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finally got Diablo working nicely with 4 boxes.

Moderator: MiRai

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frankanderson

Posts: 15

Joined: Tue Oct 30, 2012 5:33 am

Post Sat Feb 23, 2013 8:44 am

finally got Diablo working nicely with 4 boxes.

Just wanted to share this with you guys and Thanks ISBoxer for making this program, Boxing 4 Monks and have been doing to for the past few days, did runs on:

Act 2 Vault of the Assasin > Oasis (no problems other then very laggy when entering the side quest tomb in Oasis)
Act 3 Keep > Stone fort > core of Arreat > Tower of the Cursed work all the way up to Arreat Crater 1 > Rakkis Crossing > Bridge (no problems other then occasional lag spike on the bridge)

I think the lag spikes in those areas are game related, since I have seen them even before multiboxing.

My System Specs: (upgraded) - I upgraded my CPU and Ram for boxing.
i7 3770K
16GB Corsair Dominator Platinum 1866
GTX580 x3 (SLI Surround Mode) << not needed for Diablo, I use it to play Skyrim in surround :D
Gigabyte P67 UD7 MoBo
OCZ Vertex 3 256GB (OS drive and Diablo Install drive)

My System Spec (Old)
Same as above except I had a 2500K and 8GB Dominator GT 2133

The reason for upgrade: My system when using the 2500K and 8GB Ram, CPU only has 4 Cores.. Diablo likes to have a good amount of CPU power, and eats 1.1GB of ram per box, this was causing my system to bottleneck at the CPU, on top of my apps running in the background, my ram peaked at above 95% usage.

I was able to quad box using 4 small screens, but once I make 1 big screen, 3 small off screen, the CPU choked and my FPS on all the boxes dropped to 7 FPS.

The 580's tri SLI is not needed for diablo boxing, I was able to run the same configuration on my missus rig during test phase, her rig is: (i7 3770K, 8GB Corsair Dominator Platinum 1333, 256GB M4 SSD for OS and diablo install, single GTX670 also running surround).

The ISBoxer Settings:
I split 2 boxes per 2 cores, each 2 box has 2 physical cores and 2 HT to use. basically slot 1 and 2 use cores 1-4, slot 3 and 4 use cores 5-8.
Windows Layout I used instant window swapping, 3 screens (Slot 2-4) running at 960,540 on the right monitor just stacked in a "L" pattern, main screen AKA roaming slot (Slot 1) in center running 1920, 1080.

Diablo Settings:
Main Roaming Window: everything cranked to max :mrgreen:
Other 3 Side windows: everything set to lowest possible setting, ie; turn off shadows, phyx, use low textures, disable AA and use Low FX.
Disable sounds on screen 2-4 entirely

Tricks for multiboxing:

Not going to get into too much, please read the wiki.

I'll just add: Use the move key, it comes default not binded, I bind "K" for window 2, "H" for window 3, "N" for window 4.. on occasion one of your character runs off, be it from fear or knock back, or just snagged a rock and run becomes unsync, use the move key and point them back to your main character.
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frankanderson

Posts: 15

Joined: Tue Oct 30, 2012 5:33 am

Post Sat Mar 02, 2013 7:05 am

Re: finally got Diablo working nicely with 4 boxes.

Update with some new information, how to best run 4 monks effectively.

Tactics:
Shift is your friend, use it..
I use a Logitech G13, program all my keys from ISBoxer and Diablo onto it, less fiddling on the keyboard, more time killing stuff.

Acts Farmed:
MP1 Act 3 route (Act 3 Keep > Stone fort > core of Arreat > Tower of the Cursed work all the way up to Arreat Crater 1 > Rakkis Crossing > Field of Slaughter > Outpost or Barracks )

I have ran the above route from Paragon LV1 to Paragon LV32, working great so far.

The skills used: Wave of Light (Empowered Wave) + Cyclone (implosion) multi build
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#eaXSQg!ZXc!bcbcZY
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#eaXSig!ZXc!bcbcZY
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#faXSkg!ZXc!ZcbcaY
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#eaXShg!ZcU!bcbcaY

All 4 of my characters are dual weld:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Ren-3114/hero/24223969
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/WatchMyFeet-3112/hero/20736332
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/MyLeftFoot-3506/hero/31396860
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/MyRightFoot-3791/hero/31468636


To change to Tempest Rush monk, change out some components (innas helm for Spirit Regen Inna's, ring for SOJ, amulet for Xeph), Skorn for low attack speed, switch out Fleet Footed for Exalted Soul.
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frankanderson

Posts: 15

Joined: Tue Oct 30, 2012 5:33 am

Post Sun Mar 03, 2013 7:41 pm

Re: finally got Diablo working nicely with 4 boxes.

Important find for ISBoxers and Realtek Network onboard interface users:

OS: Windows 7 SP1

Driver Version: 7.38.113.2011 / Date - 01/13/2011 (according to driver tab in device properties)

Realtek is known to have issues with HTPC, and it's a budget NIC, so unfortunately, a large % of users has this on their motherboard, if you have a KillerNIC or a Intel, this don't apply to you.

I found a problem with random disconnect when quad boxing, I can go through a whole run with only 1 or 2 disconnect, or 10 disconnect, it took me a while to narrow down the problem but I finally did. The error msg that I see most of the time is "client not in sync with server" or something like that, the other is "you were disconnected from game", "you were removed from team", Diablo has a lot of disconnect msgs, I pretty much seen em all in the past week..

Anyways, the simple fix was this. I stumbled upon this when "googling" realtek drivers on HTPC and it appears they have a few settings in there that aren't very friendly.

Green Ethernet: Enabled by default (disable this)

Energy Efficient Ethernet: Enabled by default (disable this)

Disconnects are more rare now, only tested this the past 24 hours so will update with any new finds.

Update: I recently discovered that there was a funny bug in my switch< I have a Netgear JGS516 16 Port Gigabit switch and it has not been rebooted in a year. The problem I was having quad boxing was random disconnects, it can happen once a run, or multiple times, it took me a while to narrow down the problems since I have a pretty complicated network compared to those of most home users. A simple reboot resolved the issue.

Note: Diablo 3 sends roughly anywhere from 30-60 packets a second per box, make sure your internet equipment is up to this task, sometimes a simple reboot resolves a lot of headaches.. Cheers
Last edited by frankanderson on Fri Mar 15, 2013 7:37 am, edited 2 times in total.
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PIrKo

Posts: 19

Joined: Tue Jan 29, 2013 12:34 pm

Post Fri Mar 15, 2013 6:57 am

Re: finally got Diablo working nicely with 4 boxes.

Hi, I play with 4 witch doctors, my pc config:

phenom x4 955
12gb
ssd
ati 5850

Low setting 30-60 fps.-

how many fps do u have?

bye
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frankanderson

Posts: 15

Joined: Tue Oct 30, 2012 5:33 am

Post Fri Mar 15, 2013 7:33 am

Re: finally got Diablo working nicely with 4 boxes.

PIrKo wrote:Hi, I play with 4 witch doctors, my pc config:

phenom x4 955
12gb
ssd
ati 5850

Low setting 30-60 fps.-

how many fps do u have?

bye


hi, I get 60 FPS on the main screen (with exception of Rakkis Crossing, that area is a bit buggy), the rest are 30FPS on the slave screens.

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