Multiboxing question / EQ install setup.

[TreeHuginDruid]

Have a general question for those out there who multibox.

I was told a long time ago when i first started using WinEQ2 to two box ... that it is best to have a seperate directory structure devoted to each toon i will use when boxing..

Example: If i'm playing 5 accounts at the same time... have 5 seperate copies of the entire EQ directory structure ... and launch each individual character from a unique directory structure.

Toon1 launched from C:\EverQuest1 directory install
Toon2 launched from C:\EverQuest2 directory install
Toon3 launched from C:\EverQuest3 directory install
Toon4 launched from C:\EverQuest4 directory install
Toon5 launched from C:\EverQuest5 directory install

The rationality behind that was to not have any one EQ instance need to fight for .DLL usgae or resources on the same directory structure.

Wondering what others suggest .... what setup produces the least lag ?

I already followed the guides for tweeking my computer to maximize available ram and turn off the flashy ( but uneccesary ) bells and whistles in windows... I also have my cache configured on a seperate physical drive than my primary OS partition ( on physical drive 1 ).

Now i'm down to the nitty gritty.... does it not matter at all if i only have 1 EQ install, and launch all toons from there ( thank god for EQPlayNice feature on WinEQ2 overhead ram reducer). Or should i do as someone suggested a long time ago.. and have a seperate install structure for each account i will simultaniously use.

Just trying to have the best playing enviornment i can.

All positive feedback welcome.

 

[Anon456]

I don't use WinEQ (although it is a great program), and use only 1 EQ directory. I run XP 64, 4 gig ram, AMD 3200 at 2.01 GHz and routinely 6 box on one computer. I have run as many as 8, although it is abit laggy. I also run all the new models and whatnot for EQ. I've never tried to run seperate directories, but I could see where it may give a slight improvement. I run all my EQ instances in windowed mode and all but one miminized. I've had little or no trouble with EQ/MQ having issues with resourses, Everything seems to mesh very well.

 

[teeroyoyort]

I usually 2-5box on 1 directory. The only problem I run into is my maps get messed up after some use. (which is np, I just copy over fresh maps!)

 

[JimJohnson]

I only used 1 EQ install per PC. You can search on LavishSoft Lax did a post or some testing to see if more then 1 directory showed any added benefits. Unless you are running them from different Hard Drives multi installation most likely will not have any reduction in lag. Thats Hard Drives themself not partitions on the same drive.

 

[Vesryn]

I use a separate directory for each, but I have several hard drives with them on it. Thats likely the main reason I see a difference doing it. I run one devoted to the main with graphics etc, then a couple more with however many toons I need running off those.

 

[Lord_Vyper]

I'm going to track down and kill whoever started the notion of separate EQ directories...
It does nothing but eat up hard drive space.

 

[Coffee]

It was actually useful before the days of WinEQ when you wanted to have different eqclient.ini settings for use in a multi-session_same-box scenario. Since then its been useless but the past has a way of creeping to the future.

I can attest that separate directories - same machine - different hard drives DOES show performance improvement. Different partitions/folders - none as stated.

 

[Goober32]

Boxing

I was told a long time ago when i first started using WinEQ2 to two box ... that it is best to have a seperate directory structure devoted to each toon i will use when boxing..

Example: If i'm playing 5 accounts at the same time... have 5 seperate copies of the entire EQ directory structure ... and launch each individual character from a unique directory structure.

Toon1 launched from C:\EverQuest1 directory install
Toon2 launched from C:\EverQuest2 directory install
Toon3 launched from C:\EverQuest3 directory install
Toon4 launched from C:\EverQuest4 directory install
Toon5 launched from C:\EverQuest5 directory install

The rationality behind that was to not have any one EQ instance need to fight for .DLL usgae or resources on the same directory structure.

Wondering what others suggest .... what setup produces the least lag ?

I'm running dual PC's with 6 toons easily with no lag issues. ADSL2+ so syncing at 20/1m.

Systems are identical so x 2 is.

Windows XP Pro SP-whatever is current
4GB Ram (yeah well when I move to 64bit I can use it all)
Raid 0 - 1TB Split into 2 partitions 500GB each (I backup so MTBF isin't a problem with large SATA2 drives being so bloody cheap)
Geforce 8800GTX 768MB (cheap these days with 8900's on the way)
Creative Audigy 4 (similar audio quality to the XiFi whatever, and less of a system bus hog)
Intel Core 2 Duo 3Ghz (Quag core ready, but not yet)

I'm running EQ x 3 on each PC with all models turned on out of a seperate folder on each.

With the new affinity check for EQ it's best to run from seperate folders to ensure, as you said that the DLL's and EXE's are coming from seperate places on the drive. M$ has issues with active file sharing (I work with some CRM's that suffer from this). I've tried both this and running 3 x of the same copy and it's not as stable (from my experience).

That and if one copy does crash for some reason, I don't want all 3 off of one PC to go LD - could be bad.

And yeah Cache config. to a seperate physical drive works well also.

I already followed the guides for tweeking my computer to maximize available this and that but it's all cosmetic really. If you want a real speed boost, grab more RAM or a faster MB or CPU.

 

[Appleseed]

This is all I can find from Lax. I know that he had a big post some time ago on the reasons not to use multiple directories. Just cant find it now.

This was posted by Lax in the the Lavish Software free forums area:
Lavish Software Forum Link

No, it would most likely run worse. The reason being that computers now have caching systems built in, and caching is many many times faster than reading from disk. If you use multiple directories, you prevent the caching systems from being used efficiently.

Some people claim to see better performance with 2 directories, but the only way that can happen is if it's on 2 separate hard drives on separate IDE channels (assuming theyre IDE). Otherwise, its fighting for the same resources anyway. And this isn't likely to be faster if you have a hard drive bigger than ... i dont know, a few gigabytes (newer hard drives all have fairly big cache, an old cheapo 30GB Maxtor has 2MB, and some now even have 8MB).. or if you have Windows XP. If you have really old 7200rpm hard drives, say .. 5+ years.. and Windows 98/ME, you could possibly see a gain with the case explained above

 

[TreeHuginDruid]

Thanks.

Hey all,

Thanks for the feedback... looks like 1 EQ install is definately the way to go. Like i mentioned in the original post, I'm running WinEQ2, using the EQPlaynice function, and amd limiting the FPS via that program and not using the MQ2FPS.dll.

Did all the system tweaking tips in the thread on this forumn. The biggest improvement i saw was mocing the cache to another physical drive.

System is Pentium D Dual core, 2.36 ghz, 4 gig ram, Windows xp 64bit, 2 seperate 250 gig drives.

You guys are great.. thanks again for the info and setting me straight on this point.

 

[rchris494]

multi-boxing

i multibox on 1 computer 2 accounts. dual core 64 bit. i also use 1 directory for EQ. the best thing i can say to the whole thing is have 1 gig of memory per toon logged in on a same computer. i notice when i blew out 1 of 1gb memory sticks the preformace dropped off to nothing. i could barely change screens between toons without having to wait a good 2 minutes plus for each screen to pop back up. having the lastest and greatest computer equipment and all still did not make a difference. the game was a cpu hog

winblowz xp sp-latest
amd dual core 6000+
western digital 74.4 10k rpm raptor
4 gb ddr2 1000mhz ram
ati 1950 512mb

all of that and my computer still is slow as crap. and if i used to different directories for EQ or not it made no difference until you get down to less than 1gb of ram

 

[Ioannis]

Wineq is awsome for boxing, however atm eqplaynice is now and my boxing windows keep crashing.