Issues, Workarounds & Localization

About to buy (or perhaps build ) a new gaming pc. It will be used primarily for mutli boxing eve, I play with 4 accounts now and will likely be adding a few more in the future.

What are the most important components for multi boxing? And which ones do you recommend?

Where are the bottlenecks in a system that would be running multiple instances?

I want to go cheap where I can but am willing to spend $ where it is important.

In advance, thanks to all you computer nerds who respond.



P.S. I was going to say computer geeks. What is the diffrence between a nerd and a geek?

I find that my CPU is idle most of the time, and GPU is really the limiting factor.

I have an Nvidia GTX 690 (dual Kepler GPUs on one board). Yes, I paid an insane amount for it even considering it was on sale.

I'm also running an Intel i7-975 Extreme Edition (4 cores x2 when hyperthreaded) with 12 GB DDR3-2000, which is similarly insane in price.

With max graphics settings, running 4 clients is not practical, as there is significant lag upon un-docking and using a stargate. Reducing the settings to medium and disabling everything that can be disabled (eg. post-processing, anti-aliasing, shadows, HDR, etc.) I can easily run 6 clients. Max settings is beautiful for one client though.

I've not tried to run more than 6 clients in a while (I no longer have that many accounts).

I run in windowed mode, at 1768 x 992 on two 24 inch Dell U2410 displays (IPS and CCFL backlit) that are 1920 x 1200 native. I dislike monitors that are 1920 x 1080 native, as that aspect ratio is only good for watching movies in my opinion, and sucks for surfing the web and general computer usage.

Tip: Turn on Window Identification when running in windowed mode, so that the windows are titled with the character name.

TIp: Buy a colour calibrator. It is well worth the cost, especially with multiple monitors. I have a previous generation Datacolor Spyder 3 Elite. There are bargain versions available with less features, and from other companies.

Tip:

-Run the non-primary clients in Windowed Mode (with Border) at, atleast 1600x900 (in case you need to warp out and need to switch to the other clients)

-Run all clients in 'Performance' mode from the EVE Graphic Settings

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I was 5-boxing accounts with very little performance stress using a i7-920, 12GB RAM, and a GTX 570 during Incarna; roughly 40fps across all clients.


I HIGHLY recommend you get two monitors. Even doing 'work' it's extremely nice to have work in one screen and say a web-browser looking up help (curse you Actionscript, y u so hard!).

With that setup you can run three clients relatively spaced out on the one monitor and your Master Client on the main screen.

Something to look at:

Case: Corsair Carbide Series 300R Black Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Mobo: ASUS P8Z77-M LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

PSU: CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX650 V2 650W ATX12V v2.31/ EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC High Performance Power

GPU: EVGA SuperClocked 02G-P4-2662-KR GeForce GTX 660 2GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

CPU: Intel Core i5-3350P Ivy Bridge 3.1GHz (3.3GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 69W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80637i53350P

RAM: CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9

Total: $729.94 (Newegg)
*If you have a case, you can remove the Case and PSU.
*Monitors are up to you.




Nerd: An intelligent, single-minded expert in a particular technical discipline or profession.
GEEK: General Electrical Engineering Knowledge

The more you know :P