My first attempt at boxing!

[RaithVZ]

Hi all,

I'm fairly new to the server, about 2 weeks or so, and I've decided to give boxing a try to see what I could accomplish! (For the record, I spent the last couple days mashing the search button for answers, but still had a few questions) My main objectives were generally to see if I could do it and how far I could get.

My Rig:
Q6600
Intel x25-m
eVGA 8800 GTS
2 monitors (Different resolutions)
Win 7 Pro.
Titanium edition

1) Does EQPlayNice just run in the background? All I've gotten is an icon in the system tray; I just wasn't able to tell if it was working/doing anything.

2) I've only managed to get 3 instances of EQ to run stably; I'm wondering what is the expected amount given my setup, potentially indicating I'm doing something wrong. (I started at 6 and worked my way down to 3, it was a long and annoying crashfest of trial and error)

3) Are there other optimizations I can do to increase performance? I've already turned down clipplane, particles, old textures, pc/npc names.

4) Since I had to reduce my party size down to 3 boxes + 1 bot, I haven't given enough thought to a 3+1 set up. Will SK/CLR/SHM + RNG bot be ok? I'm just a little concerned about which character to put under bot control.

5) Which character should I pin the bot to? One of the healers or the MT?

I appreciate any suggestions that are provided; I'm having a blast on the server so far, I haven't played EQ in over 10 years and there's so much that I haven't seen yet!

[Lumpa]

1. If the icon is in the system tray its working.
2. I'm not 100% sure about this but I would box until almost all of your RAM is used up. Go to the task manager and resource manager(ctrl+alt+delete --> task manager-->Performance tab--> Resource Monitor in Vista) to check on your memory usage. If you use up all of the ram your computer will start using some space on the hard disk(hard faults) to compensate and that really slows the computer down.
3. Turning off sound has a significant effect. Also I suggest you use the wineq2 program. It allows you to use a separate ini file for each character so you can adjust sound/clip plane/hotkeys/settings on each character rather than for each install folder. I have sound turned on for only one of my characters(Shaman so I can use audio triggers to tell me when buffs wear off). Also I have the clip plane set to max on my puller but at about 50% on melee characters and about 25% on healers.
4+5. I like rogue bots. I prefer to put the bot onto an auto-attack character because auto attack=bot attack.

[RaithVZ]

3. Turning off sound has a significant effect. Also I suggest you use the wineq2 program. It allows you to use a separate ini file for each character so you can adjust sound/clip plane/hotkeys/settings on each character rather than for each install folder. I have sound turned on for only one of my characters(Shaman so I can use audio triggers to tell me when buffs wear off).

Thanks so much for your response!

Could you elaborate further on this point? ie: specifically how to do it. Regarding wineq2, all I saw was that I didn't need a separate install from EQPlayNice, but there wasn't any indication that wineq2 was there at all! Unless of course it does it all automagically.

[Lumpa]

I think it does the eqplaynice automatically, as long as the program is running(icon in system tray).

For the separate ini files for characters:
right click system tray icon-->options-->preferences-->everquest-->profiles
Create profiles for each of your characters. Then adjust the EQClient.ini option to new or copied ini files.

Another feature I love about the profiles is that you can rename the window. This way you don't have to memorize the position of the minimized window in the task bar- just read the name that you gave the window.

If you don't like clicking on minimized windows to move through your characters you can set a custom hotkey to quickly switch to the window you want. Don't strain your thumb hitting alt-tab anymore! I have my 3 toons set to ctrl c, ctrl v, ctrl b for example.