Almar's Main Comp (36 Box)
This page is going to talk more about my main computer which can box a total of 36 Characters as well as perform other tasks at the same time. I've had 36 characters running on my main computer before while also playing the Dolphin Gamecube emulator during med breaks. I couldn't play some games on the emulator though because of my video card. If I played games with a lot of fire or particle effects it finally started to choke up my computer.
My Main Computer Intel i7 5960X CPU 3.00 GHz *32 Gigs RAM* Nvidia GeForce GT 740 - Boxes 36 Characters @ 80% RAM // 60% CPU usage
Complete Ibuypower parts list & price
This computer was built specifically for Boxing in Everquest and it's a beast. I learned a lot about boxing in Everquest, what type of PC does it best and what complications you run into when boxing a lot of characters. I also learned a ton about computers in general from this bad boy.
First thing I would like to talk about for this PC is the Processor. It cost me about a thousand bucks just for this processor and it was the most debated about piece of this entire computer amongst outsiders. Everyone told me get a better video card and get a worse processor but I refused to listen to them and boy am I glad I did.
The very first thing I learned is you don't need a processor as good as the one I got. The reason for this is - eventually when you load enough characters you create an artificial type of lag on your computer. I can't think of how to explain it but I noticed that my DPS drops off when I load up more than 24 characters per computer.
Isboxer is likely the cause of the lag as it ends up making this a whole lot worse and adding in an additional problem when you try and run too many characters - Round robin. Basically the way Isboxer works is this... When you press a key it sends a command to each of your clients in order. The more clients you have loaded the longer that it takes to cycle that command to each of them. Sometimes it doesn't even hit every client it just randomly skips a client or two.
I could never figure out a way to solve this issue and my characters do roughly 20 - 30% less DPS when I am running them on a computer that's boxing 24 or more characters at one time regardless of how fast I spam the DPS button.
The second major thing that this computer taught me is that I was correct in believing that the Graphics Card barely matters for Everquest. I was able to play 36 characters at once on this computer as well as the Dolphin emulator for Gamecube.
I've boxed on about 4 computers that only had onboard graphics cards and I was able to do 6 on them with no problem. If I tried any more than 6 though with onboard graphics things would still slowing down quite a bit. Then finally you have my 32 gigs of RAM.
After experimenting a little bit with 16 gigs of RAM and 32 gigs I opted to almost always go with 32 gigs when looking for a computer to box on. 16 gigs of ram is good if you plan to do 6 - 12 characters but it can get a little hairy doing 18 with only 16 gigs of ram.... depending on what else you want to use your computer for.
You need to take into consideration when building a computer to box on that you'll be doing more than just playing EQ while you play EQ. You'll probably have multiple internet tabs open for quests and maybe even music playing. Or if you have a second monitor you might have a TV show or movie running too.
When deciding to push your computer to its limits you need to take this stuff into account too. An example is my main computer can't play youtube videos very well while I am 36 boxing - the video skips regularly but the sound is just fine. Not really sure what causes it but I would assume my crappy video card.
Anyway that's really all I can think of to say about my main computer. I might add more to this page later but I wanted to document my experiences while boxing and using this computer because there's not much information on the internet about what computers (and their specs) can box how many characters.
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