Strategy - TLP Boxing suggestions (1 Viewer)

[Ghost]

Thinking of buying a couple cheap PC's to box on Agnarr. I currently am running on 3 box 1 on my mac laptop 1 on my main rig and 1 shitty desktop. I definitely want to get rid of the mac because having to use crossover makes the graphics spaz out and it runs like shit. I'm having trouble deciding between getting a few cheap desktops or just getting a few cheap laptops. My gaming room is fairly small desk is about 5'x3' and the room itself is probably 6'x8' or something like that. For that reason I'm thinking laptops may be a good way to go but I've always preferred playing desktops so thats my dilemma. As for the specs on the PC's do I need dedicated graphics? I'm considering buying a couple from Dell as they gave me a fancy credit card to buy stuff with. The laptops I see from them start at around 200.
http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/productdetails/inspiron-11-3162-laptop/dncwh105b
Would that be enough to power up 1 eq account with 0 lag? or would I need some dedicated graphics? The ones with dedicated graphics start at around 6-700 so its a pretty big price difference.

 

[Inkie]

I think it will depend on if you intend to box on a raid.

About any modern pc should handle a single instance of group eq without issue, I personally think the "computer on a stick" things should do it but when you try to do that in a raid it will likely kill it.

That being said, if you're just after "I want it to play 1 instance of EQ", you could buy old core 2 duo machines used from ebay / craigslist for probably half of that laptop and they'd do the job just as well.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&LH_BIN=1&_nkw=lenovo+sff&_sop=15

a couple of those and components like kvm switch, usb numpads / gamepads (https://www.razerzone.com/Gaming-Keyboard/c/Gaming-Keyboard?q=:stock:Keyboard,20000:Keypads) and you should be able to see what you're doing and hit the most commonly used buttons real easily.

or going for used / refurb "all-in-one" pc's might accomplish a very similar result and allow you to have a small footprint on your desk and not deal with crabby overheating laptops and a keyboard that you only ever hit 11 keys on taking up your desk.

 

[Ghost]

ah alrighty ill try out one of those. I'd just hate to buy one and have it lag and end up being wasted. I do eventually intend to raid on it so I definitely want it to be fully functional but will never run more than 1 box on it. i'll definitely have to look into a few of those gamepads they seem pretty cool. Do you just make a /tar xxx /fol xxx and /assist xxx macro on all the boxes so you can just use the numpad for everything?

 

[Inkie]

the game pads are essentially programmable keyboards.

you can set up the keys so that each one either matches a key on a typical keyboard "C", "F1", etc. and you can program them to be a sequence of keystrokes (press F8 ... type "/assist" ... type "/cast 1") would be a one button "heal the target of the nearest mob", etc.

the previous versions were called "nostromo gamepad" and are on ebay in the $25 to $50 range.

a regular usb numpad could be used but then you'd have to change the key mapping for eq so that the numpad would be hotbuttons and direction keys (left right, forward, back) and etc. and you'd have to make "/follow xxx" type hotkeys to do whatever you felt was a common need.

 

[playj]

I would suggest buying one of those Dell laptops and trying it out in a crowded setting.

Its integrated graphics are not great, but definitely better than anything integrated on Core2Duo motherboards

EDIT: If you want something more powerful then consider buying Haswell era i3 desktops such as this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-ProDesk-...ows-8-Choose-Your-Build-WiFi-DF-/192217176688

This has decent integrated graphics which should handle raid settings (assuming you do not turn on all the effects).

 

[rzek]

Yeesh.. I dunno, integrated graphics are rough. As you get more players concentrated to one area it wouldn't be unlikely that you drop down to 10-15 fps or worse. If you can buy a cheap i3 pc for 100ish, or even a core 2 duo for that matter, find a cheap graphics card with dedicated memory to go with it imho. Dedicated vs. integrated doesn't even compare, especially in a lower end system. You can probably pick up a really cheap card that would be more than sufficient for your needs. Nvidia Geforce GTX 200 series comes to mind, that series for sure has PCI-E, probably a little less than 1 GB of dedicated ram, and you can find them on ebay for super cheap (like 15-35 bucks?). You can probably nab GTX 400 series for pretty cheap if you catch the right deals too, and they have around 1.5 or 2gb iirc. Just make sure the case can fit them, they are the longer gfx cards similar to high end models.

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See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDQEc-crT9c for a benchmark analysis of the i3 integrated gfx, he plays some games at the end to give you a better idea of what you'd expect. Especially in the FPS he plays, he see's framerate instability especially around other players.