Going to give WoW a try again - stay hardware or go software?

[Nisch]

Well most of the hardware boxers have been here for a WHILE -- literally before software was ever close to being confirmed "okie dokie" by the GMs.

My personal decision for hardware boxing was this:

• Safety -- hardware multiboxing was at the time confirmed OK, but software was a "gray area" still. It's confirmed now, so it's a moot point, but it was part of my decision process so I'm keeping it in the list.
• Resilience -- Hardware solutions will work for ANY game, as long as the hardware supports it. So since I used fairely average gcards and core2duo's, I should be able to multibox almost any game on the market and most future games for several years to come.
• Speed and Reliability -- If one of my machines breaks down or reboots mid-fight, I can still control the other 4. Unlike software, where if your "main" machine goes down (or the only machine, in the case of single-box software solutions) your alts are sitting there unmoveable. Hardware also doesn't suffer as much from network latency or software latency -- with PS2 multiplexers, it's pretty zippy.
• Upgrades -- If my hardware ever goes out of date, each individual machine is relatively cheap (~$500-600). Replacing one average component or machine in an outdated/broken system is cheaper than replacing a high end, state-of-the-art quad-core or its components.
• Latency -- Even on my main PC (quad core, 4g ram) I experience "laggier" performance when I open two WoW windows. If I try to run 3-4 at the same time, I'll likely suffer from poorer frame rates, slower alt-tabbing, and overall performance. Of course, this depends on how "high end" your single-box rig is, but keep in mind better computers are often exponentially higher cost.
• Viewing area -- If I were to use 1 PC, I'd have to split 5 WoW windows on one (or two) monitor(s). At the moment, the largest monitor we have on hand is 30" widescreen with a heavy little pricetag. I already had two 19" widescreens, and adding them all together in a 2x3 array means I have much larger viewspace. I also have room on the 6th screen for a browser window (to troll dual-boxing.com forums, of course). Adding some cheap 19" widescreens from newegg cost around $150 each, making the additional 4 monitors ~$600 ($900 if I replaced my two existing monitors). I was able to reuse my existing monitors and get a much larger viewspace than an near equivalently expensive 30".
• Reuse for other projects -- Ever try rendering or processing something on a cluster?

Very well put, thank you.

And yes, I have done 3D movie renderings, so I can appreciate a clustered environment. Now being a software developer, I can also appreciate having multiple test platforms.

[Nisch]

If I had the funds right now I would go hardware in a heartbeat. The frustration of losing a clone while 5-boxing on my quad-core is growing especially now that all 5 have epic flying. This happens everytime I go through shat. I'm running all on one hard drive so that may be a factor. I've also experienced nasty video lag as a result of using PIP on keyclone so I only use it now when it will be convenient to log all wow's off then on again. I don't think it's an actual keyclone problem but a vista/wow and swapping sizes between two different video destinations (main screen/clone screen) because of lack of span mode in Vista.

Ok, things like the video lag I'm not familiar with, so that point is taken and probably seals the deal for me.

I already went and got the first battle chest. After a week of giving it a whirl, I'm sure I'll go out and buy 4 more.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Bradster]

I'm a hardware boxer, as far as the Hardware > Software statements I have to say both have their advantages. I would take a look at Keyclones features and see if you would find PIP more useful with your specific style of play. There really isn't a "Best" or "better" each have their own style. Which is appealing the most is case by case.

[Vyndree]

I'll throw in my vote for hardware as well, pretty much Ditto on what Vyndree stated.

Only downsides to hardware is:

Electricity bill (turn off when not using, not really an issue)
Heat (5x space heaters anyone?)
Space (all those PCs take up a lot of room.... I'm going rack mount myself)

Indeedy. Though it sounds like he already has to deal with this already. He's most of the expensive-to-run hardware anyway.


That being said, there are definite benefits to software as well -- I would die for a good hardware round robin or PiP, but you can't have your cake and eat it too. :/

[Nisch]

Ok well I finally got it up and running on my setup.

You can see I altered my screens a bit, but I like the layout now that I'm only running 5 computers (as I was running 6 in DAOC)

I got my Shamans up to 11 today, just trying to work out all of the kinks. Still need to get the macros all setup. I simply just have my follow and assist setup so far. The rest are just hotbar entries.

Thanks to all that helped. It's really fun doing the MB'ing in WoW. Much better than a single toon.

Some pics of the setup:

[Hat]

lol@your sig phnxgold

That's an excellent response.