Need help from a 2-boxer

[Fuzzboy]

I am trying to bring my druid box out of retirement and I was sure my new computer would handle it no problem. My brother 2-boxed all the time on a PC that was 1/4 of what I have now. I am opening 2 sessions and alt-tabing back and forth. The problem I have is that it takes a good 60 seconds to switch back and forth and the system lags with 2 sessions open. I have a brand new AMD 4000+ with 2G ram running XPhome and a new Nvidea 7900. My brother was able to alt-tab on a 5 year old AMD 1300 with 1G of ram with no problems at all. Worst case I can go buy another monitor and run the Druid on my old box but I would like to run them on the same machine if I can figure out what I am doing wrong. Anyone have any ideas?

[Brutul]

That is certainly more than enough computer to run 2 instances of EQ. I have heard people say that you want all settings on minimum for your bot, and to turn sound off for sure.

I am no expert though, probably someone else will post that knows more. I do know that I have gotten better performance than that on a much worse computer without doing anything special at all, so it seems like something is wrong.

[Shirion]

Something has to be set quite wrong. Though I am not sure what.


My old PoS Laptop can alt tab between two instances in under 3 seconds. I am thinking you have a piece of hardware setup incorrectly. Like you said, your computer is new. A lot of things can be misconfigured.

[Master Natura Katana]

Have to agree with Shirion, something is seriously setup wrong there. I was running p4 2.53ghtz w/ 1gig ram and 256 radeon grphx card .. 3 boxed with NO problems, with all luclin models on and etc (except for spell graphics). Maybe try using 2 different EQ directories for each window (heard rumors, and had some problems myself with memory leaks, slowing system WAY down).

[Shirion]

Maybe try using 2 different EQ directories for each window (heard rumors, and had some problems myself with memory leaks, slowing system WAY down).


This was disproved. It is actually faster to run 2 instances of EQ from one directory. Though a lot of people still use 2 directories so they can change models,spell effects, etc on their second instance.

[Brutul]

How's your CPU temp?

[Sirphoenix_18]

This may be a stupid question, but you're running them in windowed mode right? If you still can't figure it out try downloading EQwindows or another program designed to make multiple instances of EQ run better.

[Fuzzboy]

Figured it out Friday.. and yes I was trying to run them full screen. Switched to windowed and it works great. Got nearly 2 levels on the Druid over the weekend 2-boxing the Mirk Caves in WoS. Soon as I get her to 65 I plan on leaving her on AA for a while.

[Sirphoenix_18]

Yay, glad ya figured it out.

[Shirion]

Figured it out Friday.. and yes I was trying to run them full screen. Switched to windowed and it works great. Got nearly 2 levels on the Druid over the weekend 2-boxing the Mirk Caves in WoS. Soon as I get her to 65 I plan on leaving her on AA for a while.

Good stuff.