Quad boxing moving to 5 but...

[ganjakru]

Hi peeps, wanna drop by to see if anyone could chip alil advise. Just gotten into multiboxing, hence i went on to buy another 4 more accounts a couple days back and started playing four more shammies. I'm currently running Dell E520 with Duo 2.66, 8600GT Video card, with 3gig rams on a 22 inch monitor. I've set gfx of all client to lowest and im already hitting 90+% cpu usage and gfx getting choppy at times in lowbie places. surely if i ran the fifth client i'm prolly just stalling the entire system, so im curious if i should increase the RAM or change a gfx card? Oh i also intend to hook up another [Monitor] not computer (mybad), would it even help? Thanks, lookin forward for your advise.

[chazz]

It's not your RAM, I'm five-boxing with 3GB no problems at all. - EDIT: Well that's not true I have 4GB but it only uses 3.2GB (32-bit Vista).
As for your graphics card I can't say since I've never used that one, but I do know that I couldn't run four instances of WoW comfortably on my computer using only two cores, when figuring this out I switched to four cores and problem solved.
Best bet I guess is if someone here is using a dual core system for five-boxing and can vouch for it, though in my experience it's just a lagfest, a quadcore is needed imo for comfortable playing, but then again that is very subjective.

[Gibbin]

I use an identical system, the e520, and have the same problem, when i put a few accounts on my xps720 and it was all smiles ... but that doesnt help you much does it... meh

[Freddie]

Oh i also intend to hook up another computer, would it even help? Thanks, lookin forward for your advise.

Sure it would help. If you run some of the accounts on a different computer, there's less load on this one. You could put three WoW's on one pc and two WoW's on the other.

Why are you thinking it wouldn't help?

[Greenthumbs]

Yea you can buy a new computer just a cheap as buying a new video card that could run 5 clients properly. Just build it yourself it will feel good knowing that you saved money and built something sweet.

[ganjakru]

Oh i also intend to hook up another computer, would it even help? Thanks, lookin forward for your advise.

Sure it would help. If you run some of the accounts on a different computer, there's less load on this one. You could put three WoW's on one pc and two WoW's on the other.

Why are you thinking it wouldn't help?

Thanks for all the replies, first off i've made a typo i wanted get another monitor instead of another computer. That being said and tot about it, do you guys think that grabbing a better gfx card and another monitor to hook up on this system will work? I mean if it still doesn't work out i'll just hafta dig deeper into my pockets and start buying the remaining parts for a new comp. :-p Kindda on a budget since i've only purchase this system about a year ago.

[Greenthumbs]

Just remember wow plays well on even grandma's pc so dont dig to deep i swear it was designed around onboard intel chipsets.

[Freddie]

first off i've made a typo i wanted get another monitor instead of another computer. That being said and tot about it, do you guys think that grabbing a better gfx card and another monitor to hook up on this system will work?

Another monitor won't help. If anything it will hurt because it makes more work for the graphics card. A better graphics card usually helps but in this case you may be limited by your dual-core CPU. You may need to get a quad core in order to run five WoW's. Overclocking the cpu you have now will help, but might not help enough. If you buy a new graphics card, make sure the power supply is big enough for it.

[-silencer-]

It's not your RAM, I'm five-boxing with 3GB no problems at all. - EDIT: Well that's not true I have 4GB but it only uses 3.2GB (32-bit Vista).
As for your graphics card I can't say since I've never used that one, but I do know that I couldn't run four instances of WoW comfortably on my computer using only two cores, when figuring this out I switched to four cores and problem solved.
Best bet I guess is if someone here is using a dual core system for five-boxing and can vouch for it, though in my experience it's just a lagfest, a quadcore is needed imo for comfortable playing, but then again that is very subjective.

It's not the RAM or cores. It's the videocard. The 8600GT is seriously gimped compared to what else is out there for ~$200.
I run 5 instances of WoW over two monitors with a 2-core E6600 at 3.4GHz, 3.2GB RAM (4GB WinXP 32bit), and 8800GTX. I don't have framerate issues unless I'm in Shatt or IF, but then again, I've got a decent overclock on my 2-core CPU. I was using a Q6600 for a little while, but needed that box too much for rendering & compiling. The difference between a Q6600 at stock speed and an E6600 at 3.4GHz isn't particularily noticeable for my use of WoW x5.

As for adding a 2nd monitor, DON"T do that if you're having frame issues on one card. In my case, frames were cut from around 80fps to 40fps when I added a 2nd monitor. It's still very playable, and the extra space to have all my WoW windows visible was more important to me. If I were going for strictly a PvP machine, I'd probably purchase multiple boxes with a separate 15/17" monitor for each one.

[Freddie]

r

I do know that I couldn't run four instances of WoW comfortably on my computer using only two cores, when figuring this out I switched to four cores and problem solved.

It's not the RAM or cores... I run 5 instances of WoW over two monitors with a 2-core E6600 at 3.4GHz, 3.2GB RAM (4GB WinXP 32bit), and 8800GTX. I don't have framerate issues ...

But it was the cores on Chazz's machine. If I recall correctly from another thread, his CPU was a Q6600 running at 2.4 GHz. Silencer's E6600 is overclocked at 3.4 GHz.

Ganjakru's CPU is running at 2.66 GHz, closer to Chazz's speed than Silencer's. Like I said above, he may need to overclock to run five.