[HOW-TO] Running two clients on one PC

[nillian]

This is a how-to guide on running two Ryzom clients on the same PC. As you can imagine, having a dual-core CPU helps performance quite a lot when doing this, and a good 2gb of RAM is almost essential to decent performance. The only slowdown I ever notice when running two clients at once is longer teleport/loading times, but that's a minor issue really.


EDIT: The following is now out-of-date, and now that I'm finally resubbed I can actually edit it!

See posts further down - you now only need to add a simple switch to a Ryzom shortcut and all should work. Again, keep reading later posts for more detailed instructions.

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These instructions are for running two clients under Windows XP only, I have no idea about Linux so perhaps one of our Linux users (katriell?) can modify this to work on Linux. Ok so here goes....

1. Create a new Windows user (I called mine 'ryzomalt' for simplicity) and make sure to give it a password.
2. Copy your Ryzom install directory to another location and give it a different name (like 'Ryzom Alt'.)
3. Create a new shortcut either on your desktop or your Start Menu or anywhere you please, right-click on it and hit properties, and add this to the 'Target' field :
   C:\WINDOWS\system32\runas.exe /user:ryzomalt /savecred "C:\Games\Ryzom Alt\client_ryzom_rd.exe"
   Naturally, replace my windows system32 path with your own, and replace your new Ryzom install directory too, including the quotes.
4. Open the 'client.cfg' file in your new Ryzom directory, and make the following change:
   DisableDirectInput = 1;
   Then add this line to the end of the file:
   BackgroundDownloader = 0;
5. That's it! You should now be able to click on the new shortcut you made, and Windows should bring up a console asking you for the password to the Windows account you made earlier. Type this password in and your second client should load!

NOTES:
You won't be able to use mouselook on your second client, since DirectInput is disabled. No known workaround for this AFAIK.

If you do have a dual-core CPU, open up your Task Manager and right-click on your primary copy of ryzom_client_rd.exe in the processes window, and set it's Affinity to CPU 1. This should help performance a great deal, and will do even if you're not running a second client, as Windows uses CPU 0 for it's background processes.

Personally, I run both copies in Windowed mode to make switching between the two clients easier, and I have dual-monitors so that works quite well. Mileage may vary for others. I reduced the graphics settings on my second client to almost the lowest as I found it boosted performance a fair bit, and had no real impact on my gameplay since I still have max settings on my primary client.



If there are any fatal flaws in the above How-To please let me know......

Much love,

Nilly *hugs*

[tr808]

One question, why would u want to open 2 clients on the same pc, i dont see the use for it, but i bet u can give me some idea's why i should do it

[philu]

If you had 2 accounts but only one PC then this would be the only way to play as both accounts at the same time.

[blaah]

These instructions are for running two clients under Windows XP only, I have no idea about Linux so perhaps one of our Linux users (katriell?) can modify this to work on Linux. Ok so here goes....

linux is a bit easyer. only thing it needs to be done is modify ryzom launch script on second client and add
export WINEPREFIX=$HOME/.wine_ryzomalt
to second line, so wine will launch second copy from itself (and ryzom cant detect that its already running).
ofcourse running "WINEPREFIX=$HOME/.wine_ryzomalt wineprefixcreate" from xterm to init that directory is needed.

this is where it gets interesting... with windows, you can only run 2 copys i think... in linux... well, how fast is your computer hehe

for forcing second ryzom to second CPU... dont know as i dont have second CPU... is it even needed in linux ?
searching "linux pset" from web should give some pointers.

tip: for faster switching between ryzom's, tell window manager that you want focus follow mouse... that is, you only need to move mouse cursor to second ryzom and it has keyboard transfered to it. in windows, you need tweak ui to enable this (x-mouse function). ofcouse, you need to run ryzom in windowed mode for this.

[murmadog]

One question, why would u want to open 2 clients on the same pc, i dont see the use for it, but i bet u can give me some idea's why i should do it

China farmers/bottes going in ryzom?.. *scared*

[sprite]

China farmers/bottes going in ryzom?.. *scared*

*sighs loudly* Dual boxing does not equal botting!

Clever stuff this nilleh, never knew you could open stuff as a different windows user from a single login... always wondered what the point of this was (since I thought you'd have to switch windows users everytime you wanted to do anything) but now I know My pc isn't beefy enough to manage it though so I'm stuck with 2 machines

[ffxjosh]

These instructions are for running two clients under Windows XP only,

Any1 got this to work on Vista?

[arfindel]

One question, why would u want to open 2 clients on the same pc, i dont see the use for it, but i bet u can give me some idea's why i should do it

Have you ever created a scenario?

[daestny]

Thank you for this wonderful resource. I'd like to point out a couple things for the people of the community.

First: I'd like to state that running 2 clients on a single PC DOES NOT violate the CoC in so far as "dual boxing" is legal. Dual boxing should not be confused with botting (unattended macroing using third party tools) which is against the CoC.

Second: Although running 2 clients on a single PC is allowed- we cannot provide support should anyone have technical issues because this mode of play requires alteration of the cfg file without express directive of a member of the CS staff.

[naratuul]

Just tried it and i can get in with both accounts but after a few seconds i start getting sharing violations and the client crashes. usually my alt client stays connected. will do some thinking and tweak things a little if i come up with anything I'll post here again