your displays.

OS: Vista64. There's no reason to limit yourself to ~3.2GB RAM with 32-bit or bad multi-monitor fps with XP.

Hard Drives: At least a 7200rpm drive. This will be playable most of the time, but there are times where you can spend a lot of money for higher speed. Using symlinks is important. Having WoW on a separate 7200rpm drive from your OS will be an improvement. RAID0 is a plus for transfer times, but faster access from 10k rpm drives or SDD is more important to reduce lag in high-traffic areas.

Software: KeyClone, Octopus, HotKeyNet, AutoHotKey, etc. It's your choice, but there's a reason KeyClone is so popular.. it'll save you a lot of time getting set up, and is much easier to adjust on the fly than AHK.

[Nitro]

I noticed a few of you choose Vista

Why would someone choose Vista over Windows XP. I've spent tons of cash on hardware trying to add this and that to sqeeze out as much fps out of my 5 box setup and I also ran XP vs Vista vs Vista64.

XP Pro 32 with 4GB ram, multiple harddrives, dual monitors in span mode (3200x1200) and a single top end video card won out every time.

OS: Vista64. There's no reason to limit yourself to ~3.2GB RAM with 32-bit or bad multi-monitor fps with XP.

You dont need more than 3.2GB RAM to 5 box and if you run spanned mode in xp its actually better fps than vistas multimonitor support.




My current Setup:

Q6700 Processor
ASUS Extreme Striker MOBO
8GB RAM (3GB Available under Windows XP)
Dual 9800 GTX (I only use one card under XP to run both monitors spanned at 3200x1200)
5 x 10k RPM Raptor Drives
1 x 500GB OS Drive
2 x NEC MultiSync LCD2070VX
Dual Boot Windows XP Pro 32 / Vista Ultimate 64


If someone thinks I should really be better off under Vista 64 please let me know what tricks im missing out on