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Discussion - How many characters per pc? (1 Viewer)

T

TVCChiver

Level 2
Joined
Aug 24, 2019
RedCents
-9¢
So I know we've had some great hardware discussions, and a little bit of discussions abiht what other software people use like innerspace, showeq, etc.

What I'd like to make this thread about is how many characters are you able to run on one pc, and what software do you run?

Most I've ever got was about 11, but this was about 8 years ago. Since I just got back into boxing etc again, I bet I can do more now with some of the newer plug-ins like mq2eqwire. I have no problem running 6 toons + a few to just log in and buff my group. I have an i7-8700k and a 2080ti.
 
I comfortably run 13 - 14 accounts at a time on my machine with just VV and a few class plugins running. I can push it and run 18 but it starts to get a little chunky then and I have to stop streaming tv shows lol

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WTF 60 is insane haha!! I wish I could do something like that lol! That is crazy man!

@william12 I'd love to hear some of the more major settings you have on that PC to make it run that smooth

With about 9 on right now my cpu is sitting at 90% lol. Also have twitch open on the other monitor
 
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I run 30, 32 gigs of ram, i7 8700k with a 1080 TI.. it gets taxing on the ram and cpu but the gpu has no issues. once i double the ram it wont be a problem
 
I always find it funny when people ask specs.... go look into shadow pc service.. its what I use to box 11 on crappy $200 hp Walmart laptop
 
Allurex said:
I always find it funny when people ask specs.... go look into shadow pc service.. its what I use to box 11 on crappy $200 hp Walmart laptop
Click to expand...
What service do you use? I tried to sign up for the actual Shadow.tech service, but it was only a pre-order! My googling skills are failing me for finding alternatives.
 
TVCChiver said:
WTF 60 is insane haha!! I wish I could do something like that lol! That is crazy man!

@william12 I'd love to hear some of the more major settings you have on that PC to make it run that smooth

With about 9 on right now my cpu is sitting at 90% lol. Also have twitch open on the other monitor
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Don't forget the hardware also, an SSD helps tons. Esp if your doing a lot of manual stuff. I have not had any lag since I got my SSD about 6 years ago. Run around 12 characters.
 
Redmonkey said:
Don't forget the hardware also, an SSD helps tons. Esp if your doing a lot of manual stuff. I have not had any lag since I got my SSD about 6 years ago. Run around 12 characters.
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Interesting.

I know we talk of the game being old, and the main constraint is memory. Such that we reference a formula, 1 gig ram per instance of EQ running a character.

This is the first time i read of some reference to the storage medium playing a factor, SSD over HD.


I have an 8 gig old laptop, regular disk, handle 6 instances of EQ fine.
Although, I dont have other apps running ( outside of Windows, the AV etc ) to help ensure the game processes stay resident in ram (or minimal impact) and dont swap out.
 
Redmonkey said:
Don't forget the hardware also, an SSD helps tons. Esp if your doing a lot of manual stuff. I have not had any lag since I got my SSD about 6 years ago. Run around 12 characters.
Click to expand...

Oh for sure. My current PC is i7-8700k, 32GB ram, 2080 TI, 1TB m.2 SSD, and 500 GB m.2 SSD. Even with all those, still the 90% concerns me my setting are jacked up somewhere after reading some other's post here.
 
Make sure your cpuaffinities are all set to -1 would be the first place I'd check.

I run 18 to 20 per pc with no issues and I'm running amd Radeon 2700 with 32 gigs of ram, 2 250 gig SSDs, and Nvidia 970 for the graphics card.
 
hellfyre said:
Make sure your cpuaffinities are all set to -1 would be the first place I'd check.

I run 18 to 20 per pc with no issues and I'm running amd Radeon 2700 with 32 gigs of ram, 2 250 gig SSDs, and Nvidia 970 for the graphics card.
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Just in case it is not obvious - @hellfyre is talking about the EQ Client, and not VV/MQ2/KA etc.



eqclient.ini file in your home directory of the EQ Game installation.
In the [Defaults] section, there will likely be several CPUAffinity entries.

The general feel is to ensure each instance of those is set to -1.
CPUAffinity1=-1
CPUAffinity2=-1
etc.


Note, they will also likely be random locations, and not necessarily grouped together in the ini file.
Use an editor, and search the file for CPUAffinity until you have found them all and amended.

In the same file, you will also find [Options]
You may wish to review values of the FPS settings.

MaxFPS
MaxBGFPS

Some suggest turning down, the background FPS. Personally, I turned mine up to ensure it has processing time to handle events.
In a time before VV/MQ2, I used to box and have characters on auto follow. /follow.
With low background FPS, randomly a character would start to run circles instead of following properly. That hasnt been the case so much with a higher background FPS.
 
BigDorf said:
Just in case it is not obvious - @hellfyre is talking about the EQ Client, and not VV/MQ2/KA etc.



eqclient.ini file in your home directory of the EQ Game installation.
In the [Defaults] section, there will likely be several CPUAffinity entries.

The general feel is to ensure each instance of those is set to -1.
CPUAffinity1=-1
CPUAffinity2=-1
etc.


Note, they will also likely be random locations, and not necessarily grouped together in the ini file.
Use an editor, and search the file for CPUAffinity until you have found them all and amended.

In the same file, you will also find [Options]
You may wish to review values of the FPS settings.

MaxFPS
MaxBGFPS

Some suggest turning down, the background FPS. Personally, I turned mine up to ensure it has processing time to handle events.
In a time before VV/MQ2, I used to box and have characters on auto follow. /follow.
With low background FPS, randomly a character would start to run circles instead of following properly. That hasnt been the case so much with a higher background FPS.
Click to expand...

So I only found CPUAffinity 0, 1, and 2. Should I have more than that? All the values on that were messed up, so I changed those to -1. I'll restart the game a later before raids and make sure the settings saved.
 
TVCChiver said:
So I only found CPUAffinity 0, 1, and 2. Should I have more than that? All the values on that were messed up, so I changed those to -1. I'll restart the game a later before raids and make sure the settings saved.
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you should have a cpu affinity entry for every concurrent instance of eq you run out of that directory. so if you run 3 toons you would have 0, 1, and 2, if you run 6 toons you would have 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5

that eqclient file can get a little all over the place - I recommend finding all instances in there of cpuaffinity and deleting them, then placing the cpuaffinityx=-1 for each instance you plan on having

this would be for 6 toons
INI: 
CPUAffinity0=-1
CPUAffinity1=-1
CPUAffinity2=-1
CPUAffinity3=-1
CPUAffinity4=-1
CPUAffinity5=-1
 
Sic said:
you should have a cpu affinity entry for every concurrent instance of eq you run out of that directory. so if you run 3 toons you would have 0, 1, and 2, if you run 6 toons you would have 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5

that eqclient file can get a little all over the place - I recommend finding all instances in there of cpuaffinity and deleting them, then placing the cpuaffinityx=-1 for each instance you plan on having

this would be for 6 toons
INI: 
CPUAffinity0=-1
CPUAffinity1=-1
CPUAffinity2=-1
CPUAffinity3=-1
CPUAffinity4=-1
CPUAffinity5=-1
Click to expand...

Does Innerspace run out of there? I have 6 characters logged in right now, but still only found 3 instances of the CPUAffinity. I have all 6 logged in through innerspace / ISBoxer.
 
hellfyre said:
Do you have any files in that folder named eqclient- random toon name.ini?
Click to expand...

I do, I have some that has the eqclient-toonname.ini and then some that say eqclient-profileInamedinISboxer.ini (IE eqclcient-zerker.ini). I just went in there and changed those as well. Not sure why my ISBoxer / innerspace is not using the same eqclient.ini, maybe a setting in there I chose to not use the same one. However, I don't use the same ui config on all of my toons, each one is different, so that could also be why.

Will I have to change these all every patch, or do they never get written over?
 
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TVCChiver said:
Does Innerspace run out of there? I have 6 characters logged in right now, but still only found 3 instances of the CPUAffinity. I have all 6 logged in through innerspace / ISBoxer.
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that depends on if you are using virtual eqclients (i do)
 
I tried to YOLO 128GB of RAM on a 3950X and X470 board. Turned out the chip (and possible B450) can run 128GB RAM with CPU overclocked at 4.25GHz.

Guess it drops the cost of extreme EQ multiboxing to a comfortable sub $1000 if you ebay those components.
 
I am running 17 with each set to use max memory, and full graphics on. They zone as close to instant as I have ever seen. Setup is AMD Ryzen9 3950x 32g memory. Runs like a boss and I can compile while running 17 with no lag. Not sure how many I could run on this rig.
 
Allurex said:
I always find it funny when people ask specs.... go look into shadow pc service.. its what I use to box 11 on crappy $200 hp Walmart laptop
Click to expand...

That service virtualizes the machines though I believe, wouldn't that result in a ban? I've wanted to virtualize my setup here, just make one super powerful Threadripper computer, and then set up some thin clients in each room but from my understanding they pretty much ban immediately on any virtual machines.
 
Multichar said:
That service virtualizes the machines though I believe, wouldn't that result in a ban? I've wanted to virtualize my setup here, just make one super powerful Threadripper computer, and then set up some thin clients in each room but from my understanding they pretty much ban immediately on any virtual machines.
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Been using it for a year now.. but i also don't play on tlp.. just live
 
setting CPUAffinityx=-1 does what exactly? I just looked and apparently they were set to CPUAffinityx=x, just changed them to be CPUAffinityx=-1 (as in this forum)

I just upgraded my GPU and doubled my RAM, playing on an SSD, what a difference, I can run 6 accounts (one being high graphics), with maybe 30% or so CPU usage, will need to doublecheck.

Going to look into MQ2EQWire, is interesting that you can run so many accounts with it.

Thanks for the advice all
 
-1 unlocks your cpu management from the game and let's windows handle your cpu assignment

you can see some user discussion > HERE <
some good info > HERE < as well
 
Deathredeemer said:
setting CPUAffinityx=-1 does what exactly? I just looked and apparently they were set to CPUAffinityx=x, just changed them to be CPUAffinityx=-1 (as in this forum)

I just upgraded my GPU and doubled my RAM, playing on an SSD, what a difference, I can run 6 accounts (one being high graphics), with maybe 30% or so CPU usage, will need to doublecheck.

Going to look into MQ2EQWire, is interesting that you can run so many accounts with it.

Thanks for the advice all
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My CPU is overkill simply because there is a huge memory leak with EQ and the more instances you run the bigger the problem gets and they start crashing it usually takes a few days though. If it wasn't for this memory leak I could probably run 80 + toons on 3950x with 128gbs of ram. I would have to run 2 eqbcs servers though since there is a hard cap of like 53 characters connected.
 
I play as 6 groups so 36 clients on my pc. Only software I use is mq2, it does everything. I upgraded my PC a bit to do this but I skimped on ram and just got 32gb because it is kinda expensive where I live. So I am happy with this. But I think if I was brave and got 64gb instead or even 128gb, I could have basically doubled or tripled the number of clients. On my old PC I used to do 24 clients and that was an old computer with only 16gb ram, although back then I was using Titanium client which was low ram usage. Nowadays with 32gb, 36 clients fills about 3/4 of the ram. It settles lower after a while though and only ends up using about half the ram. But starting them all up gets pretty high. The problem now is how long it takes to set up and gear up 36 characters :D


edit: Bit more techy info. My old computer was an Intel 2500K Sandy Bridge which I got in about 2009 or so. I overclocked it to 4.8ghz which was great, and had a huge heatsink and fan which kept it quiet and was cheaper than watercooling. I think when I was 24 boxing the cpu still had plenty of headroom. It used every drop of my 16gb ram though, I had to close my browser and even then I ended up settling on about 19 boxes instead, but I was really happy with that. New PC is Ryzen 3600 no overclock, 32gb, and it does 36 clients fine on new client. CPU usage hovers around 80%, lower when I'm standing around, higher when things are happening. RAM usage is like 90% ish when they all load in but goes down to about 60% after playing a while. Hard drive doesn't seem to make much difference but SSD does have a bit faster zoning and whatnot.
 
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The -1 affinity in eq client didn't really work for me. I've used it for years when only playing a few characters and never really noticed if it worked or not. But for a big army I had to nail it down. First attempt was just use -1 for each core affinity and it still jammed up the first core. Then I tried MQ2cpuload on auto but that didn't seem to work either. I think it was better but still not quite there. Then I used it in manual mode and arranged each client onto cores evenly, and then it all settled at about 70% usage on each core. Then I just set up the ini file to put 3 clients on a core. Also this cpu has 6 cores which I think it doubles somehow so it comes out like 12 cores, so 3 clients on each got me to 36 which is exactly how many I wanted to play anyway.

Branson24 said:
Holy guacamole Batman! 60!?!? You run just raid on your own like that? I can’t imagine the web of macros needed to ensure everyone is doing their jobs. I can’t even get my 6 to do theirs. cheers to you sir. 🍺
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I boxed a group years ago with no software and it was brutal. But now with MQ2 you don't even need to do anything and you can win a raid. 1 click loads the whole raid into the game, then 1 click and everyone automatically does invites, buffs, gets set up, and then engage anything that comes into range. Initial set up and 60 ini files is real effort though :)
 
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Can you do raids with these setups?

Do you team up with others with that many groups and do raids together?

It sounds like a way to do raids a few expansions back without the hazzle of raiding with 50+ other persons?
 
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