Been thinking about giving multiboxing a shot. Having never done so before, I was wondering how the graphics load would impact the CPU's temp. Does anyone have any experience running this on a MBP (I am running a mid-2012 MBP (2.9 i7, 8gb RAM, Intel HD Graphics 4000 1536 MB))? Thanks!
I 3-box (sometimes even 4, counting mule account) on a MBP, and I do not have any issues with overheating. My MBP is a little newer (mid-2014) and has 16 gb RAM and the Nvidia graphics card (all of which should make mine run hotter), but I wouldn't anticipate any issues with your system.
i play on a 2008 24" iMac with 6gb ram and 512mb vid card, also a 2007 17" mbp with similar specs, either one can run 4+ accounts perfect a lappy may get hot but honestly, it would get hot surfin the webs, make sure you keep the bottom ventilated(i.e.- don't play with it covered)
Your MBP should be able to two-box just fine. The OS X client seems to consume about 500 MB of RAM per instance, so no problem there. Most of the system load is processing, but your i7 is certainly up to the task! The graphics card seems to be mostly irrelevant -- I don't think the client was written to take advantage of GPUs. If your MBP gets a little hot after running EQ for a while in a warm room, you can always pick up a laptop stand for $20-50. Passive stands (no fans) increase airflow a lot just by elevating the laptop off the desk. Stands with fans increase airflow more. Check out this thread for the basics of OS X boxing.
I can 2 box on a mid 2010 MacBook, not pro. I'm sure you will be just fine. I've got that dreadful integrated chipset And only 2gb ram And everything works wells if a little warm. MacBook is meant to run silent and hot. It will turn off before it damages itself.
Thanks for the quick replies! I switched over to the new launcher and will set everything up later tonight.
For fluidity, because my system is aged and not meant for gaming I tend to turn off spell effects and run old models. I miss spell effects. I'm willing to bet you should not have to do so.
I 3-box on raids with a 2015 macbook air. I run old models, /showname 1/off, and spell particles are off or low opacity. My fans don't kick in until a third box is going, two run easily.
Oh, one last question: Do the chars I plan to box need to be on different game accounts or can they be on the same one?
They do need to be on different game accounts (you can have up to 10), and all the game accounts will be linked to the same forum account.
Keep in mind that you can manually move characters inbetween your own game accounts at any time... So you don't need to plan ahead too much. Also keep in mind you are allowed to have one account marked as a "Trader" which will not allow characters transfers, but will also not count toward your 3-characters-online-at-once rule.
I have a late-2011 MBP, 2.2 i7, 8GB RAM, Intel HD 3000 512MB. I have a stand with built-in fan for additional cooling, as the laptop gets hot, but it's no worse than watching youtube. I can 3-box no problem. You'll have no issues whatsoever 2-boxing. Back on Al'Kabor, which I would assume would be comparable, once accounts became free, I ran a group of 6 toons all the time. I ran 10 toons once, just to see if it would work, and it ran it no problem. I wouldn't do that for long mind you...
It is worth having two clients if you want to make it easier on your CPU/graphics/ram etc. Once the game is working fine for one box, just copy your entire EQ folder and make a second folder that is the same. So for me I have d:\eqmac and also d:\eqmac2. Then make a shortcut to login to the game from the first folder, and one to login from the second folder. When you login to the second folder you can lower all the graphics settings to very low, turn all the fancy stuff off, reduce the clipping range etc, make it look really crap but it also runs very smooth and uses very little RAM. Then when you play your two characters, the main character you play the most (usually a tank type), you can play from the first folder with all the graphics looking pretty. And when you tab to your second character, that one will be using low graphics. But most of your time will be spent on the first character so you get to play the game looking pretty and briefly tabbing to the second character to do a few heals or something wont matter that it looks ugly. Hope this makes sense, I am drunk. p.s. I don't really use it now on takp for 3 characters but on another server I 19 boxed and it was essential, even with 16gb ram.
Give it a try, you'll get the hang of it. Most important thing to remember is to be patient because it's super hard to play 2 or 3 chars to 100% of their effectiveness so just do your best and enjoy.
