Quote Originally Posted by 'MultiMacBox23',index.php?page=Thread&postID=16035 2#post160352
If your planning on running 5 clients on 1 machine, your going to have to get into a MacPro. The Mac Mini, dont even think about it. iMac? top of the line one will be very stressed. Macbook, nope. Macbook Pro, yes, but your pushing it.

I'm running my 30's a 2650x1600 resolution, and the 20's at 1680x1050. If you plan on running large resolutions, plan on getting the Nvidia 8800gt or the Ati HD3870, for the Mac Pro. You need the horsepower of either of those cards. Since the WOTLK expansion, and the 3.0.x patches, the graphics have been upped..... and frame rates have dropped. I'm running 2 of the 8800gt, and i have to turn some of the graphics settings down. I used to run everything maxed out before.

I'm praying that the 10.6 Snow Leopard version of OSX will pave the way with new graphics drivers to i can move up to a HD4870 or GTX280 card for this machine cause it sure needs it. Large resolutions suck the horsepower out of the graphics card.

Also plan on upgrading the typical 2gigs of ram to at least 8gigs. You will not have to do anything to the machine or operating system, as it will automatically handle it. you just have to buy the memory and stick it in.

Clonekeys/Clonedkeys works, but in OSX they seem to suffer keydropping/lagging. You will have to learn how to pace your self with keyspamming. There is NO maximizer/PiP type programs for OSX to use with WoW.

would like to use Keyclone, but refuse to buy Vista Ultimate x64, to be able to use more than 8 gigs, and 2 physical processors. OSX gives you accesss to those standard.
Plenty of people are running 5 on the newer ( 2008 ) iMacs and MacBookPros, with no problems - I run 5 on my 24" iMac with no problems, the most I had to do is keep an eye on temps with SMCFanControl. I have the HD 2600 Pro, and it's not stressing the system out to run 5 (I have 3 running accounts, and I have two trial accounts I play with, but can't afford to upgrade right now) Since I put all windows on one screen, and run them all at 800x600, there's no problems. If you want to run higher resolutions, yes, that could be a issue, but 5 at minimum resolution with all screen effects turned off should be okay. I'm also running 5 with 4 gigs of ram, again, no problems. I keep my addons low too, they suck up ram pretty quick.

A Mini works fine for one copy, I ran Wow on mine - turn off all screen effects, set the resolution to 800x600, and it's fine - my Mini only has a gig of ram, and I kept an eye on it for months, looking to see if I needed more, and surprisingly, it was fine - I was'nt running anything else on the machine but WoW. I would'nt buy one specifically for WoW, but if you have one at hand that you can use, they're good enough for those on a budget. The rumor is the Mini is getting updated at MacWorld next month, which will be interesting, especially if they get the video chips in the new MacBooks. A 5 Mac Mini setup (if they get decent video) with a KVM could be interesting - and less stressful on your living space and energy bills.


I havent noticed Clonedkeys dropping keystrokes or lagging - I saw more with Synergy when I was running a copy on my Mini alongside my G5. Where/when do you see this?

It would be nice if I could afford a MacPro, and all the bells and whistles to go along with it, but I'm running 3-5 copies of WoW no problem on what I have, if you sacrifice screen effects and resolution, you can run 5 on more "budget" machines. It won't be a flawless setup, but it will work, and if you keep an eye on your temps with SMCFanControl, you should be fine.