Boxing Question

Arishkogol

Arishkogol

Dalayan Beginner
Hey everyone! I've been playing SoD for a while, and decided to start boxing, so I can see more of the game, and offer more to any guilds I might apply for. But, I've been running into issues, and could use a few tips, if anyone has a second =)

First off, I've got eqwindows (wich works great for the 'other' version. I've got 2 monitors, and with a lil 'doing' I got it to full screen both instances in their respective monitors, and only need to roll the mouse over to the other one and click for it to become active.)

Now, if I load up SoD manually twice (one for each box) I can't switch screens unless I minimize one (which leads to relatively frequent crashes) and I can't roll the mouse from one instance to another (even in windowed mode).

If I try to load them up via EQWindows, my keyboard doesn't work in game (that one REALLY puzzles me, but if I get the keyboard working, I'm guessing it wouldn't be hard to get the two monitors working the way I want em)

So, any advice or tips would be greatly appreciated! thanks in advance =)
 
Hey, just started 2-boxing as well. Here's what I have found:

1) EQW is a must. Tried full screen, just does not run well.
2) Alt-Tab between the two. I like having the wiki up during play as well, but frequent alt-tab between the two windows seems to be ok.
3) Install SoD to two different locations. No, this step isn't necessary, but you don't have to deal with moving your second window every time you fire it up. Or inputting different usernames, for that matter. Just copy your map and client files over to other installation spot if you make changes to UI or map files.
4) Keyboard bug - that happens, not terribly often, but enough to annoy. When you're just running one client, you can alt-tab (or windows key, if that's your OS) out, click on the top bar of your session, then get back in game and all is well. Although I've noticed when boxing, that fix works until you slt-tab between sessions again. Once you get back, you'll be KB bugged again. I just get to a safe spot and re-log.

Any of you long-timers, feel free to correct me on anything there, or amend if I didn't mention something worthwhile.
 
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As for your problems, the only suggestion I have is to make sure you're using the SoD supplied version of EQW. I know newer versions don't work.

Also, I would suggest setting a key in EQW to switch between windows instead of using Alt-Tab. If you edit the eqw.ini file in your eqw directory, and add:

EQWSwitch=`


to the [Hotkeys] section, then you can just hit the ` key to swap between windows (you can use any key you want here). This avoids becomming keyboard bugged when switching between EQ windows (still happens when you Alt-tab out to other apps, of course... that pesky Alt key).
 
awesome! thanks for the info everyone. I'll be sure to test this all out later (having RL alts severely limits your SoD play time)
 
This might be a dumb question, but what exactly does using eqw do differently from just running two instances? I do that now and alt-tab, but half the time, especially when I've just zoned or just logged one in, one of my two is extremely laggy unless I full screen one. It usually calms down (some....it's never great) if both have been logged in and in the same zone for awhile. I use eqpn, and tried using eqw when I first started trying to box, but it didn't seem any less laggy. Should I try again? Am I correct in thinking that at least with eqw the screen isn't harder to see when not full? If that's the case and the lag is about the same that might be enough to make it worth it right there, but solving the lag at least some would be awesome. Running a Pentium 4 3 gig with maxed ram, but my vid card is I wanna say a Radeon 8250 (not at home or I'd check). Does my system just suck enough that I have to just expect and deal with lag?
 
huey said:
Running a Pentium 4 3 gig with maxed ram, but my vid card is I wanna say a Radeon 8250 (not at home or I'd check). Does my system just suck enough that I have to just expect and deal with lag?
Click to expand...

Depends on what "maxed ram" is, but guessing it's high enough for that setup to work fine. I 2box on an old 3ghz processor (although mine has hyperthreading) just fine. It worked ok with 1G memory, but does MUCH better since I upgraded to 3. Video card should be fine... I used an old GeForce (3x series?) and was fine as long as I didn't have spell effects on.
 
huey said:
sorry, 2g is what my motherboard will hold.
Click to expand...

I'm no tech wizard, and most people on these boards can (and will) probably blow me out of the water, but, from my time with the ole computer, win xp seems to max out around 2gigs (by max out, i mean, reach it's peak usefelness... using more will still help you, especially when running lots of applications at once, audio creation/editing software, as an example) and running a few instances of SoD (or any derivative) with 2 gigs of ram shouldn't cause too much of a problem...

However, things like video card specs and other hardware may greatly limit your experience.
 
Oh, and another thing in regards to the builtin EQW that I can't seem to find an answer to in my own research here...

Is there a command I can throw into the .ini file that'll send certain instances to primary/secondary monitors? I know that this functionality is available in the latest release, and is great to get 2 full screen instances going (as my two monitors are 2 different resolutions, and the only way to get the different resolutions, full screen, on the different instances is by using EQW, but i could be dumb, so I'll keep looking), but I couldn't find out exactly WHEN it was added to the code (sifted through the patch notes and came up empty).

Thanks again for all the great help guys and gals!
 
wolfwalkerEci said:
arishkogol have you tried making a post on one of the guild forums for a live guild?
http://ucguild.com/
or
http://www.primalbrood.org/forums/index.php
forums of test server guilds i have friends in. try asking them.
Click to expand...

Aye, I've infact spoken with the guy who wrote EQW hehe, and he's the one that helped me get EQW2 to work the way I wanted, so as I"m typing this, i'm thinking i"ll go into EQW2's ini file and see if I can't copy over a few settings and see if that works.

If i get it working, I'll post the solution here, in case anyone else ever has the same problems/wants (i wouldn't call this a problem by any stretch of the imagination hehe, just me trying to get everything tweeked 'just so')
 
Technical: Win XP Home & Pro 32 bit versions have a max allocatable resource limit of 4 GB. This includes your computer's ram, your video card's ram, and the resources required for the MB to communicate to all the other peripherials in your computer. (Especially other expansion cards.)

Simplified: In most cases, to calculate the amount of ram Win XP 32 can use, use this formula:

3.25 GB - <Video card memory> (example: 256 MB = .25 GB) = 3 GB of system ram maximum.

Thus, a computer running Win XP (or Vista, for that matter) 32 bit should only really have 3 GB of physical ram maximum. (My "new" gaming computer only has 2.75 GB usable due to a 512 MB video card, despite it having 4 GB of physical ram. <When I upgraded from 2 to X, 2 x 1 GB was cheaper than 2 x 512 MB.)>)
 
terr281 said:
Technical: Win XP Home & Pro 32 bit versions have a max allocatable resource limit of 4 GB. This includes your computer's ram, your video card's ram, and the resources required for the MB to communicate to all the other peripherials in your computer. (Especially other expansion cards.)

Simplified: In most cases, to calculate the amount of ram Win XP 32 can use, use this formula:

3.25 GB - <Video card memory> (example: 256 MB = .25 GB) = 3 GB of system ram maximum.

Thus, a computer running Win XP (or Vista, for that matter) 32 bit should only really have 3 GB of physical ram maximum. (My "new" gaming computer only has 2.75 GB usable due to a 512 MB video card, despite it having 4 GB of physical ram. <When I upgraded from 2 to X, 2 x 1 GB was cheaper than 2 x 512 MB.)>)
Click to expand...

This is inaccurate FYI, not that it matters much. Video memory is accessed quite separately from main memory and doesn't "consume" any portion of a "max allocatable resource limit". Total addressable main memory is usually 4 GB on a 32 bit system because each byte is assigned a sequential 32 bit integer for an address. Each application will be assigned 2 GB of virtual address space by Windows (you can change this to 3 GB with the /3GB switch on your boot.ini). This virtual address space is mapped to main physical memory by the memory manager. Each application has it's own virtual version of each byte of the last 2 GB of address space.

Video memory allocated by an application doesn't consume the application's virtual address space, however an application will probably store a copy of any resources that it is passing to the video card to restore the image should the video memory be lost (like if you minimized your 3D app or ALT-TABed to a different program). The memory consumed by this copy might be larger if your application dynamically adjusts the detail of the display based on available video memory.

Bottom line, you can use 4 GB of main memory on most 32 bit systems regardless of how much video memory you have, but some 3D applications might use more main memory to maintain a copy of some video memory objects if they detect a large amount of video memory available.
 
Every post on every forum I have ever read on the memory topic has explained the 32 bit issue as I did, but I don't have the hardware background knowledge to prove yes or no on the topic. Thus, I won't try.

I do agree that video memory is accessed differently from system memory, but can't go much further except with my own experience with XP and forum postings. The first forum post I found that explains the second hand information I use was this:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/257723-30-where-rest
 
It's true that any memory mapping I/O device will consume an address that would otherwise be available as main memory, but this would be a very small portion of 4 GB and wouldn't include your video card. If you don't see all of the memory installed in your computer in Windows the only likely cause is that you have AGP configured to make a portion of main memory available to the video card. Main memory access is much slower than accessing they type of memory included on a video card, but such low latency is really only required for the frame buffer. You should be able to change the amount of main memory allocated for use by the video care in your BIOS config.
 
GuiardoTuneweaver said:
the only suggestion I have is to make sure you're using the SoD supplied version of EQW. I know newer versions don't work.
Click to expand...

What version of EQW would work with SoD? I have tried to find the SoD supplied version of EQW but no where to be found :(

Thank you for response!
 
Crosse said:
What version of EQW would work with SoD? I have tried to find the SoD supplied version of EQW but no where to be found :(

Thank you for response!
Click to expand...

The version in use is 2.35a, literally. When you run the patcher, just check the "Use EQW" box, and it will fire up EQW. It's not a separate launch process or anything.
 
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