Strange request - a single PC to run *two* Everquest 2 accounts simultaneously

[Diasper]

I suppose this counts as one of those mad suggested computer builds but as such is something I need help on as it's nothing that I've ever ahd requested before and so know next to nothing about beyond speculating.

Someone who has stumbled on a bit of money is looking for me to build him a computer that may end up being used for running two everquest accounts simulatenously. I guess performance ballpark range here we'll end up looking towards is Alienware specs.

Originally, the plan was to go with dual core but then when the suggestion was running two accounts of Everquest 2 simulatenoeusly was desired I've ended up looking into running both on the same PC.

So the questions are fundamentally - Would this be actually feasible possible? What specs would be needed to do so? And is there any way to plug up a second keyboard and mouse as gaming inputs for the second screen?

The build is scheduled for in a month. Preliminary specs with the emphasis on performance but at low noise while above all retaining absolute reliability as this will be a work machine also being on 24/7 are:

- AMD X2 4400+ (overclocked)
- Heatsink Zalman 7000ALCU or Thermaltake 90C
- DFI Ultra D/SLI (maybe the ATI board if it comes out soon - how's the ULI board coming along too?)
- Crucial Value 2 x 1GB --- but maybe 3/4 x 1GB might be needed...
- 6800GT initially but now looking at 7800GTX - what sort of graphics power is needed - how well would a graphics card run two everquest 2s at 1280x1024 at reasonably high detail?)
- Antec P180
- PSU - Noisetaker 485 dual rail 18A x 2 or Tagan 480W 30A x 1. Perhaps a slightly more powerful model of either of those even.
- Seagate 7200.8 300GB (or 7200.9 if it comes out shortly)
- NEC 3540A or else Samsung one for quiet operation
- Monitors - 2 x Viewsonic VP191 !

Thoughts? Considerations? Recommendations? Or is this just plain bonkers?

 

[OdiN]

Well...you would have to have 2 everquest installations in different folders, run them both at the same time and you would have to alt-tab between both.

You can't have 2 of those running on seperate screens - the GPU will only render one 3D application at one time, esp. D3D stuff.

 

[d2arcturus]

Originally posted by: OdiN
Well...you would have to have 2 everquest installations in different folders, run them both at the same time and you would have to alt-tab between both.

You can't have 2 of those running on seperate screens - the GPU will only render one 3D application at one time, esp. D3D stuff.

Yesh. Your setup looks good.

 

[suicidalpigeon]

did you mean the ops?

 

[Diasper]

Originally posted by: OdiN
Well...you would have to have 2 everquest installations in different folders, run them both at the same time and you would have to alt-tab between both.

You can't have 2 of those running on seperate screens - the GPU will only render one 3D application at one time, esp. D3D stuff.

What about SLI then? How would 2 x 6800GT manage?

 

[suicidalpigeon]

sli is money wasting.

 

[d2arcturus]

Originally posted by: wafflesandsyrup
did you mean the ops?

Yeah. Unless SLI would be better, doubt it would though. 7800GTX good enough.

 

[Diasper]

Originally posted by: wafflesandsyrup
sli is money wasting.

But if it means not having to build a second computer it may save money - and convience when in a crowded deskspace environment.


Well, in short is there any way for this to work?

 

[d2arcturus]

I highly doubt you could run two on seperate monitors. I don't think there's any way for Windows to recognize 2 keyboards and 2 mice.
Like OdiN said, he'll just have to run both accounts and alt-tab between them.

 

[OdiN]

I don't think SLI would work. I'm pretty sure you can't run two D3D applications at the same time with them both being active...don't think the API can handle that sort of thing....not exactly what it was made for.

I could be wrong I suppose. Best case you will have to alt-tab between the two games. This is assuming the game would even allow you to run two accounts from the same IP address, which it might not. (well...at least if you didn't have a router I dunno if that would work...should tho)

 

[Diasper]

Thanks alot for your help. I think I can safely assume what I suspected that it isn't possible.

Guess the spec I may end up building is:
- 4400+ (overclocked)
- Zalman 7000ALCU or Thermaltake 90C
- DFI Ultra-D or else the new Sapphire ATI chipset motherboard
- Crucial 2x 1GB RAM sticks
- 250/300GB Hardrive
- NEC3540 (or other quieter/quality DVD-RW DL)
- Antec P180
- Nvidia 6800GT - maybe the Gigabyte as a silent solution.
- Viewsonic VP191 else the Samsung using the similiar panel
- Second cheap 17" or 19" monitor purely for work with DVI.


Later on will probably add a sound card - probably the Audigy 2ZS.

Last question - how does switching between screens given one might be gaming while the other work involved? How easy is it?

 

[George Powell]

Switching between screens while gaming does not work that well, especially if any resolution switching goes on.

 

[Lalakai]

not having played everquest the solution may not be viable. But in similiar gameplay where running two seperate accounts caused serious slow down, it was found that using a different java in the second window, solved the problem. Not only did it speed up game play to normal, but allowed both accounts to be active in the same world at the same time.

 

[Topweasel]

LISTEN TO ME.......... Everquest can run in Windowed mode, and their for with 2 installs of the game you can run on two monitors. Your X2 is perfect for it, and all you need to finish it is another 6800GT. Don't SLI these 2 (you set mobo to SLI and have the bridge chip, just don't set to SLI in windows. Switching Screens in games is a bad Idea on a Single proc system which you don't have, I have run 32 Quake III games at once on my machine (because I could) This was 3 years ago I doubt that things have goten worse.

Here are my Recomendations to complete this Idea

DC Proc (Check)
2 gigs of ram (check)
2 GPUs (Just need one more) (I Think dedicated Graphics cards would be better then a split 7800GTX(this coming from a owner of a 7800GTX)).
2 Monitors (Prefered so you seperate Video card usage)

When running it in windowed mode make sure you set it to bordered window mode so you don't lose your mouse. You can Alt-Tab from that Point.

 

[albumleaf]

Originally posted by: Topweasel
LISTEN TO ME.......... Everquest can run in Windowed mode, and their for with 2 installs of the game you can run on two monitors. Your X2 is perfect for it, and all you need to finish it is another 6800GT. Don't SLI these 2 (you set mobo to SLI and have the bridge chip, just don't set to SLI in windows. Switching Screens in games is a bad Idea on a Single proc system which you don't have, I have run 32 Quake III games at once on my machine (because I could) This was 3 years ago I doubt that things have goten worse.

Here are my Recomendations to complete this Idea

DC Proc (Check)
2 gigs of ram (check)
2 GPUs (Just need one more) (I Think dedicated Graphics cards would be better then a split 7800GTX(this coming from a owner of a 7800GTX)).
2 Monitors (Prefered so you seperate Video card usage)

When running it in windowed mode make sure you set it to bordered window mode so you don't lose your mouse. You can Alt-Tab from that Point.

You can pick up a dell 2405fpw for only $750 a little while ago.. I'd look into that or dual 2005fpws for 370 each

 

[Diasper]

Originally posted by: Topweasel
LISTEN TO ME.......... Everquest can run in Windowed mode, and their for with 2 installs of the game you can run on two monitors. Your X2 is perfect for it, and all you need to finish it is another 6800GT. Don't SLI these 2 (you set mobo to SLI and have the bridge chip, just don't set to SLI in windows. Switching Screens in games is a bad Idea on a Single proc system which you don't have, I have run 32 Quake III games at once on my machine (because I could) This was 3 years ago I doubt that things have goten worse.

Here are my Recomendations to complete this Idea

DC Proc (Check)
2 gigs of ram (check)
2 GPUs (Just need one more) (I Think dedicated Graphics cards would be better then a split 7800GTX(this coming from a owner of a 7800GTX)).
2 Monitors (Prefered so you seperate Video card usage)

When running it in windowed mode make sure you set it to bordered window mode so you don't lose your mouse. You can Alt-Tab from that Point.

wow, well thanks alot for that. how would a 7800GTX likely fair? I'm wondering because on so many levels it'd be a more elegant solution - less costly, produces less heat/consumes less power, doesn't have addition cost of super heavy duty PSU and frees up a PCI-Express socket for upgrades eg the Physix processor later down the line.


Also about the monitors unfortunately I'm UK bound so the best deals on those monitors are £860 for two or about $1550 or so

 

[Xentri]

I think you could probably get 2 2005fpw's for monitors. Also a word of warning for EQ2 and X2's your going to need to specify the processor affinity through task manager otherwise you'll have some serious problems with the game.

 

[mwmorph]

how would this work?
DFI ultra/sli(2 pcie x16 slots)
2x 6800gt(not sli)
1x monitor on each gpu
1ps2 kb
1ps2 mouse
1usb kb
1usb mouse

 

[uberowo]

Dont quote me on this but I dont think nvidias SLI solution supports dual monitors..

Also, to get EQ2 running properly on an X2 you have to manually set cpu affinity or it'll cause the game to crash. You might be able to set cpu0 to client 1 and cpu1 to client 2 though, never tried it..

 

[Varun]

I tried something similar to this, and I have to make a note here. If I ran a windowed version of a game on the second monitor, my system would die. I don't think there is any 3d acceleration on the second monitor. It's likely a driver thing, and I don't know if has been corrected yet. This was a while back, using maybe the 5x series of Nvidia drivers.

I like the one widescreen idea and two windowed games, just because I don't think two monitors works.

If someone else has tried running 3d apps on a secondary monitor and had better luck, please let me know.

 

[So]

I still don't see why you don't just build TWO computers....

 

[MangoTBG]

Originally posted by: So
I still don't see why you don't just build TWO computers....

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Varun
I tried something similar to this, and I have to make a note here. If I ran a windowed version of a game on the second monitor, my system would die. I don't think there is any 3d acceleration on the second monitor. It's likely a driver thing, and I don't know if has been corrected yet. This was a while back, using maybe the 5x series of Nvidia drivers.

I like the one widescreen idea and two windowed games, just because I don't think two monitors works.

If someone else has tried running 3d apps on a secondary monitor and had better luck, please let me know.

Your best bets would be:

1) Get two video cards (NOT IN SLI MODE), as described above, and have one drive each monitor. Run one game on each card.

2) Set the desktop to 'span' mode (so it's like you have one big monitor of, say, 3200x1200 resolution). You should then be able to place 3D-accelerated windows on either 'half' of the desktop.

I still don't see why you don't just build TWO computers....

Frankly, that's probably easier, especially for a very demanding game like EQ2 (you'd need an excellent video card, very fast CPU -- preferably dual-core -- and at LEAST 2GB of RAM to do this in one box). It can be done, though, and sometimes that's half the point.

 

[Dulanic]

Ya stick with the 6800GTs, at 1280x1024 they will have no problems. I run at 1600x1200 and it can be a bit rough on the higher settings, but it handels it well enough.

 

[ElFenix]

if it helps any, i've run two daoc instances at one time on an athlon xp 2.1 ghz with a radeon 9800 pro quite often. the second instance usually is slow, but i think that is only because i'm using a single processor and not a dual core or ht setup, not the gfx card. i imagine it would work quite well with a dual core processor.

when trying to run the second instance on a second monitor it didn't run any better, but i don't think it ran much worse either. i went as far as installing a second video card to see if that would help, but daoc continued to render on the 9800 pro (even when on the second monitor) because you can't set which driver to use (afaik).