Greetings all, What is needed to 3-box on a mac, with reasonable performance? I was able to get everything up and going using Launchfrien’s launcher on a 2009 macbookpro with onboard graphics (2.26 GHz Intel, 4 GBs memory, running 10.6.8 and using spaces). But the performance was poor. I’ve got a newer pc and have been able to get things working well there, but I really do like macs better. Are you guys running desktops? Do you need a dedicated graphics board on a macbookpro? I know EQ is heavily CPU dependent (and old), but my intel machine without a graphics board just choked with 3 instances running. I experienced significant lag when moving the mouse across the screen, and entering commands (from the mouse). Now that I think about it, I didn’t have a problem with spaces, or keyboard commands, just the mouse.
I three box on a 2015 macbook air. The rest of the computer lags while I've got my characters going (like opening Chrome on a 4th space), but the game itself performs fine. OSX 10.11.2 1.6GHz Intel Core i5 4GB 1600MHz DDR3 RAM Intel HD Graphics 6000 1536MB
I 6 boxed great on a 2008 mbp 17" 2.5g processor with 6gb ram 512 card on AK I run 3 here like nothing is running Also run a 2008 24" iMac with 4gb ram and it does 3 here perfect
I can box 3 on a 2010 MacBook. Not pro. Has worse stats than yours. Only problems is it gets raging hot, but not hot enough to shut off. I really think you ought to be okay with that setup, strange that it doesn't work for you.
Hah! I've actually filled the retail MacBook box with frozen peas and used it as a base for the MacBook. Runs at 93 Celsius while 3 boxing, which is like 200 degrees? Also I make awesome kids, and then train them well. No eye contact!
Re: the topic. When I 3 box it's always old graphics, lowest settings. Spell effects off etc. Makes it run just fine but I guess it's no surprise your unit can't handle with setting high or even normal.
Forgot to add I use correct, Luclin graphics because old graphics suck. Clip turned up all the way but have spells turned off just cause I guess
the mac client is super cpu intensive and could really use a frame limiter, i have a macbook pro 2015 and it gets hot just off one box, i dont even dare box on it you will not find a frame limiter anywhere online for mac i dont know why... however zamiel wrote 1 for zz back on AK and he went from barely 4 boxing to 10. I don't know zamiel, but if someone does you should mention the frame limiter to him
I 3 box on my macbook or 2box on one and 1 box on the other macbook using spaces. I never have any performance issues. One of my Macbooks is a 2009 the other is brand new. Even on the 2009 i used to 3 box on AK and never had any performance issues. Make sure you dont have a lot of crap on your desktop, shortcuts and such, and i always keep itunes closed.
The searing laptop is no joke, I’ve been there too! I thought something was up on my end. Setting the eqlient.ini file to lower settings helped. Rebooting the computer helped too, I don’t restart the machine very often so memory could have been an issue. I was using a logitech wireless mouse and I swapped that out too, it always seemed a little flaky. I use iStat to manually control the fan speed. I’ve seen what happens when the operating system lags the temperature and things get really hot. If I manually set the fan speed to 6000 rpm before I start playing I don't have issues, but it's an old machine.
Surron, if one instance causes that much heat you may need to turn down the pron in the background It's not very cpu heavy, even 2007-2010 machines run 3 like a champ
lol brand new machine so wouldnt put pron on it, 1 box on high settings runs its very hot. i dont control the fan speed cause then it'll wear out the fan faster and knowing apple thats probably impossible to replace. $1200 is too much to waste on eq. It needs a frame limiter. and btw I would expect the older machines to run it better
I don't have a mac, I have a windows PC, so this may be irrelevant . . . but does mac have an option to limit CPU frequency? Power savings mode? That would help reign in EQ's FPS/heat generation.
I know Macs are built to run quiet and hot. When I contacted Mac about my extreme heat they guaranteed me that as long as it wasnt tripping itself off all the time that it would be fine for the computer. 6 years later I've only shut this MacBook off a handful of times and it's running beautifully. 3 boxed at 93 degrees for 20 straight hours. That's enough to cook dinner.
I found code that may do what i need for making a framerate limiter for mac process. I need to load up dev environment on mac, and start learning.
Automatic Graphics Switching is turned off in Energy Saver? For some reason the OS prefers the onboard with all games these days. Mid-2011 MBP here with discrete graphics - not sure which card at the moment, but I have no trouble 3-boxing on three desktops. My framerates are ludicrous (100+) but it still never gets as loud as the old PPC wind tunnels used to.
I have a buddy who 3 boxes takp on his giant 27 inch new mac desktop and runs windows lol. FPS limiter is easy to find for windows...
Point taken. After playing around with things over the weekend I think temperature may be playing a part. Once the temp hit 90+ C I started to see some issues. I don’t like peas so I used a flat, chemical cold pack and a fan at 6000 rpm to keep the temp less than 80 C for over an hour. For my machine bad things happen above 95 C. An incident with WoW a few years ago taught me that lesson. As a side note, and a data point, after said 95+ C incident I had to replace the fan. Causality was not clear, but the fan wasn’t running properly at the time. The good news is that it was easy to acquire and replace (for a 2009 macbook pro). And the machine doesn't seem to be worse for the wear.
