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Running 2 instances of DAOC - Beating the dead horse
joejccva71
Member UncommonPosts: 848
This has been brought up before I'm sure in previous posts but it's not only Monday morning but I just got over a bad case of the flu, so yes I'm being lazy. Sorry Kunou :P
My question is this:
I'm going to purchase a 2nd DAOC account and was wondering if I can run 2 instances of DAOC on 1 computer. Just to let you know these are my PC specs:
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Venice processor OC'd to 2.8mhz
2 gigs of dual channel PQI memory running at 2-3-2-5 timings at 1T
Asus A8N-SLI nForce4 chipset motherboard
Gigabyte Geforce 7800GT 256MB video card PCI-Express
80GB Western Digital Raptor HD 10k rpm
6mb down / 768k up cable internet
I don't want to buy a new computer to run the 2nd account on. Do you think with my specs I could run 2 instances of the game? One for each account?
What do you think Kunou? El?
Thanks.
Joe
Comments
Yep, you can do it. Kunou even knows a trick you can do with the files to make one run in the background.... I forget what it was. You MAY need to tweak your graphics settings a bit... not sure.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
Niceeeeeeeee. Kunou could you please enlighten us on what would be the best way to do this? Do I need any kind of program to run 2 instances or just double click the DAOC executable twice and log on each with both different accounts?
Thanks for the response El!
Joe
The game naturally supports running 2 accounts at once. Don't need to double install or anything like you did back in the day before we started allowing it. Just launch the game as you normally would, log in account #1. Launch the game again (using the same icon, etc) and log in account #2. I tend to play them both in Windowed mode while dual-boxing that way I can offset them from each other to quickly click from one to the other... You'll get a popup warning when you launch the 2nd account about dual-logging not being supported, all that means is that if you encounter a problem tech support will have you log out one account before troubleshooting etc.
Doesn't mean that it is illegal or discouraged or anything.
To increase performance you can type "/clientsleep background" or "/clientsleep minimized" I think they are to put the client that isn't the active window to sleep. Basically the window in the background (if you choose the first option) or minimized (with the 2nd option) doesn't transfer graphics etc back and forth while it isn't active, once you click on it and make it active it catches up just fine... Kinda hard to explain, you'll have to play around with it to get what I'm trying (and failing I believe) to explain.
Richard J. Cox
"There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."
Where is the option to run the clients in windowed mode?
On the character select screen under options you can set it to window mode. On my computer when I tried that my frame rates too a big hit when running one of both in window mode. I prefer using them normal because my frame rates do not take a hit.
One thing I have noticed, and it might not be an option to those with the Epic, is that the DR client is a huge resources hog. I have no idea why since it seems just like the Cats client to me. In any case, I can run 2 cats or Cats and DR at the same time with little problem. If I run two DR at the same time then it is very hard to go between the clients (unless in windowed mode) and it will often lock up after a bit or if I need to log out of one.
Not saying you will have that problem, but I know many people who do have issues with dual logging with the DR client.
Looks to me like his system is more than beefy enough to handle dual boxing, even with the DR client. Now out in RvR that might get a little hairy, but for the most part should be quite fine.
Richard J. Cox
"There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
Kunou in order to get 2 accounts I have to buy another epic edition? I'd rather not do that. Can't I just buy an additional cd key from Mythic so I can have a 2nd account?
How can this be done?
Well, if you want all the expansions and everything grabbing another copy of Epic is your best bet. If you don't care about that for the time being you could just download the trial to get a CDkey and create an account...
Richard J. Cox
"There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
Since this 2nd account is only going to be used to make a necro for farming and PL'ing, what I did was this:
1. I used a free trial cd key and created a new account.
2. I purchased the Catacombs expansion for $20 and activated it.
3. I was able to use the same icon on my desktop for Epic Edition and got into the game and created a character.
The only hiccup I've noticed so far was that because I'm starting the game using the Epic Edition icon on my desktop, when I log into my "Catacombs" account...it gives me a notice saying that I need to purchase Darkness Rising, but when I click on Cancel and then Back...it allows me to choose a server and start playing. Working so fine thus far.
Thanks guys.
Joe
Yeah, that'll work fine as long as you don't want access to the DR content. As I posted in the other thread though about the price of Epic, you could have gotten the Epic Box at several places for the same $20 you spent on Catacombs though...
Richard J. Cox
"There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas
Didn't I just say that?
Stop copying me El. 
Richard J. Cox
"There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."
Yea I know it was a bonehead move but still I didnt really feel like going out and getting another Epic box. Besides I wanted to start playing my new necro last night while I was leveling my 48 scout.
Dual instancing baby!!
I noticed something else while I was playing last night is that when I changed my resolution to 800x600 so I kinda see both instances. Whichever instance was running in the background after I typed /clientsleep background, I noticed that everything stopped moving until I clicked on that instance again. So what I did was I typed /clientsleep never on the background instance which made things move again but very slow. I think I need to change my settings to "Best Framerate" on both instances instead of "Best Visual Effects" or whatever its called.
I was kinda hoping that both my main instance and my background instance would be moving perfectly without any skipping or lagging but thats not the case. Maybe 2 gigs of ram isnt enough? LOL. I might just need to tweak a few graphics settings like El suggested however I'm not sure which ones to tweak to make both instances keep updating graphics and movements simultaneously.
Joe
Well ummm... the client in the background wasn't moving cause ummm.... it was sleeping... what exactly did you think /clientsleep was going to do?
Richard J. Cox
"There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."
Hehe I know! Bad week for me. But if I type /clientsleep never, is there any way to make it so the background instance runs a little smoother?
You'll just have to drop some details down it seems. Shadows, water effects, etc.
Richard J. Cox
"There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."
Try reducing the following settings on both:
1) View distance (lower it)
2) Shadows: Turn them OFF
3) Water effects: Turn them down to minimal.
Those will have the least affect on your gameplay.
If you are using Anti-Aliasing on your video card lower it to 2x or turn it off.
2 instances running simo will tax even the best video cards if you don't put one to sleep with /clientsleep. It can be done but you may need to step it all the way down to the TOA client and forego using Cata/DR graphics while dual instancing.
Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
Sig image Pending
Still in: A couple Betas