Advantage of going Hardware over Software?

[Freddie]

[quote='Fursphere',index.php?page=Thread&postID=745 59#post74559]If I run one wow client I get like a 40ms - 80ms ping. If I run [u][b]seven[/b][/u] WoW clients, its like 100ms - 120ms ping on all machines. [/quote]
If you increase the number of WoW's on a single machine and the ping time suddenly increases, it's probably because the Nagle algorithm is kicking in more often, not because of bandwidth. Chazz and I just discovered that in the second half of this thread:

[url='http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=8161&pageNo=1']Hardware question![/url]

He managed to eliminate the ping time increase by turning off Nagle.

You are wrong here. 5 wow clients is not 5 wow clients if they are laid over a network with hubs and switches each firing shots off of info to each computer. I design networks for a living and having multiple computers over a network is a very bad thing. Your routers since most of us here use consumer routers will die faster and drop packets. We are looking for clean lines with speed right? Network traffic is indeed network traffic but when it comes from multiple sources then it is not longer the same thing.

I don't know who said this (I can't follow the quotes), and I'm not sure what this refers to, but I just want to say that if you run multiple WoW's on separate PC's and control them with software, the increase in traffic (compared to running them on the same PC) is microscopic. You get about 3/4 millisecond latency with each command but that's just the network speed, it's not because anything is burdened. The number of bytes sent by the key broadcaster is so uttterly tiny compared to the number of bytes sent by your computers in normal Internet use, it's hard for me to believe it has any effect on anything.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Redundancy - If your software boxing, and a computer crashes, you lose all or a major part of your team. Hardware - you just lose that one character.

This isn't as simple as you make it out to be. My toons are on different PCs, so if one crashes, I just lose that one toon, just like hardware. The one exception is that if my main PC crashes, they all go down. On the other hand, I can count the number of Windows crashes I've had in the past couple of years on one finger. And aside from me doing things I really shouldn't be doing, Octopus has _never_ crashed on me or bugged out in the middle of a play session.

I guess, like everything else, it is all highly dependent on your particular setup.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

<robot>I am...unique.</robot>

[Simulacra]

I SW box so apologies if I'm talking out of my @rse:
There are advantages to gameplay with hardware boxing (defining HW as 1 instance per machine)- With HW boxing you can use targeted AoE like Flamestrike or Blizzard using synced mouse cursors, whereas in SW (multi instances on 1 machine) that's pretty much impossible as you only have 1 cursor.

[Freddie]

With HW boxing you can use targeted AoE like Flamestrike or Blizzard using synced mouse cursors, whereas in SW (multi instances on 1 machine) that's pretty much impossible as you only have 1 cursor.

HotkeyNet does this in software. I don't know about other programs. In some ways software is better than hardware for mouse clicks because the target windows can be different sizes, they can be covered, etc. On the other hand software has a slight delay (6 - 30 ms between windows) and some people find it difficult to set it up so it works well.

Here's a screenshot of software AOE using broadcast mouse clicks:

Software AOE

[Simulacra]

Software AOE[/url]

So there you go - thanks for that, so there's a hardware and a software solution for targeted aoe when using 1 instance per machine and no solution for multiple instances on 1 machine so: if targeted aoe is your thing then go 1 instance per machine

[Mendicant]

I know this may not be the case for most MBers, but I was able to run 5 instances of WoW on my computer with no upgrades on my existing system. I don't have a quad-core.

I have:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 4400+
2gb ram
ATI Radeon X800 XL
20" widescreen lcd
15" lcd

So essentially the cost for me to start MBing was: keyclone $20, and some copies of WoW. Now if I had wanted to buy a computer for each instance I could easily see me spending $150-200 and up per system (for crappy ones at that, that can't run much beyond WoW), and that's not including the cost of acquiring a monitor for each (though I will admit it would look cool). And still that doesn't take into account getting the hardware for keyboard input cloning, etc.

The only upgrade I would consider getting for my current system is more ram, as shatt is laggy as all hell with my current setup. So maybe I will spend $80 on that.

Of course this all depends on your current system specs. Definitely try out multi-instancing before going hardware.

Here I'll make a list:

Hardware Advantages:
Looks cool
If they ban keyclone you won't be affected
(maybe) better performance in some situations
A monitor for each instance
targeted aoe spells?

Hardware Disadvantages:
Depending on your current system, vastly more expensive
Heat output
Technical issues may be more complicated to solve
If they ban multiboxing overall then you're screwed.

[Vyndree]

Hardware Advantages:
Looks cool
If they ban keyclone you won't be affected
(maybe) better performance in some situations
A monitor for each instance
targeted aoe spells?

Hardware Disadvantages:
Depending on your current system, vastly more expensive
Heat output
Technical issues may be more complicated to solve
If they ban multiboxing overall then you're screwed.

You forgot a hardware benefit:
Works with ALL games.

New MMO you want to play? You know, before it even comes out, that if the game is multibox-able, you can play it.

Software? It might work, might not. It needs to be updated by the software developer. And depending on whether you have a paid or free version, recently updated or rarely updated -- who KNOWS when or if that shiny new game will be supported.




Suvega and I have 10 computers (and sometimes our 2 laptops) on the same cable internet connection. The only time we see lag is when I'm trying to upload a video. The network is not your bottleneck (and yes, we both use Synergy/Multibox for mouse movement to other screens -- it's useful even with hardware mice and vetras).

It should be noted that there ARE software advantages. For example, keyclone's "round robin" can be emulated using a staggered /castsequence, but if one of your characters is CC'ed or stunned when you press the key it will mess up your rotation. PiP swap is pretty cool too. Both sides have their advantages and disadvantages -- so it pretty much leaves it to personal preference.

[Vyndree]

Hardware Disadvantages:
Depending on your current system, vastly more expensive

Wrong!!!!!!!!!!

Go find my ghetto multiboxing hardware rig thread.

He did say "depending".

[leukos]

Depending on where you live you may find that your local college or other state agency holds auctions to get rid of computers. Sometimes it is all trash, sometimes it is a department getting rid of a lab full of computers that are a year old because they got a grant or found out they had 4 hours to spend $30,000.

That begin said, sell the house, sell the car, sell the kids. Multiboxing still takes money.