Question - Network drive question

[pewter]

Simple question I hope - I tried to use a network drive for MQ2, using both Ini files and CWTN's plugins, and the behavior is....Wonky. The toons would not assist, the camp location would not show up on a map (the nice little circle), etc etc. But MQ2 loaded just fine, so basically seemed to be starting up.

I tried this with a group and solo. SK on MQ2EsKay, bst on Mq2BST, Druid just on an ini file. When I just cut and pasted my installation back to a local SSD, all was fine.

The network drive I tried this with was a baby one (WD MyCloud Home), so I wonder if that isn't capable or there is some basic problem doing this.

My goal is to simply have one MQ directory usable by my wife's machine and mine.

I searched the best I could and haven't seen this addressed, which surprised me - but I tried! And greatly appreciate the help - not sure whether to just return this drive and try another, or it's a lost cause.

 

[Sic]

Simple question I hope - I tried to use a network drive for MQ2, using both Ini files and CWTN's plugins, and the behavior is....Wonky. The toons would not assist, the camp location would not show up on a map (the nice little circle), etc etc. But MQ2 loaded just fine, so basically seemed to be starting up.

I tried this with a group and solo. SK on MQ2EsKay, bst on Mq2BST, Druid just on an ini file. When I just cut and pasted my installation back to a local SSD, all was fine.

The network drive I tried this with was a baby one (WD MyCloud Home), so I wonder if that isn't capable or there is some basic problem doing this.

My goal is to simply have one MQ directory usable by my wife's machine and mine.

I searched the best I could and haven't seen this addressed, which surprised me - but I tried! And greatly appreciate the help - not sure whether to just return this drive and try another, or it's a lost cause.

Well buffing with the cwtn is going to not work, or far less than desired, you need/want them on local toons on a local pc, as mentioned in all the docs for the plugins.

Outside of that cwtn specific buffing stuff, a lot of mq and eq stuff is reading and writing files often, and doing that over network can be less than ideal in many cases. Like mq2hud, for example.

I'm not sure why you would have mq2nav issues loading meshes, and cwtn stuff won't assist without mq2nav loaded and meshes, which is likely why you had the "wonkiness".

Some folks will store their stuff and then just have their local stuff sync on a schedule (to emphasis this will not make you buff with the cwtn plugins)

dannet or eqbc will allow you to communicate across your network, so that might be something useful to look into setting up.

Some links with other folk's experiences in case these are useful for you:

Question - - Multiple computer use

If I have my team that I'm leveling in one group on my desktop, can I run my main in the same group from my laptop? I'm sure this has already been answered but I'm not finding the answer. TIA

www.redguides.com

https://www.redguides.com/community/threads/mq2-causing-everquest-to-freezes-for-5-second-intervals.77214/

https://www.redguides.com/community/threads/syncing-multiple-pcs.76788/#post-460264

Discussion - - Boxing on Two computers

I currently 24 box on one computer. I'd like to add more to my team but would have to expand two using a second computer to do so. Will using 2 computers still allow me to run everyone through the same bccmd channels and eqbc windows? For instance: Will using SiC's examples on how to...

www.redguides.com

 

[pewter]

Thanks much - the buffing I understand and don't mind -- when I truly full-up box I run all on one machine (totally clean). What I'd hoped to get just basic functionality, my wife is playing her two toons and hoped that would work ok, she can manage any buffing. The "win" for us is that our crinkly aging hands don't repetitive stress-out! Maybe keeping if central and doing regular updates is the answer - I was hoping to not have out of synch systems on our two machines, so we could play any toons on either machine with the same behavior. Oh by the way - the simple ini file driven toons do fine across machines and out of group even except for buffing, classes like ranger.

As for the Nav - that puzzled me too, will try again. That is why I did the reverse test of simply copying the remote drive contents and running it locally, which was fine.

So the issue is performance, and yep I had read the other post, but that seemed more speed and performance issues rather than not running at all. If only we had a NAS that was indistinguishable from a local drive.....and was affordable for home use....that should do it! A fun problem in retirement, solve that one!

BTW everything else is still working great, got the Cleric, mage and Warrior too, not I have your tool for pretty much all the toons I already had leveled to EOK level - fun stuff.

 

[JerkChicken]

I use sync.com to keep my three computers in sync.
Just need to exclude the logs folder and the cwtnbuff folder from sync.
Changes get synced pretty fast, and keeps the files local to the PC.
Dropbox will also work, but sync has a better free plan. OneDrive and Google Drive will not work

I played off a network drive when I started off and everything worked well (as long as cwtnbuffs was unloaded). At the time I only used the Zerker plugging and everyone else was KA

 

[B_I_G__D_A_D_D_Y]

Windows 10 is bad at network persistence. Behind the scenes there are frequent short delays even when the network drives are connected at gigabit speeds. I have spent many hours trying to solve this on my own local network and haven't found a good solution.

So I use an old program called SyncToy to keep 4 computers nearly identical. It's manually initiated but will copy new files in any direction. It's not foolproof however so if you make a lot of changes from one machine you'll want to immediately sync to your other ones right away because the "last" change is always the one that wins.

Search results - Microsoft Download Center

 

[pewter]

Thanks for all the replies, I think I'm getting my stale old brain working again and starting to get the situation (I was mostly real-time SW, not IS -- and retired 10 years).

What I'm finding now is that using an inexpensive pseudo-NAS (WD Mycloud Home) and setting up MQ2EQBC correctly (static server IP on my machine and social hotkeys for my wife to automagic ally ensure connection in correct), I can run BST (MQ2BST), SHD (MQ2SHD), Druid (INI File)0 on my machine and Chanter (MQ2Enchanter), Shaman (MQ2Shaman), and Ranger (Ini file) on her machine and play with only slightly more lag than we used to always get in EQ "back in the day".

I can see that this will be sub-optimal (had to turn some graphics down) but it's a start - I tried old zones (Lceanium etc) andSkyfire (pulling the caves driving the SHD to group outside) with no real difficulty. BUT If I actually drive all myself and she isn't playing will certainly run locally for performance.

She loves it because she says your plugin behaviors are helping her to relearn her toons for when she likes to drive them manually and it's easier on our slightly arthritic fingers to not spam keystrokes!

One last question before we just run with it and get going on playing - what does it mean

(as long as cwtnbuffs was unloaded)

Thanks much again for all your patience helping me get started in this!

 

[Sic]

One last question before we just run with it and get going on playing - what does it mean

mq2cwtnbuffs is what the cwtn plugins use to keep track of your buffs. it writes them to a file that then other local characters look at. unloading it is going to mean no buffs.

 

[Knightly]

Windows 10 is bad at network persistence. Behind the scenes there are frequent short delays even when the network drives are connected at gigabit speeds. I have spent many hours trying to solve this on my own local network and haven't found a good solution.

This is going to be something local, I have wireless clients that don’t have this problem and that should be the most unstable of the networks I have. It would also be huge issues for businesses if this were actually the case.

The CWTNBuffs issue is local to that plugin, it’s the way reads and writes are handled in the code that cause it to be a problem. That doesn’t apply to everything, but the pattern used is probably similar in other plugins, which just means it wasn’t designed to be shared across systems. It is expecting all reads and writes to be local and atomic. Sync, Dropbox, etc, are getting around this by handling that for you, but you’ll have conflicts during change resolution. Still, since the sync app is handling it on the back end you probably don’t notice it directly.

It remains an unsupported method for the plugins though since you’re likely to create integrity issues.

 

[Sic]

This is going to be something local, I have wireless clients that don’t have this problem and that should be the most unstable of the networks I have. It would also be huge issues for businesses if this were actually the case.

The CWTNBuffs issue is local to that plugin, it’s the way reads and writes are handled in the code that cause it to be a problem. That doesn’t apply to everything, but the pattern used is probably similar in other plugins, which just means it wasn’t designed to be shared across systems. It is expecting all reads and writes to be local and atomic. Sync, Dropbox, etc, are getting around this by handling that for you, but you’ll have conflicts during change resolution. Still, since the sync app is handling it on the back end you probably don’t notice it directly.

It remains an unsupported method for the plugins though since you’re likely to create integrity issues.

yup, it was a "short-term" solution that definitely wasn't ideal, but it was what we had at the time (and now), and we'll probably :tm: have another one in the near future