by Poguk » Thu Jan 05, 2006 4:34 pm
I run 2 windows on an old Athlon 1.8 GHz with only 768 MB of SDRAM (not DDR), and it runs perfectly, even on raids. Of course, I have almost every single option turned off.
You need WinEQ2 (with EQPlaynice), which is what I run. I do *not* have 2 separate EQ directories, I use the same directory.
In EQPlaynice options, make sure you change your settings... the front window I usually keep on a frame-limiter to around 25-30 FPS, because you really don't need more than that. The background window (my 2nd "box") is set to frame-limiter and I only keep it at 5 FPS. You're not viewing it, so why refresh it constantly and use up system resources?
When you set up your profiles in WinEQ2 (1 for each instance of EQ), make sure you set SOUND OFF for each profile.
When 2 boxing, you're more concerned about performance than quality, so crank those options down. Turn only the necessary models on, for instance, the race of the 2 characters you play, because you need the new models to use horsies. Everything else, leave off. Turn off your sky. Put your clipping plane at 50% or lower. Use as low of a resolution as possible... sure 1280xwhatever is nice, but 1024X768 works just fine, and it less intense on your system. Turn off shadows, water, anything that takes up memory.
And then finally --- make sure you hit Alt-Enter frequently! I don't know exactly what this does behind the scenes besides refresh your view, but I've noticed that my machine gradually bogs down after a period of time if I don't do this. It almost seems like Alt-Enter forces a cleanup of the video memory... maybe indicating some sort of leak... I dunno, that's not my forte, but all I know is that hitting Alt-Enter keeps things running smoothly for hours on end for me. Btw, once you load both windows, and hit Alt-Enter on both screens, that first time it takes a LONG time, but just wait it out, let it finish, then after that it will Alt-Enter much faster. I also hit Alt-Enter after I zone, since zoning loads a lot of crap into memory.