Zaria wrote:Note: EQPlayNice comes with WinEQ 2. If you downloaded WinEQ 2, you do not need to download EQPlayNice separately.
WinEQ2 has some other great features to make box easier.
Specifically, binding each character window to a custom hotkey = no alt tabbing.
Not tabbing is great even if you have only 2 characters because you can have other things running and not have to tab through it all. If you have more than 2 characters it gets even more useful.
Also, its an 'instant' switch. Press your assigned hotkey or key combo and the character switches right away. It also has resource limiting that works alongside eqplaynice (which is included) to make boxing easier on your computer.
I have a g510 keyboard with the 18x3 hotkey bank, which is even better with wineq2 cause I just set my toons to separate buttons. (program each key for ctrl+alt+1, ctrl+alt+2 etc, which is the hotkey combo I use). Then I just hit one button to switch toons and it is instant and goes straight to the toon I need ( I box 6, very useful). Keyboard also lets me disable the windows key while gaming (dont you hate when you accidentally hit that button during a tough fight and wipe? lol).
If you choose its worth it you can subscribe, pretty cheap, like 10 bucks for 3 months, cheaper if you sub longer. Its not necessary, but it does unlock some other useful features. Most notably fake fullscreen. The kind of fullscreen that is actually windowed but takes up the whole monitor without borders. This way you get the fullscreen experience but still can use the instant swap hotkeys. I've subbed before. I'm not at the moment but it wasn't a waste of money as I used it a LOT.
The other bit is just being able to set up a profile to launch each character/account. Say you want sound, but your boxing 6 toons. You dont want to process sound for all 6 toons, so you make profiles for each of them and only your main toon has sound enabled, disable patcher etc (really useful on live if you know your fully patched) and preset the resolution and window/fakewindow mode.
There is also innerspace (basically the "new" wineq2) but the learning curve is much steeper, most people dont need innerspace. IS is very useful for full group boxing or boxing multiple groups. Wineq2 works with many games. Also innerspace requires a subscription : wineq2 is FREE and functional whether you pay or not (all you really get with a sub is what I said before about fake fullscreen, and I think picture in picture).
It also lets you set up showing all your toons on one or two monitors on a sub, but I never do that anyway, I just show one toon and leave the rest in the background. They're all grouped, so I know when someones getting beat on. And it saves resources. I run all six on one computer, one monitor (though I can dual monitor if I really want to).
If you just run two toons, Micah's suggestion works well if your comp handles it. You can just eqplaynice to help with resource management, and use the alt tab method. But the standalone program is pretty much outdated legacy stuff. Sometimes buggy. Alt tab between only two toons isn't a big deal at all.