One machine, two EQ2's

[lordebon]

Originally Posted by gm9

That is not true, XP - just as any 32-bit operating system - handles up to 4GB of RAM and since EQ2 is a 32-bit app there is no reason to run it on a 64-bit OS.

It's actually halfway between you two.

32bit XP can "recognize" a full 4GB (as a 32-bit register is exactly 4GB big), but it 'reserves' about 1GB when you have 4GB, thus you get an effective 3GB (it's not exactly 3GB, but thereabouts). I know, I'm running 4GBs of RAM in 32-bit WinXP and it only recognizes less than 4GB.

I definately recommend upping your RAM. 2GB is great for 1 copy of EQ2, but 1GB is kinda 'minimum' for good running for each copy, so having 3GB (or 4GB - XP's 'reserve') would boost you to at least 1.5GB for each copy.

Oh, and EQ2 _is_ multithreaded, so a dual core processor does 'help' a bit. The problem is that most of the 'ummph' is in a single thread, so theres not a lot of offload to the second core. I'd set one copy of CPU1 and one to CPU2 and see if it helps -- you never know, and it can't really hurt... but if you can keep the 2 big threads on different processors it should help.

But I am guessing that the RAM is probably what's holding you back. You have a nice system otherwise (it's very close to mine. And yes, my X-Fi was laming out for a while too, I moved it from one PCI slot to another and that 'fixed' the problem. The IRQs weren't the same, the X-Fi had its own, but hey it worked so I'm happy).

But yeah... RAM is "cheap". That GX2 had to set you back a good bit (I know mine set me back a lot!) so whats another little bit for some more tasty RAM?