Eternal NB

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Ifor
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Eternal NB

Post by Ifor » Sat Nov 13, 2004 7:27 pm

I am looking at getting a Fragbox 3.4G-Prescott, 1GB DDR2 Corsair with an nVidia 6800GT 256MB PCIE and a SeaGate 80MB 7,200RPM. Is this enough to multibox efficiently? I will probably only run two accounts. If a second drive is required which is better Raid 0 or Raid 1? I would appreciate any advice members may have. I am running a dell Inspiron 8100 (which I will never buy Dell again) right now, and just want to make sure I am getting what I need to start dual-boxing. Also, some say you need multiple versions of EQ on different drives, is this correct?

If someone could post a quick guide on how to set up an efficient mutliboxing system that would be great...I searched the website but failed to find some concrete steps.
Ifor

Lax
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Post by Lax » Sat Nov 13, 2004 7:44 pm

I would highly recommend one EQ folder rather than multiple on different drives. Most of the people suggesting that probably use IDE drives on the same channel. They're most likely actually hurting their performance because that way neither the drives nor the operating system can make proper use of caching, not to mention two drives on the same channel are using the same resources. With a new system I would say the best performance is going to come from a single folder so that systems designed to cache and improve performance can work sufficiently.

1GB of RAM is enough with low graphics settings as long as you dont plan on having anything else open, and it might not even be enough depending on how much memory EQ decides to leak or otherwise use after loading up. If you want to be safe I would say at least 1.5GB for two. Sure, you can get by with less... but don't plan on having browsers open, etc.

Ifor
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Post by Ifor » Sat Nov 13, 2004 10:32 pm

Thank you for the great response. Also, this is one amazing site and I love the software/looking forward to fury as well. Thank you :)).
Ifor

Omiime
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Post by Omiime » Sun Nov 14, 2004 1:52 am

You should really go with 2gigs, if you can afford it.

it's not as easy as companies and people claim it is to upgrade later.

Replacing memory takes 2seconds. Finding it 6months or year down the road is another thing. With 800fsb and 400m dual channel memory etc... Timing on memory very important.

Running 2 chars per machine, clip plane at 90-100%, full screen 1280, luclin models on (for horses), sound off in game

I normally run around 1.3-1.5 gigs.

As Lax said, get one drive, if you think 80gigs isn't going to handle what you want to put on it.
GO for 120, where I'm am, it's $10-$15 difference. (going from 120 to 200 is much bigger difference)

You might want to look into SATA drive as well.
( From my testing, putting same machines , one with 250 8m cache, and 250 8m cache sata. huge difference when boxing in eq, for zoning, load times, etc...)

Birdbrain
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Post by Birdbrain » Sun Nov 14, 2004 11:30 am

I have around the same system, with 1024 ram and i can play 6 accounts with clip plane on 0 and a few luclin graphics on in ele/velious zones.

Ifor
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Post by Ifor » Sun Nov 14, 2004 12:53 pm

Ok, so I use one folder for EQ, is that only one set of EQ software +Expansions or do i have to have one set for each account? I am a little confused about this one, hope my question is clear. I read somewhere that you had to buy a complete set of EQ software for each instance that you wanted to play.

Thank you all for your help.
Ifor

Lax
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Post by Lax » Sun Nov 14, 2004 1:55 pm

You need one EQ account per .. EQ account you want to play.. If you want to play two characters at the same time, you must have two separate accounts, each with the appropriate CD keys to activate the expansions you want, separate playing fees, etc. There's an EverQuest Platinum box in stores that I believe has EQ + all of the expansions except omens of war (I may be wrong, I'm just going by what I remember seeing at Best Buy) for $29.

Sqeeter
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Post by Sqeeter » Wed Nov 17, 2004 8:30 am

I read somewhere that you had to buy a complete set of EQ software for each instance that you wanted to play.
I think he meant, does he need to have multiple copies of EQ1 loaded on his computer to run multiple accounts efficiently. Like 3 different directories for 3 different instances? Not sure but I think thats what he meant, and i don't know the answer to that. :?:

Lax
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Post by Lax » Wed Nov 17, 2004 12:28 pm

If that was the question then he was right about being unclear ;) I recommend using one folder. There's a lot of posts asking that question "I heard you should use two folders", and one may turn up in the search option. I will just add it to the FAQ

Ifor
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Post by Ifor » Wed Nov 17, 2004 2:20 pm

Thank you for clearing that up and for your suggestions on the comp. I decided to go with the options listed below. So far Falcon has been wonderful to deal with and the wait time for delivery is consistent with other companies offering custom rigs.

Thanks again for a great website and software...

FragBox Aluminum Chassis w/FragBox Logo
FragBox 520 Watt Power Supply
Windowed Side Panel w/lighting
Intel D925XBC PCIE/Socket T Motherboard
Intel Pentium4 550 3.4GHz - Prescott
Intel Socket-T CPU Cooler
Corsair 2 GB DDR2 (4x512MB)
nVidia Geforce 6800 GT 256MB PCIE
FA404 Int. USB2.0 Flash Media/Floppy
No Raid
Maxtor DM-10 300GB SATA 16MB Cache
Sony 16X Speed DVD-ROM
Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Ifor

Lax
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Post by Lax » Wed Nov 17, 2004 2:25 pm

Your quoted system will work very well with a single EQ folder, much better than it would with two. Let me know if you have any other questions

Quaff7699
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Post by Quaff7699 » Thu Nov 18, 2004 9:19 am

Dude with that system you can probably run 4 accounts at once. But as Lax said before it will depend on what EQ wants to steal from you as far as ram. And as far as the mulitple hard drives goes. I only believe that multiple hard drives help one thing and harms everything else. It only helps with zone time when zoning 2+ accounts off the same hard drive. If you can..zone one toon then the other to make for smoother, safer zoning. You'll just have to wait a little longer if zoning 2+ toons at once. With the Hard drive you chose you can probably zone your two accounts at once at same speed your running with your current system. NOW to clearify what I think you were asking about. You only need to load EQ onto your PC ONCE. load one account and then use same EQ file to open second account and so on. You only need the Account Keys to activate the ACCOUNTS. There is absolutely no reason to load EQ twice unless you are using two differant drives ....which I believe we have prooven harmful.

Well I hope that helped a little...I get sorta long winded.

Orrior 62 warrior Xegony
Quaff 65 Monky Xegony
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