Few questions on KVMs and multiple machines vs one machine

[catchingup]

After reading quite a few of the articles I'm still at a crossroads. I have read the pros and cons regarding a single machine running 5 copies of wow with the biggest downfall being price. The typical cost point for a machine such as this i.e. i7 920, Asus mb, 12gb ram, velociraptors in raid 0, and gtx285 has been around $2500. This does not include a monitor, which for me is not a problem, but even a machine such as this has some people doubting that 5 instances can be run without trouble in heavily populated areas.

The other alternative is using multiple lower cost machines and a vetra. I assume you already have one machine to run wow on. Going with 4 more low priced machines that can certainly run 1 copy of wow each plus the cost of 4 more monitors and a nice stand in addition to a vetra can also be done for around the same price point, $2500 maybe a little less.

The thing I'm most curious about is eliminating some of the monitors and possibly the cost of the stand. By using a vetra with a kvm switch why not just run two monitors? One dedicated to the main and then one monitor dedicated to all four slaves. How long does it take for a kvm switch to show the activity on a screen going from one pc to the next? My spare monitor takes approx. 4 seconds to power on. This is unacceptable for play if this is the amount of time it would take to switch. Does a KVM require the monitor to power down then power up each time it is switched to a different machine?

Curious if anyone has any answers to these questions, thanks.

[Sam DeathWalker]

this has some people doubting that 5 instances can be run without trouble in heavily populated areas.

Well maybe at 60fps with all effects on. I really doubt that kind of machine will have any trouble runinng 5 wows anywhere. I'd go with that plan if you only plan to run 5, i7/x58 etc. and a good 24 or more inch monitor and thats yur best bet. I have doubts about the 5 small computers kvm idea. You could try two computers, one for your main on one monitor with full resolution and effecets and then the other four at way lower effects on a 2nd compouter/monitor

[Ogloo]

So, before you go spending a load of cash on multiple systems, look at what I have to say

For example, I 4 box shamans and I am smooth and lag free in instances and in cities, but a little jitter in high pop cities like dalaran, but thats because my computer is getting upgrades in a couple of days to overcome this.. My computer is a Dell Dimension 8400.. old as time..-

Intel(r) Pentium(r) 4 CPU 3.4GHz- (this is being upgraded)- with your quadcore this should not have to be replaced other than the fact that sometimes dual core is better because it does not overclock as much.. which is hard to explain.. I would keep u quad-core though.

4GB of ram- upgrade that improved my computer tremendously from 1GB, this cost me around 50-100 bucks depending on if you get special gaming RAM.

Nvida 6800- (tried out the 7900 of my dads today but adds a little more lag so ewww ).. this is fine becuase i really do not care how well my alts look on the screen.. so w/e.

When I am running these 4 accounts I am lag free and it is fine, but i have the graphics down on alts, and the main has some of the graphics up. So, as you can see my computer is basiclly factory shipped 7 years ago and holds this up. But if your looking for extreme preformance and have a lot of money I would go down the path of mutliple computers

[spannah]

You are really comparing top end single computer multiboxing to low end multi computer multiboxing.
I have a Q6600, 4GB ram, nvidia 8800 GT, couple 7200 SATA hard drives and it is fine. Probably could do with a another 4 GB of ram when I hit northend (I level really slow :-)), so anything over that it will be good. I7 and all other components that you list is overkill, and that is ok if you must have top performance with top graphic quality and don't mind paying the price.
You should be able to multibox just fine with a $1000 computer.

Edit: should have used the preview button first ....

[Ualaa]

If you're playing wow and that's about it, then either option will work.
Multiple computers will put out more heat then a single box.
Patching once per machine will be simple compared to occasionally having wow mess up (I recently needed to re-install due to a patch error, only one of my five would patch).

If you play other games as well, do you box them too or just wow?
If you do play other stuff, and don't box that stuff, a single computer that is powerful will play them more smoothly.

Players have success both ways, in the end its your personal preference.

[Spook]

After reading quite a few of the articles I'm still at a crossroads. I have read the pros and cons regarding a single machine running 5 copies of wow with the biggest downfall being price. The typical cost point for a machine such as this i.e. i7 920, Asus mb, 12gb ram, velociraptors in raid 0, and gtx285 has been around $2500. This does not include a monitor, which for me is not a problem, but even a machine such as this has some people doubting that 5 instances can be run without trouble in heavily populated areas.

The other alternative is using multiple lower cost machines and a vetra. I assume you already have one machine to run wow on. Going with 4 more low priced machines that can certainly run 1 copy of wow each plus the cost of 4 more monitors and a nice stand in addition to a vetra can also be done for around the same price point, $2500 maybe a little less.

The thing I'm most curious about is eliminating some of the monitors and possibly the cost of the stand. By using a vetra with a kvm switch why not just run two monitors? One dedicated to the main and then one monitor dedicated to all four slaves. How long does it take for a kvm switch to show the activity on a screen going from one pc to the next? My spare monitor takes approx. 4 seconds to power on. This is unacceptable for play if this is the amount of time it would take to switch. Does a KVM require the monitor to power down then power up each time it is switched to a different machine?

Curious if anyone has any answers to these questions, thanks.

In the long run, multi-boxing on one computer is going to be less costly. I hardware box, as does my wife. Ten computers draw so much power, that I had to have another electrical circuit run to our den, and they put out so much heat that I had to install an air conditioner just for the den. I used a mini-split unit, but a window air conditioner would have worked, except I sit right by the window, and didn't want it blowing on me. Also, multiple computers tend to make more noise.

I don't use a KVM switch anymore, I use hotkeynet (HKN), because I only want a few keys passed (18, I think), although there is an easy workaround for that issue. One of the few advantages of hardware boxing, is that the sound is active on all toons, so if one gets attacked, I know it quicker. The primary reason that I hardware box, is that I've always done it that way, going back at least six or seven years now (long before WOW), plus I used to run a lot of volunteer processing for SETI, so I've always had a well over a dozen machines at any given time anyway.

If I had it to do over, i'd software box on a single machine, and teach my wife to do so as well. My power bill would be WAY less! 8o

[Trushot]

if you ever switch games and wish to multibox ... good luck doing 5 or 6 accounts on one machine with decent graphics ... I play LOTRO and running 6 instances on one comp just wouldnt work very well ... WOW makes boxing on one machine easy becuase of its graphics

just throwing that out at ya .. if you plan to play other game IE new starwars game next year ETC ... more than one machine may be handy ...

[Gurblash]

You can get an i7 920 kit, 12gig ram, nice gfx card, and SSDs for around $1500-$1750. Throw in 19" monitors and your around $2,000. Much less in the long run than 5 separate boxes.

[matexoza]

im running a 4x on an i7 920 with 16 gigs of ram and a geforce 9800gtx oc 1gig ddr3 video card and i can run anywhere at 55 fps with no lag

[Herc130]

I run 10 box. My set-up is 11 computers, 10 of them running the MMO, 1 of them (my ultra-portable that draws maybe 30-40 watts for what I have it doing) acting as the primary for Multiplicity since multiplicity will lock up/lose control of EQ on the primary, but works great on secondaries. 1 Vetra 4 port hooked up to an X-Keys 20 Key keypad to control 4 mages. 8 X-Keys pro 58 keypad to control all my accounts except my two melee's ( each mage also has its own X-keys Pro, besides the one hooked up to the vetra) The two melees are controlled by G-13's. I also have two Belkin KVM's, because sometimes I like to be able to use a keyboard on 2 different computers at once...and a just incase, because sometimes Multiplicity screws up. Also if I ever need to get into bios on secondary comps, multiplicity does not load. I built my computers to be as efficient as I could. All but 1 comp. using 80% eff rated PSU's, 45w cpu's, 6 secondary computers just using onboard graphics (HD3200, runs EQ or WoW great. I have even raided with it...which is 54 player raids in EQ, sometimes 72, depends what we are doing). Even so, my electricity bill is still pretty high, however it is appreciably lower then what it use to be when my comps where P4 CPUs and such with dedicated vid cards. In about a year and a half, my upgrades in efficincy will pay for itself. Although it's hard to really tell because the electric company in hawaii is being faced with a class action lawsuit for.....guessing what out electric bill is suppose to be instead of reading off the meter. From what I understand, they were ass raping us on $$. My bill is usually $200ish, when I went to my new build computers, it went down to $160ish ( although I haven't been running this set-up that long to really get a good bearing ). When this class action lawsuit started, my bill was $65. Anyway, if you go multiple computers, build efficient computers. EQ or WoW takes little to run it. AoC, LoTR and whatever else, may be hard to box off 1 computer, but most MMO's makers ( don't bring up Sigil ) are going to design stuff that can run on current low-end computers. My new builds will last for EQ...probably till EQ closes all servers. New MMO's, I assume I will be able to run on all my comps, at least at low settings. If not, all the mobos can take a PCIx16 vid card. So a very minor upgrade. CPU wise, not really a problem.

This was not cheap to do. If you are unsure, start out boxing on the computer you have now. More then likely, you'll be able to run 5 WOW's on it. You do not need an i7 for that.