2boxing issues

[Arkendar]

well, got my accounts running, and I'm finding a rather..irritating ..bug.
Whenever I take focus off of one account (alt tabbing between account or whatever), the account I leave has a high chance of going nonresponsive. Sometimes for a few seconds, sometimes for a minute. Makes everything a huge hassle.
I remember I had the issue back on monk/sham, turned off a bunch of things back then, none of it ever seemed to work.

Just curious if anyone else has had this issue before and what they did to fix it?
Driving me nuts

Edit: just when I was about to ragequit due to unplayability I discovered each account was bound to a single processor. Switched them over to use both, hasn't happened since. So, I think I may have found the mystery problem!

Edit2: Evidently I was wrong. It's fixed to a point. The mage never goes nonresponsive, which is good. But the bard has started it every time I tab off of him.
hard to chain pull when you gotta wait a minute to use the puller again.

[Mendoros07]

I 2 and at times 3 box. I cannot play in full screen but must play in windowed mode. I have my screen just big enough to cover everything but the taskbar at the bottom -- I run 1920x1080 and actually my height is 1065 instead of 1080 to take into account the taskbar (manually edit the eqclient.ini under the windowed mode size). Thus on the taskbar I can see my 3 accounts tabs. Switching one to the other is instant using my mouse or ALT TAB. Also in your EQ options once in the game, go to the display tab and hit advanced at the bottom. Make sure your Max. Background FPS is set to the lowest (0), and that max.frames per second is set to max (all the way right). Make sure you have lots of RAM etc.

I had no worries running like this for a long time using an intel Dual Core. I currently have a quad but still had no issues before.

Are you using Windows 7 or Vista perchance? If so you must disable a certain Ease of Access feature. Go to your control panel and look for Ease of Access. I use Win7 so not sure what it's called in Vista if that is the case. Hit the Ease of Access Centre. Look for the tab or icon that says "make it easier to focus on tasks". Then all the way down place a click on "Prevent windows from being automatically arranged when moved to the edge of the screen". This is not performance related but rather deals better with you having multiple chars running in windowed mode.

Lastly disable all crap AA.AF advanced crap that your Video card offers... There is no point in EQ, it does not take advantage of any of those graphic options.. it just SLOWS and freezes stuff at times. In my ATI panel I have everything turned for max performance. There is no difference in quality -- at least I cannot tell the diff but it's smooth as silk.

Lastly if I can suggest... if you have 2 or 3 hardrives.. PLS... have one account installed on one hardrive and one on another. I mean 2 actual full installs of the game (you can just copy one account over to the other hardrive), and then log in obviously with the different credentials. I have found that running multiple instances of EQ from different PHYSICAL hardrives has given me one of the smoothest results.

[jack96jill]

disable ingame voice chat, it is automatically set to be 'enabled' for each character and can help alot with lag sometimes by turning it off

[nako]

I run 2 accounts off a single install with no problems. Do not set the slider to max fps, limit it to 60 or something reasonable. No point in stressing your GPU more than you need to (mine will hit ~150fps if left uncapped), and running warmer than usual (sits around 50c but if uncapped it'll run into the 60's). Forcing AA/AF does work if you set it up correctly, and makes a big difference to me at 1900x1060 (modified windowed EQ res)... but I suppose that's subjective, jaggies make my eyes bleed. I just wish there was a way to force vsync in windowed mode.

I've never encountered that problem, but it sounds almost like you're running out of RAM and one of the clients is making serious use of virtual memory or something.

[EDIT] I found this in a patch message corrosponding to the release of SoF:

Multi-core CPU Support: If you have a Multi-core CPU you no longer have to manually set their processor affinity! EverQuest will automatically assign itself to an available core. If you run multiple copies of the client, each new copy running will assign itself to the next available core. Those interested in customizing which core or cores EverQuest clients run on, check the forums.

-nako/saryrn

[Arkendar]

I have max FPS set to something around 50, min CPU for background FPS.
Computer is a dualcore, 8600 video card, 4gb ram. Only 1 harddrive, so can't give that a shot. Also Vista 64bit.
Settings are set to pretty much the lowest I could.

Logged in under a single account earlier and it froze when I tabbed to MSN. So evidently it happens even when I'm singleboxing.
Dunno what's up with it, as EQ is literally the only program I've ever had this issue with (I've dualboxed WoW and EQ2 without having the issue.)
There are periods when it gets unplayable, and other periods where it can go an hour without it happening, so I'm just dealing with it. Isn't too bad atm with mercs. If bard freezes, he's generally playing his buffs, so no big deal, if mage freezes, the tank merc is tanking anyway, so I just wait it out.
Dunno how bad it'd be later on, when pet is tanking, but for now, I can deal with it

[Mendoros07]

Nako I would love to look at your AF/AA settings if you don't mind. I have never had much luck with setting them... so gave up as it seemed at times to really slow things down and do nothing or little for the actual look.

[nako]

I use ATI Tray Tools instead of CCC, which is disabled from even loading. You can find the latest version here [EDIT] I'm using build 1.6.9.1433, haven't tested the new builds but works like a charm for my system. Then just save a profile (mine set to 4xAA/8xAF) and load it up whenever. I'm running a 5850 connected to a 32" LG-32LH30, viewing distance is about 2-3ft, so jaggies are much more apparent than on a smaller monitor.

[Another EDIT] I'm using the offical Catalyst 9.10 drivers (again, not using the included control panel), there are newer, 9.11 or maybe 9.12's now, but I've got everything sorted so am loathe to update.

If you're running NVIDIA I can't help you there, haven't used one since the 6800GT sorry.

Ark: have you checked the station forums? Their search function is umm special though, so hard to find anything. Sounds like something eq specific, and nothing to do with hardware. Try a defrag first and then:

1) eqclient.ini (backup and delete it to test)
2) eqhardware.ini (old obsolete file that should be deleted if found)

If that fails to fix it, could always try to reinstall (fun!)

-nako/saryrn

[Zatpus]

I have max FPS set to something around 50, min CPU for background FPS.

Thats maybe the problem. Do not set it to "min CPU for background FPS". Try with 20-30 FPS for background.
There are multible threads on Sonyboard about freezes of EQ. I think to remember that atleast one could resolve its problems by increasing the background FPS.

Others got their machine working better, changing the memory-model of the graphics output. This setting can be found in the advanced display settings. Around summertime the graphic output was changed, in order to save recources. Initially they started with 3 memory models. There have been serveral problems with freezing. Finally they added a forth memory model which almost equals to the old way of ressource-management.

[Kraymerica]

I have had a similar issue ever since moving from Windows XP to Windows 7 64 bit. It doesn't happen all the time, but if I alt tab to something else, usually mozilla on my second monitor, then go back to EQ, I will get the spinning blue circle of thinking. I only run one account, so there is no way my computer is running out of resources. I have 4 GB of RAM, and use old models for crying out loud.

It doesn't happen all the time, and only takes a few seconds to quit "thinking" and unfreeze, so I just live with it. But if anyone finds a fix, it would make my life easier to not have to wait for the spinning blue circle cursor anymore

[Arkendar]

What Kraymerica is describing is exactly the issue. Mine just takes it a bit longer at times. It's real fun to accidentally pull a train, decide to leave mercs to die while I gate..And have one account lock up while the other gates.

As far as a reinstall goes, it was happening last year and I reinstalled, and I reinstalled fresh when I came back just now. So dunno that I wanna go through it all again lol.

Hadn't tried posting on Sony boards. I browsed them for a bit and saw nothing similiar. Guess I'll try posting on them later.