Advanced Mann-Conomy: How to idle with multiple accounts - Games

Hey, now that Steam and TF2 is natively on Linux, could I do this on my VPS?

[QUOTE=Matt-;39264556]Hey, now that Steam and TF2 is natively on Linux, could I do this on my VPS?[/QUOTE] is sandboxxie supported?

How are you guys getting virtualbox to work? I've tried running it on my machine, i just get errors in textmode constantly and everything crashes if i try to run 10 or more accounts(>9 crash or refuse to launch) Guest additions, 3D acceleration on, everything properly configured as far as i know on W7 64bit proffesional on guest

I'm running virtual box with win8 x64 guest. I can only run 1server +9-11 clients max then my VM crashes. Even with 16gb mem / 256mb video. The boot drive is running off ssd and data of a normal drive. I still get some errors in text mode... but at least it works. I'm going to scale down my VM as I'm not even using 50% of the memory and make 1-2 more. For 10 accounts it's almost not even worth it. I could NOT get this working in Win7 x64 or WinXP x64 trying everything I knew about or could find. ===================== Something is funky about this whole situation. With the power I have in my machine... I shouldn't have to run VM's just to be able to run more clients. My only weakpoint is my video card which is a GTX650 1gb mem. I plan on upgrading my vcard in the near future... maybe that will help I have no idea. I can't find any helpful information other than what I've seen on this thread. Maybe there is a reason for that... like people don't want to give away helpful info... or people with 100+ idles keep it on the down-low lol ======================= I will report back with any findings I may come across. My Win8 Vbox VM is an absolute resource hog when it comes to cpu. I will be testing VMare tonight/tomorrow. I know this isn't a solution for everyone because it's not free (legally) but from what I've read it has much better graphic related drivers/support.

[QUOTE=AlfieGroove;39267121]is sandboxxie supported?[/QUOTE] it doesn't need to be I can just run multiple instances of Steam without it whining.

I'm having WAY better luck with WMware. I haven't run a test to see how many idles I can run yet but 10 is no sweat... and this is with Win7x64 guest OS. I'll probably work towards using linux as it's even more less overhead but for now this is working way better than VBox.

So I can run about 20 idlers at a time but steam is really using up my cpu, is this the case for everyone or is it possible to get steam to use less cpu power? [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/5IjKJxp.png[/IMG]

The only optimization I know for Steam is to run it with -no-dwrite

I have a problem. If I start one of the .bat's it errors every time, saying -login could not be found... help? @edit: Fixed by adding a TITLE attrib to the starting batch

[QUOTE=Dummer;39289722]So I can run about 20 idlers at a time but steam is really using up my cpu, is this the case for everyone or is it possible to get steam to use less cpu power?[/QUOTE] Steam doesn't use that much for me. You starting it with /low though? It won't change how much you're using, but it shouldn't effect anything else - and will make your computer feel less laggy, since it makes it use low CPU priority. Example for a .bat launcher: [i]start /low E:\blah\Steam.exe .......[/i]

[QUOTE=HarryHy;39293409]Steam doesn't use that much for me. You starting it with /low though? It won't change how much you're using, but it shouldn't effect anything else - and will make your computer feel less laggy, since it makes it use low CPU priority. Example for a .bat launcher: [i]start /low E:\blah\Steam.exe .......[/i][/QUOTE] Yeah they are on low priority, it's really wierd that steam is using so much cpu power when it's just running in the background. And it's only happening when i run alot of sandboxed steam accounts, not my normal unsandboxed account.

Hello there I'm kind of new to idling though one error is freaking me out. I reinstalled windows to get rid of it but nothing is helping. I''m using Windows 8 x64 (and i have enough RAM and swap if you care). Here is how this error looks: [IMG]http://besides.us/screens/2013-01-23_21-19-52.png[/IMG] It usually appears when launching TF2. Any ideas?

You can disable the ingame overlay...I always do on all my idle accounts. Not sure of a file change that can do it... Steam -> Settings -> In-game --- uncheck the ingame overlay. Note that you shouldn't do this until after you have purchased whatever you want from the store to make it premium because apparently you can't with it disabled.

[QUOTE=Jaerin;39330539] Note that you shouldn't do this until after you have purchased whatever you want from the store to make it premium because apparently you can't with it disabled.[/QUOTE] You cant enter the store without the overlay either..

So has anyone tried using an SDFS filesytem ([url]http://www.opendedup.org/[/url]) to allow you to have complete individual copies of Steam and TF2 for each idle account without consuming vast amounts of disk? I've been trying to get it working, but the Windows implementation is a bit flaky. I'll let you know if I get it worked out, but this should be able to allow you to not use the mklink's at all. Not sure if it would eliminate the canvas errors and such when you try to run more than 32.

VMware works great! I tried everything with virtualbox... no go! With Vmware Win7x64 guest. I HAVE to run -dxlevel 71 in my launch options. After I did that all my little problems went away :) Right now I'm running 21 accounts on the VM (16gb mem dedicated to it). I'm averaging about 15-20% cpu usage and 60% mem. Once the drops reset tonight I'll see how many I can run without problems.

so the symbolic link would link the team fortress 2 folder insides steamapps/username to to all the other steamapps/username?

[QUOTE=The Baconator;39336244]so the symbolic link would link the team fortress 2 folder insides steamapps/username to to all the other steamapps/username?[/QUOTE] The point is to make one universal Steamapps folder for idling, so you don't have 9+ GB of .gcf files per account. Makes it so you should have one Steam folder per account, just all sharing the same symlinked Steamapps folder. Saves space and time when updates come out. The username folders should NOT be linked directly though, since those are only a couple gigs each anyways. (I think this is what you're asking?)

.gcf files are really made for other accounts? Are you sure? Like I am confused, where do I put the other Steam folders? cause right now my steamapps folders has multiple accounts

[QUOTE=The Baconator;39337081].gcf files are really made for other accounts? Are you sure? Like I am confused, where do I put the other Steam folders? cause right now my steamapps folders has multiple accounts[/QUOTE] When you launch a game, Steam extracts the game files out of the .gcf files into account-specific folders. Those account name folders download nothing from Steam, and don't contain the entire game. Most of the game content is still read from the gcf files. Basically, the "team fortress 2 content.gcf" and those other files are the actual game. The account name folders are just a "cache", and a place to put config files into. Let's say for 3 accounts: C:\Idle\Steam1\ C:\Idle\Steam2\ C:\Idle\Steam3\ Steam1 has a Steamapps folder and TF2 gcfs inside of it. Steam2 and Steam3 should link to Steam1's Steamapps folder, so it can access their gcfs as if it were their own, saving like 12 GB diskspace per account. (.ncf files are the newer version of the content system, .gcf is the older system that TF2 uses. NCF files have all the game's content in the "commons" folder, giving one common folder for all Steam accounts, and the ncf file itself having very little data in it. GCF is explained above.) Hopefully you understand it now and I didn't confuse you more...

yeah I think I get it, just odd how inefficient is it lol, I guess that is why it got replaced [editline]23rd January 2013[/editline] too bad Valve will probably never update TF2 to the new content system cause mods

btw is there any way to send commands into any of valve games that is running in textmode?

[QUOTE=The Baconator;39338402]yeah I think I get it, just odd how inefficient is it lol, I guess that is why it got replaced [editline]23rd January 2013[/editline] too bad Valve will probably never update TF2 to the new content system cause mods[/QUOTE] well valve did not design their file structure with multiple accounts in mind...

Hey, has anyone else got this before? I launch my first (Non-sandbox) copy of Steam, launch TF2 in Textmode with more parameters, then I get spammed with this: ERROR Memory corruption: CDmxElement : :UnpackIntoStructure memcpy buffer overrun! Anyone know what that is?

[QUOTE=Timmy_MC;39353369]Hey, has anyone else got this before? I launch my first (Non-sandbox) copy of Steam, launch TF2 in Textmode with more parameters, then I get spammed with this: ERROR Memory corruption: CDmxElement : :UnpackIntoStructure memcpy buffer overrun! Anyone know what that is?[/QUOTE] Yeah, I got this too while idling last night. I still got my items with no problems. No ideas though, sorry.

[QUOTE=AlfieGroove;39354052]Yeah, I got this too while idling last night. I still got my items with no problems. No ideas though, sorry.[/QUOTE] They've been throwing those errors normally since last weeks update I think. Freaked me out the first time I saw it too.

[QUOTE=AlfieGroove;39354052]Yeah, I got this too while idling last night. I still got my items with no problems. No ideas though, sorry.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Jaerin;39354167]They've been throwing those errors normally since last weeks update I think. Freaked me out the first time I saw it too.[/QUOTE] Thanks for the info, it wasn't messing my idling up, I just thought my computer was going crazy.

Now if there was an easy way to get the items off the idle accounts lol

What current normal amount of items for 2 weeks? I get 15-16 items per account for 14 hours of idling. Its normal? I remember I had 18-20 items before.

[QUOTE=chillko;39366495]What current normal amount of items for 2 weeks? I get 15-16 items per account for 14 hours of idling. Its normal? I remember I had 18-20 items before.[/QUOTE] 18-20 seems like a lot! Even 15-16 is. I get around 8-13 each account. It sounds like when you got 18-20 you had some left over hours from the previous week you didn't idle.