MQ2 - EQ - Multiple Processors

[BaldMaster]

Hi all,

I am running on an older machine
intel core2 quad q9300 2.5GHz with 8/gb ram on Windows 7



I run 12 chars using MQ2 to help with my team.

I was running task manager to see why they are so slow sometimes, and my physical memory is spiked at 99% and it seems my 1st core is maxed whenever I actually do something (even just all /stick to main char).

So 2 questions,
1. Is there a way to split the instances across cores manually?
2. I use a SSD drive as my main, but it is close to capacity, should I be looking to free up space on my C drive??

[spartan1999]

First off, SSD is by far more preferable.
Second, if you can free up memory with the bot config guide (stick figures etc) it helps a lot.

in your launch script, use /affinity [hex bitmask of cpu]

your 4 cpus would be:
0 0 0 1 = 0X1
0 0 1 0 = 0x2
0 1 0 0 = 0x4
1 0 0 0 = 0x8

cycle through:
"c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe start /C /affinity 1 eqgame.exe patchme /login etc."
"c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe start /C /affinity 2 eqgame.exe patchme /login etc."
"c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe start /C /affinity 4 eqgame.exe patchme /login etc."
"c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe start /C /affinity 8 eqgame.exe patchme /login etc."

You can let Windows mess with the scheduler and assign them out load balancing by enabling all 4:
1 1 1 1 = 0xF
"c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe start /C /affinity F eqgame.exe patchme /login etc."

[spartan1999]

http://www.thehiddenforest.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=204&t=9195

^^ What i meant by the bot config guide.

Page file, separate install for bots helps a lot.

One thing that you might try is running mq2 on its own logical core such as 0x8 and give the toons the other 3. I am not sure if you are running into a lot of overhead related to MQ2 but I will watch my utilization tonight when I play to see if it is hogging resources.

Also keep in mind that if you are running Quad with hyper-threads that windows enumerates them as Even = physical cores and Odd = corresponding Hyper threads. If you actually have 8 cores then pin the toons to 1,4,10,40 as they are going to be ~60% more efficient.

[spartan1999]

One more thing for general audience, after updating from Win 10 to Win 11 my memory usage increased ~30%-50% per instance so my 15 boxes actually uses most of my 16GB RAM. I am looking into what may be the issue with 11. Anyone else seeing a similar issue?

[BaldMaster]

Thanks for this information.

I currently use the MQ2Login task bar icon from Mq2, I assume you don't know if I can set affinity somehow in an ini file or some other "extra shortcuts" for the autolaunch?

I guess i could go to logging in each char seperately, but would rather not.

Thanks for the info, i will poke around a bit.

[spartan1999]

So another thing you can do while the game is already active:

Open task mangler and go to processes - click on an instance of the game and right click -> go to details

Once there, right click on instances of the game that you want to move around on different cores and click "Set affinity", at which point you can manually place your instances on different cores. This is somewhat cumbersome but is very effective.

[BaldMaster]

Just thought I would share a small tip.

I found this setting in my eqClient.ini file

CPUAffinity1=1

I changed this to -1

CPUAffinity1=-1

Evidently this tells EQ to just use its best judgement, i checked on task manager monitor and see all 4 cores going now, so I havent got to play much, but assuming this will help quite a bit.