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Tech - Control your Multi-Core processor easily (1 Viewer)

DriveCrash

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 9, 2015
RedCents
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For anyone who is using the manually assigning CPU Cores method, or letting EQ assign cores automatically (which it doesn't do well) Here is a helpful tip:

(For each installation of EQ)
Step 1, Open EQ Client folder, and open EQCLIENT.INI
Step 2, Press CTL-F to open "Find", type in CPU and hit find next.
Step 3, Select the CPUAffinity#=# and delete it - Repeat until no more CPUAffinity#=# are found.
Step 4, Just under the [Defaults] header, enter your CPU information as you see fit.

-- CPU Breakdown --
EQCores.jpg

For example the following would provide single core use for each EQ Instance starting on the 2nd core, and going up to 6th core, then finally using core 0 (if I open all six EQ clients)
Rich (BB code):
CPUAffinity0=1
CPUAffinity1=2
CPUAffinity2=3
CPUAffinity3=4
CPUAffinity4=5
CPUAffinity5=0

If I'm on my quad core and I want to have my first client run on a core by itself, and each following EQ Client to pair up on a core, I would use:
Rich (BB code):
CPUAffinity0=0
CPUAffinity1=1
CPUAffinity2=1
CPUAffinity3=2
CPUAffinity4=2
CPUAffinity5=3
CPUAffinity6=3

A dual core CPU running three accounts (with main account started first) would look like:
Rich (BB code):
CPUAffinity0=0
CPUAffinity1=1
CPUAffinity2=1

Add as many "CPUAffinity#" as you need for the number of clients you use. Remember to keep each folder of the EQ Client you use (if you run multi-location / HDD installs) configured with the same CPU layout.

Hope this helps someone distribute the workload on their CPU easier. Box safe! :D
 
dont forget if you do
Rich (BB code):
CPUAffinity2=-1
it will utilize all cores, I did respond to what you stated in the other thread as to why I think you were having that issue.
 
Gonna try this soon as I get home , hope it helps .
so would boxing be easier if I had separate installs of EQ in 3 separate places ?? I only have 1 install , that I run 3 toons on .
 
Gonna try this soon as I get home , hope it helps .
so would boxing be easier if I had separate installs of EQ in 3 separate places ?? I only have 1 install , that I run 3 toons on .

Only if you have three physical locations OR no Boxing software.

In example:
If you have have two hard drives - use two locations. Hard drives can only read/write at one location at a time. Spreading the workload is good. I personally have an old quad core box that has 4 old crap hard drives each with a EQ install. (Be warned: HDD eat power wattage, so a beefy power supply is required).
In my main computer, I have 3 installs of EQ on my SSD, but that is so I can keep settings separate, and control the EQ windows separately without ISBoxer or any other program. Having three installs on the same physical drive does ZILCH to improve performance.
 
well atm and for years I have had EQ installed on a 2.0 flash drive , installing now onto my HDD , to see if that helps . thoughts ?? GO !
has been working well with 2 but 3 has me sketchy the graphics are dragging , slow down speed up slow down speed up hehe
 
Speed of USB I would think would be too slow for multiple instances, thats max of 2mbs transfer?(quite the bottleneck) Does your PC have USB3? Otherwise, yup copy it to a HDD. I run a solidstate drive and would never consider going back,. Not to mention you can eliminate your pagefile if you go SSD.
 
well I have one but I cant get it to load as storage only , I wanted to use it to store EQ and tun it from there but PC wont detect it so I just took it out and went back with a HDD

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Speed of USB I would think would be too slow for multiple instances, thats max of 2mbs transfer?(quite the bottleneck) Does your PC have USB3? Otherwise, yup copy it to a HDD. I run a solidstate drive and would never consider going back,. Not to mention you can eliminate your pagefile if you go SSD.

But its funny you mention the USB because I remember running a lot better on my HDD

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thank you all for the INFO gives me some ideas to play with, ALWAYS helpful you guys are awesome
 
well I have one but I cant get it to load as storage only , I wanted to use it to store EQ and tun it from there but PC wont detect it so I just took it out and went back with a HDD

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But its funny you mention the USB because I remember running a lot better on my HDD

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thank you all for the INFO gives me some ideas to play with, ALWAYS helpful you guys are awesome

In the old days USB was faster transfer than the IDE bus of HDD's. But with SATA drives, they have long since left USB transfer in the dust. USB 1 was 12mbps (megabits per second), usb2 is around 500mbps. Even older sata bus speeds run 1,000mbps. Now on the oddball chance you are running an old ass sata 1 HDD with a USB 3.0 flash drive, then you would get 5gbps with no seek time out of the USB vs the 1gbps with seek times out of the HDD. But that combination is very unlikely.

So, to recap, SSD>HDD>USB

And what Nyghteyes said is spot on, running a SSD drive means no seek times, no swapfile, and badass performance.

As far as the SSD not detecting, do you mean not detecting in windows, or in BIOS? Windows cannot see the drive until you create a FAT32 or NTFS partition on the drive. In windows you can do this through disk management (as well as assign the drive letter to the new drive)

Good luck!
 
OK so what I have goin atm is USB , SSD,HHD 3 installs , my question is .. how much more power would it take if I removed USB and hook up my other SSD . so in the end result would be 2xSSD and 1 HDD . just not real sure on how much power usb takes if it would = itself out or need more . and also on the CPU settings would I put all 3 lines in each EQ install or just single line per folder .

CPUAffinity0=0
CPUAffinity1=1
CPUAffinity2=1

or

CPUAffinity0=0 < EQ install 1 drive 1 >
CPUAffinity1=1 <EQ install 2 drive 2 >
CPUAffinity2=1 <EQ install 3 drive 3>


UPDATE: Got rid of the USB and now using HDD,SSD,SSD formatted and labeled both SSD and named them Everquest . just need to set up the CPU settings on each drive and each EQClient.ini
thanks all for the help
 
Last edited:
OK so what I have goin atm is USB , SSD,HHD 3 installs , my question is .. how much more power would it take if I removed USB and hook up my other SSD . so in the end result would be 2xSSD and 1 HDD . just not real sure on how much power usb takes if it would = itself out or need more . and also on the CPU settings would I put all 3 lines in each EQ install or just single line per folder .

CPUAffinity0=0
CPUAffinity1=1
CPUAffinity2=1

or

CPUAffinity0=0 < EQ install 1 drive 1 >
CPUAffinity1=1 <EQ install 2 drive 2 >
CPUAffinity2=1 <EQ install 3 drive 3>


UPDATE: Got rid of the USB and now using HDD,SSD,SSD formatted and labeled both SSD and named them Everquest . just need to set up the CPU settings on each drive and each EQClient.ini
thanks all for the help

I would actually take the install off the HDD, and just load the SSD's with eq folders. The performance increase from spreading out EQ installs over multiple devices is about seek time. As SSD has no seek time, and EQ isn't a large enough program to chew up the transfer bandwidth on SATA2 or 3, there is no advantage to keeping an EQ folder on the HDD.

Also, to answer your other question, USB uses 5volts, but very low amps, so almost no extra draw on the power supply. SSD's are powered by the 12 volt rail, with 5 volt stability. They pull very low wattage, due to no motors to spin up. I doubt an SSD of any size / brand is more than 10 watts of draw.

The CPUAffinity lines are for EACH install, so all three lines in each EQ folder.

Good luck!
 
Is there any actual performance gain from multiple EQ folders on a SSD though? I can understand if you're stripping one install down to bare bones and such to reduce the resources that are even loaded (if that's possible like what is posted in another thread about boxing on emu servers), but I thought running from 1 instance of EQ on an SSD was very very comparable, if not the same, as using multiple folders?
 
Anyone have recommendations or more info on a good SSD? Might have to pick one up for Christmas :p

You don't need the best (which is samsung btw) with EQ. The higher performance per dollar doesn't really pay off. I personally use old used SSD's I get for my EQ folders, and back up all my EQ installs and stuff to my HDD and NAS. Reason being is that any SSD, regardless of brand or quality will rarely give a warning before it fails. They work one day, gone the next. For that reason I don't put much investment in SSD storage.
Brands I recommend: Crucial, Samsung, Kingston, Intel, corsair and mushkin.. I would AVOID OC-z, Adata, Mtron and any other generic brand.
60GB Muskin EQ SSD Drive (NEW) 40$ USD (roughly)

Or just go cheap enough that who cares how good it is so long as it works. Replace as needed. I have small (30gb) SSD's in a few of my computers that I picked up on Ebay for 20$.

In any case, SSD is fantastic. Enjoy the upgrade!

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Is there any actual performance gain from multiple EQ folders on a SSD though? I can understand if you're stripping one install down to bare bones and such to reduce the resources that are even loaded (if that's possible like what is posted in another thread about boxing on emu servers), but I thought running from 1 instance of EQ on an SSD was very very comparable, if not the same, as using multiple folders?

Exactly right.

The only reason to split your EQ folders on SSD is for different install settings. I have one for pretty mode, basic mode (no luclin, but with spell effects, etc), one with almost everything off but high enough resolution to see what's going on, and another running stick figures with very small resolution.

If you have a ISboxer or similar, there is pretty much no reason to do this. I personally don't run any boxer software, because everything they offer I can do myself with a little extra work.
 
Yeah, I use WinEQ's option to load different EQClient.ini's when boxing. Have my war set to pretty mode, and everyone else at 0 clip, everything turned off and looking at ugly as textures. I've thought of making a new folder to strip out some of the resources to load like I saw in that other post, but haven't gotten around to it yet.
 
I would actually take the install off the HDD, and just load the SSD's with eq folders. The performance increase from spreading out EQ installs over multiple devices is about seek time. As SSD has no seek time, and EQ isn't a large enough program to chew up the transfer bandwidth on SATA2 or 3, there is no advantage to keeping an EQ folder on the HDD.

Also, to answer your other question, USB uses 5volts, but very low amps, so almost no extra draw on the power supply. SSD's are powered by the 12 volt rail, with 5 volt stability. They pull very low wattage, due to no motors to spin up. I doubt an SSD of any size / brand is more than 10 watts of draw.

The CPUAffinity lines are for EACH install, so all three lines in each EQ folder.

Good luck!

ok so just delete the EQ from the HDD and use one of the SSD to run 2 clients and the other to run 1 ??

1=SSD=1 install but run 2 clients
1=SSD= 1 install and run the 3rd

??
 
I would vote for
SSD#1 - one instance
SSD#2 - two instances but only one install

Rich (BB code):
CPUAffinity0=0
CPUAffinity1=1
CPUAffinity2=1
goes in each of the your eqclient.ini's

My logic for doing it this way is then you set SSD#2 to have a minimalist eqclient visual options and use #1 as the screen you see most often.
 
When I was running 18 on a way underpowered laptop it seemed setting all my cpuaffinity to -1 and allowing windows to deal with it rather than dedicated cores to EQ instances produced much better results.
 
Tech - Control your Multi-Core processor easily

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