Tech - My laptop is about to take a dump (1 Viewer)

[riot]

Any suggestions on a decent gaming laptop? I used to be able to handle 6+ EQs on it with ease now I can barely handle one..

I don't need some top of the line laptop that can run all the newest games on max settings..just something that can handle running multiple EQ instances + visual studio + web browsing at the same time. 17" screen is preferred

I'll be shopping around but if anyone has any ideas for a new one I'll look in to them.

Thanks.

 

[Razkle]

anything that is quad core, multi-threading with 8gb or better ram will do a 6 box easy... intel of course

 

[Maskoi]

Ram is the most important thing when multi boxing. Any new processor should handle EQ easily. Like Rankle said minimum of 8 gig ram.

 

[neflyte3]

I run 8 instances solidly on 4gig ram and AMD quad core with ssd. Desktop not laptop though.

 

[riot]

My laptop is an i5 with 8 gigs of ram. It's 5 years old tho so :\

Is EQ heavily GPU, CPU or RAM dependent? I heard all 3 so I don't know an exact answer lol.

 

[dulak]

Well, if it's about to take a dump, be sure to help it out and wipe for it afterwards. Not having hands would make that task damn near impossible.

 

[1everdude]

My laptop is an i5 with 8 gigs of ram. It's 5 years old tho so :\

Is EQ heavily GPU, CPU or RAM dependent? I heard all 3 so I don't know an exact answer lol.

To box EQ RAM is the most important thing. Any GPU or CPU from this decade should have no problem with EQ whatsoever.

 

[toots]

I bought an ASUS ROG recently. I7 with 16gb of ram. Definitely does the trick.

 

[Razkle]

you CAN run 2 clients per gig of ram, but if you want it smooth, plan on 1clent per gb....

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I have ran eq on about a hundred machines in the last 15 years and in my experience, however limited....
as long as you meet the basics of
processor: single core blows but works, more cores=better Celeron=death
Video: just about any that will render will be fine, however you get better results from one with ddr5ram over anything else when running multiple clients (ram refresh technology is just better as cards progress)
Ram: no substitute for EQ performance, more ram is always the answer! I have 3 with 32gb now and I can run the world!

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Every setup has a sweet spot, I have an older Dell 760 with a q9400 quad core cpu, 8gb ram and an ancient radeon 5570 video card, I call it the workhorse of my boxes, it will run 6 clients FOR-FUCKING-EVER! I could run 12 on it but it gets cranky so it wants 6, it gets 6, that's the sweetspot for that box. SO it sits and gets me TDS rares, quite nicely too!

 

[DriveCrash]

My laptop is an i5 with 8 gigs of ram. It's 5 years old tho so :\

Is EQ heavily GPU, CPU or RAM dependent? I heard all 3 so I don't know an exact answer lol.

EQ is "Heavy" on the CPU. That is where primary work is done, and if you are running a weak CPU too hard, you can cook it to death. (aka don't even think about celeron)

EQ requires loads of physical memory to run properly. The last thing you need is 6 clients constantly munching your hard drive for swapfile space. Bad news for the HDD.. plus it makes things really choppy.

AMD Desktop processors are not the same as AMD mobile processors. While I have no problems recommending a AMD desktop 8 core, I will not recommend AMD laptop for boxing.. They build up far too much heat and have poor clock speeds outside of turbo modes (limited core usage). Stick with the i5 / i7 for a mobile boxer.

i7 2.8ghz+ , 8gb ram, Non-Intel video card (ATI or Nvidia GPU) , and a hybrid (SSD/HDD) 200gb+ will work just dandy. Bump the ram up for added smoothness.

-Source: Nerd.

 

[Razkle]

I would never recommend an AMD processor of any flavor, fuck, I would take a Celeron over any AMD processor and I hate Celerons

be careful on the i5/i7 purchase, they are not all quad core! Quad core is SO much nicer to box with! And some don't have hyperthreading either... you want quad core and hyperthreading for smooth boxing!

 

[riot]

My desktop is an AMD and it runs my boxes just fine. I've never actually experienced the difference between AMD and Intel so I don't know what the hype is but I've owned both.

I'm going to try taking the laptop apart and cleaning it real good to see if that helps improve performance otherwise black Friday is this week so I'll try to find one

 

[playj]

As others said multiple cores and more RAM is the key.

I've been running 12-16 instances on a crappy AMD desktop Athlon II B50 (basically Athlon II x3 450 unlocked to Phenom II x4) quad core for a long time, but I have 16GB Ram and SSD.

CPU utilization is around 70-80 percent so the CPU does run hot (about 68C which is darn near its max temp of 75C). I figure if it melts it melts..

After TBM patch and while EQPlayNice was borked I could only get 10 instances for some reason on this box.

 

[scotsbiker]

Celeron=death

currently running two 5 man box teams on a celereon with onchip graphics and 12gig memory. runs okish

 

[Razkle]

scotsbiker is my new hero! and he proves EQ can run on a calculator!

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ok so next time I retire a quad core pc, I need to just ship it to scotsbiker

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Little background that no one prolly wants or needs, I have been a computer tech for 31 years, yes I am old... I have seen it all from the old toy computers to the IBM 5150 to the CPU craze as things got faster and faster. I have repaired every type of computer that you would find in a house, with a mouse on a boat or with a goat. I see what breaks and I see what lasts. If they buy crap then I fix something today and I know what I will be back next week to fix something else. My customers call me before they buy something so they don't buy a shitty paperweight. Over the years I have heard all the rave about people who say shit like, Intel for work, AMD for playing games, well that's just cause gamers are cheap bastards. I can tell you that in my limited experience that the constant I have found is that Intel runs cooler, faster, and more stable overall. Cheap is crap, acer, goldstar, LG,AMD CPU, and hard drive (not ssd) that is not Seagate or WD... CRAP. Yeah you got 1 good one so you rave about it, but overall they are crap.

So I am middle of the road cheap, I like a good deal, I don't need the hottest video card or the coolest water cooled cpu... I shop smart... Hence buying the i7s from my other post, I can run 48 instances of eq on 1 pc, and I have 3 of those for less then most hard core gamers spend on a video card. I have just a few rules I like to follow....
buy intel, as many cores as your wallet allows but always hypertheaded!
RAM - jamb it with ram! and ALWAYS match the pairs or all the ram when possible do a little research and match the ram to your CPU
Video card - I give less then 2 shits about a video card, they all display shit where I need them to, on the screen. Make sure it has adequate cooling and get the fastest ram you can afford on there but other then that... meh
Hard Drive - If it aint Seagate or Western Digital for a mechanical drive you are wasting your money, and even in a desktop try to get a 2.5" laptop drive, they plug right in and generate SO much LESS heat!

Here is why... crap hard drives generate way more heal then they need to and fail 5x as quick as Seagate and WD ones. AMD CPUs generate a ton more heat! More cores means less HARD work per core so they run.... cooler....

3 things kill your computer.....
1. HEAT
2. DIRT
3. SHITTY PARTS


Rant mode off.... Enjoy....

 

[Inkie]

1) anyone tried EQ on the new "pc on a stick" things that came out this year?

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/compute-stick/intel-compute-stick.html

I probably wouldn't want to use it for a main, but it may be a way to off-load some task-type bots... /shrug

2) I in no way mean to say I know more than Razkle, but I will offer the analysis of the HDD failure done by Backblaze to help provide information about failures between WD, Seagate and others.

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-stats-for-q2-2015/