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Question - How many boxes on 1 comp?

surfdog21

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Jul 26, 2016
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Ive got a pretty good pc and am running 5 toons on it. Anybody run more than that with no problems? Was thinking of adding a 6th....
 
depends on your memory and processor
with 8 gig 6 shouldn't be a problem, I run up 20 with 32 gig and could probably run a few more without any problem.
am running an Intell i5 4 core. don't think a dual core would work so good. they seem to struggle with 6.
 
I run 5 and sometimes 6 on a core 2 duo with 8 gig of memory with little to no issues. Sometimes on 6 or if I push to 7 or 8 some of the toons get obscenely laggy. When I alt tab to their screen it's showing fights from up to 10 minutes ago or more but I haven't re-tested that since I changed the "background FPS limiter in EQ's options". I use mq2viewport and am dabbling with how much I do or don't like mq2cpuload.

Assuming the computer isn't doing much of anything else the rule of thumb seems to be along the lines of 1 gig for the operating system and then 1 gig for each instance of EQ and that's assuming your not pushing for max effects & etc.
 
Supposedly there is a trick to get down the memory usage to really low (like less than 512MB per instance) but I have not figured it out.

For me the 1GB per instance seems about right (it averages about 700-800MB but there is the windows overhead as well).

So a normal four core i5 starting with sandy bridge 2400 will run 16 instances with 16 GB of RAM with about 2GB-4GB RAM left over for emergencies.

i7 4 core/8HT should handle 20-24 boxes with 24GB RAM and a normal video card (750Ti and up).


Overall I have found that no matter how powerful the PC around 12-14 instances you start having some sort of switching problems, EQ will run but it will not be smooth. CPU usage will be maybe 50-60% so it is unlikely to be purely a CPU bound problem.

This assumes the usual optimizations (FPS in background to minimum, all effects off, Luclin models off, etc etc).
 
Supposedly there is a trick to get down the memory usage to really low (like less than 512MB per instance) but I have not figured it out.

For me the 1GB per instance seems about right (it averages about 700-800MB but there is the windows overhead as well).

So a normal four core i5 starting with sandy bridge 2400 will run 16 instances with 16 GB of RAM with about 2GB-4GB RAM left over for emergencies.

i7 4 core/8HT should handle 20-24 boxes with 24GB RAM and a normal video card (750Ti and up).


Overall I have found that no matter how powerful the PC around 12-14 instances you start having some sort of switching problems, EQ will run but it will not be smooth. CPU usage will be maybe 50-60% so it is unlikely to be purely a CPU bound problem.

This assumes the usual optimizations (FPS in background to minimum, all effects off, Luclin models off, etc etc).

When I was playing EZServer (On EQEmu) I was able to run 12 boxes with just a bit of lag (it was still playable) on 4gb. That was with very heavy optimization though.
 
I run 12, with 16gb ram- (4 x 4gb ddr4-2800 quad channel), and a i7-5930k 3.5ghz running at 4.2ghz (6core/12threads)

My system is fairly maxed out, as I am running my boxes with standard settings, not minimal settings as I probably should be. With Browsers open, Ventrilo, GINA, and anything else I have open. I have 8 ram slots on this board so I plan to get an additional 4 x 4gb to double down to a 32gb pool.

Not sure how much it matters but I thought it would help buying an ASUS Strix GTX 1070 OC. I see better fps under load like raids, but wasn't heavily game changing.
 
I run 12 often, and have run 15/16 before briefly just for a cr or something. All running max settings, and I'll double check but i think i even leave background fps as unlimited. All on a laptop at that, no laughing i'm thinking about building a tower for the house, it allows me to play at work, then plug into the tv when i get home and pick up where i left off. Now when i loaded 16 i did turn it to where spell graphics were only on for the toon casting them, but otherwise i leave everything wide open

i7-4800mq, 16gb ram, gtx 870m graphics card.
 
This is what Im using atm...just wondering if I can add a few more toons before adding another pc....

Intel Core i7 4th Gen 4770 (3.40 GHz)
32 GB DDR3 1 TB HDD
Windows 8 64-Bit
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760
 
while i'm unfamiliar with how effective the vid card will be, you can tinker with those settings if for some reason you had to. but yes you could run a shitload of toons off that computer. My suggestion would be running 6 per eq instance personally. i run 9 or so off one instance if i have to and it does ok, but it begins to bog, but if you make another folder and install another eq in it, run say 6 toons off the first one, then load another 6 off the second one, it helps a ton. I'm still new to all this myself, so i only speak from my experience, someone else in here will likely be able to give you far better and more detailed advice
 
while i'm unfamiliar with how effective the vid card will be, you can tinker with those settings if for some reason you had to. but yes you could run a shitload of toons off that computer. My suggestion would be running 6 per eq instance personally. i run 9 or so off one instance if i have to and it does ok, but it begins to bog, but if you make another folder and install another eq in it, run say 6 toons off the first one, then load another 6 off the second one, it helps a ton. I'm still new to all this myself, so i only speak from my experience, someone else in here will likely be able to give you far better and more detailed advice

Not necessary if you run a SSD and isboxer with virtual eqclient.ini setup, 1 folder 18 toons, no issues
 
most days I run 60 - 90 toons on 8 PCs total, some run 6, some run 18.....
 
Supposedly there is a trick to get down the memory usage to really low (like less than 512MB per instance) but I have not figured it out.

For me the 1GB per instance seems about right (it averages about 700-800MB but there is the windows overhead as well).

So a normal four core i5 starting with sandy bridge 2400 will run 16 instances with 16 GB of RAM with about 2GB-4GB RAM left over for emergencies.

i7 4 core/8HT should handle 20-24 boxes with 24GB RAM and a normal video card (750Ti and up).


Overall I have found that no matter how powerful the PC around 12-14 instances you start having some sort of switching problems, EQ will run but it will not be smooth. CPU usage will be maybe 50-60% so it is unlikely to be purely a CPU bound problem.

This assumes the usual optimizations (FPS in background to minimum, all effects off, Luclin models off, etc etc).


This is what I'm finding as well. I have 32 gb of ram and after the 16th-17th or so account I see degradation (very minor lag, tabbing takes maybe 1 sec longer than usual), now I have an older generation 4-core/8thread Intel i7 as well.

I could easily load another 10-12 more accounts and push it to maybe 26-28 accounts, but it gets a bit annoying. It probably isn't annoying for most though, but if you are used to FPS or MOBA games you are going to notice that extremely minor irritating lag.

I also use stick figures for most EQ models, which helps slightly, especially in PoK at the lag pile.

If I had to guess what the issue is, its the number of eq instances that are being put on the cores. 4 instances per core or 2 per hyperthread is the rule I'm using and that rule applies to Intel CPUs, if you don't want to see those minute lag and switch issues.
 
I run 18 toons on 3 machines, 12 on 1 and 6 on another. First three are AMD 8core FX's chips with various NVidia video cards with 32, 16 & 16 gig ram, the 12 is a laptop with crappy built in videocard with 24 gig ram and last is a dual core AMD with 8gig.
 
i run 5 or 6 on 12 gigs of ram 8 yr old comp. graphic card sucks and i dont use any of the particles on and names at /show 1 or /show 3
 
Question - How many boxes on 1 comp?

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