Minimum specs to quad box?

[Lasivian]

I'm thinking of joining back into Wow and running one account on the machine I have (Athlon 1ghx box) and buying a new machine that can run 4 slaves.

I'm wondering what kind of outlay this would require.


I have an existing KVM and 2 monitors and hoped I could put the 4 slave windows on the slave machine on my second monitor.

Then send commands from the primary machine I'm playing over to the slave machine. (I did not see any information about this possible configuration already).

Also is it possible to run the slave machine "headless" and switch to it when needed via KVM?

Thanks

[Lasivian]

Is my idea even possible?

I'm not certain if 4 instances on one machine is even possible to control properly since i've never multiboxed.

[burningforce]

so basically you want the athlon machine to be your main machine and make the newer machine just be the slaves and thats it?

Seems like a mix of hardware and software boxing.

To be honest, you can get a great computer for boxing and have all 5 of the wows running on the same computer and the cpu/gpu will not even break a sweat. This seems like it would be easier to do instead of setting up KVM's and then setting up software to connect the computers to allow the controlling of the slaves.

And then you can decide on the multiboxing software to use. Most, if not all, of the mainstream boxing softwares allow the user to define what monitor(s) you want the wow windows on. They also allow different sizes of the wow window to be used. So you can make your main character appear on your main monitor and have the 4 slaves appear on 4 seperate, smaller windows on the second monitor.

also the software allows you to send a keystroke to whatever wow slaves you want. So if I push the key D on my keyboard, the D key will be sent to the other wow windows and perform whatever macro or keybind is assigned for D.

Software boxing is easier and less expensive then hardware boxing in my opinion. And I do not understand what "Headless" means, can you explain that a little better?

and to ease your fears, depnding on how good the hardware in the computer you buy is, you can 5-box, listen to winamp, or hell even watch a movie that is overlayed ontop of your main monitor with wow on it, so its very possible to 5-box on one machine depending on the hardware in the computer.

[Lasivian]

Yeah, you're probably right, I'm looking at what it would take to just replace my primary box right now which would mean just running 5 accounts on one machine.

So far I have:

Intel Core 2 Quad - Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 Yorkfield 2.5GHz 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80580Q8300
Intel Motherboard - Newegg.com - Intel BOXDP43BF LGA 775 Intel P43 ATX Intel Motherboard
4gb RAM - Newegg.com - G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-10600CL9D-4GBNT
Fan & Heatsink - Newegg.com - ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 92mm Fluid Dynamic CPU Cooler

Not sure what video card to go with tho, been awhile and I'm trying to research things out.

I have spare Sata II HDs lying around, and already a pair of monitors, and a case + Power supply.

I'm happy to hear any suggestions, i'm totally new to the quad/dual core stuff, etc.

Thanks

[Lasivian]

Hrr, do the slaves need to be visible, or can they just run minimized?

[burningforce]

that processor will choke trying to run 5 wows at once.
I have a somewhat similar setup minus a few things.

processor - Q6600 @2.4GHz
motherboard - gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R
memory - 2 sets of G.skill DDR2 1066 dual channel F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK (which will give me 4x2GB dimms)
video card - geforce 260 core 216
power supply - corsair HX 620W
SSD - Intel X25-V 40GB (only used for Wow)
HDD - 2 xwestern digital caviar black 1TB WD-1001FALS
cpu cooler - artic cooling freezer 7 pro

The program I use has an option to limit the FPS of all the windows.
So I have it set up like this Main window - 60FPS limit, Slave windows - 25FPS limit each window

even though I have wow(s) running off a SSD, the processor just struggles under the weight and its utilization is around 75%-98% total.

so what I am getting at is even though you have a newer processor that uses die size of 45 nm, you will be hurt by the processors L2 cache which is only 4MB. Also that motherboard is not very configurable in terms of options in the bios.

I did not see in your posts, but are you building a new computer for the game world of warcraft? Or is it a different game?

There are two extremes that I am seeing. you could build a somewhat cheaper computer using parts from your old machine(hard drives), and just buy a decent processor on the 775 socket. You will need a decent motherboard and decent memory. The problem with this that you are buying out-dated technology, and most of the times old-technology like processors,hard drives, power supplies, memory, take a long time to go down in price. Price goes up when demand is high but supplies are low. So it might be wise to check out the newer stuff like i7,i5 etc, then compare the prices of the old quad core build and the newer i7 build.

If you tell us your spending limit, computer uses, and what hardware you have now, maybe we can get you a good build put together.

[Lasivian]

Well, this is just going to be the new gaming computer.

I can afford to put about 500$ into it.

I already have the following on hand:

a good atx case
450w Power Supply of decent quality
500gb sata II hd
2 VA1912wb monitors
gigabit PCI ethernet cards

I have a second machine at my desk right now that is a raid server. I RDP to it and put that screen up on one of my monitors. There is no need to do this while gaming however.

Thanks

[Lasivian]

Oh, my build was based off the numbers I found here:

Minimum requirements to multibox 5 World of Warcrafts | Multiboxing.com - Multiboxing in World of Warcraft and more!

"Pentium E8400@3.00ghz, 4G ram, Geforce 9800 - * PERFECT: Main WoW: 50fps, 4x Alt WoW: 18fps"

[EaTCarbS]

Also keep in mind that the system requirements are likely to increase with cataclysm.

[Korton]

Originally Posted by EaTCarbS

Also keep in mind that the system requirements are likely to increase with cataclysm.

Yes, playing through beta made me aware of this.

Normally, I can easily get 60 FPS in Orgrimmar (pre-Cata)

After Deathwing goes on vacation to Azeroth and Orgrimmar gets re-vamped, i get about 20-30 FPS if I'm lucky, and this is without the four hundred people in Orgrimmar at the same time.