[Supacasey]

Well Paypal sure fucked me over, made a new unverified account to put some cash in so my normal Paypal account wouldn't charge my card for every transaction (Was the reason for my problem above), and now that isn't working because it thinks that I've hit the $2,000 unverified account limit after spending $10.

Thanks, Paypal!

[gambler]

Supacasey posted:

Well Paypal sure fucked me over, made a new unverified account to put some cash in so my normal Paypal account wouldn't charge my card for every transaction (Was the reason for my problem above), and now that isn't working because it thinks that I've hit the $2,000 unverified account limit after spending $10.

Thanks, Paypal!

It's not that. It seems Steam knows your paypal ID when you purchase something and won't let you purchase on more than 2 accounts with the same ID. Same with credit card numbers.

And you didn't answer my question and that was very impolite. =\

[Fivas]

gambler posted:

It's not that. It seems Steam knows your paypal ID when you purchase something and won't let you purchase on more than 2 accounts with the same ID. Same with credit card numbers.

And you didn't answer my question and that was very impolite. =\

he voted disagree

[gambler]

Oh, my fault. I didn't see that.

[Digivee]

Digivee posted:

When i load up my tf2 in the sandboxie'd version of steam, half the time it "Verifies" my files and says the servers are too busy.
I cant copy my steam folder over so i am stumped.

No one?

[gambler]

Digivee posted:

No one?

Are you using the sandboxie version on a separated installation? Try renaming the clientregistry.blob from the Steam folder and restart it.

[GoldenGnome]

Can I use this to trade with my alt using while running two instances of tf2 using alt-tab? It's a real pain in the ass to fire up my brother's computer every time I want to trade.

Edit: Yes. I can. Fuck year.

[jechtman]

GoldenGnome posted:

Can I use this to trade with my alt using while running two instances of tf2 using alt-tab? It's a real pain in the ass to fire up my brother's computer every time I want to trade.

Yes you can alt-tab your way through trading.

And if you do have issues running alts through the same folder you might have to try booting up the accounts in a different order or copy-paste yourself a new steam directory.

[GoldenGnome]

jechtman posted:

Yes you can alt-tab your way through trading.

And if you do have issues running alts through the same folder you might have to try booting up the accounts in a different order or copy-paste yourself a new steam directory.

Yea, I booted my main first and then the sandbox'd alt and it worked like a charm. This is fucking awesome. I can trade with myself. It's like pokemon, only I don't have to catch rattata to trade back and forth.

[DanRatherman]

Makes me wish I had a job at Best Buy so I could steal all the 100$ recycle computer trade ins, connect em to a bunch of old CRT monitors, and just have a 24/7 bank of idling machines.

[pureparanoid]

I keep getting this.



Help?

Edit:

Eh, I just created 4 sandboxes and ran steam.exe from my normal steam installation folder and launched tf2 in text mode, eventhing seems to be working out alright.

[obiwanek]

aight!

got my 2 accounts on, thanks! :)

[HJ-kos]

made second account, used my virtual visa to buy key and lab coat paint. using alt account painted my tylorean and unboxed strange sticky launcher, traded them back to my main, nothing dropped yet, gotta use that account to store crates, besides idling of course.

[obiwanek]

whats the cheapest thing to buy in store to get premium?

[Doomish]

obiwanek posted:

whats the cheapest thing to buy in store to get premium?

You have to pay a MINIMUM of 5 dollars (the lowest amount you can put in the Steam Wallet), so your best bet is to just buy two keys.

Edited:

Also, I still can't fucking buy premium on two of my accounts. I have so many items sitting in them that I can't trade because of Steam's stupid Paypal ID lock thing. Fuck, does it really have to be that hard? Seriously.

Edited:

At least they have a way to gift premium tf2 planned.

[Doomish]

I've run into a problem that requires me to break my own automerge:

The game ALWAYS tries to download an update when there is one and I have to wait for Steam to finish Validating itself before the game actually launches and I have to do this for every account and it takes forever and it is a pain in the ass and there HAS to be a way around this shit. The thing is, it SHOULD automatically update the game, but it doesn't. Upon trying to launch the game it tells me that it has to validate the files BUT AS ALWAYS it just freezes at 100% and doesn't do anything else.

[Flyingman356]

I made a nice banner image for you

[lnot]

just adding one thing that i found very useful, you can put on the .bat command line "+sv_password xxxx" this add a password and stop random people getting on your idle server

[raBBish]

Slightly alternative method, instead of copying the whole Steam folder and TF2 stuff.

This method involves creating symbolic links instead of copying the steamapps folder. Basically, you can share a single steamapps folder between all your Steam copies, thus saving you HD space and updating TF2 multiple times.

Requirements

-Windows Vista or 7
-Ability to follow instructions

How-to

Step 1. Decide your main steamapps folder. Generally it should be the one with most games.
Step 2. If you want, you can move the steamapps folder somewhere else and rename it (mine is D:\Games\Steam for example)
Step 3. Remove all the other steamapps folders.
Step 4. Open cmd.exe as an administrator
Step 5. Navigate into each Steam folder without steamapps and run the following:

mklink /D steamapps <main steamapps path>

For example:

cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam
mklink /D steamapps "D:\Games\Steam"

Or if you didn't move steamapps:

cd C:\Idle\Steam1
mklink /D steamapps "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps"

Step 6. A shortcut should appear, named steamapps. Double-clicking it should show you the contents of the main steamapps folder.
Step 7. You're done! Now you can run all the idle accounts while only maintaining a single steamapps folder

[Gurkenpirat]

raBBish posted:

Slightly alternative method, instead of copying the whole Steam folder and TF2 stuff.

This method involves creating symbolic links instead of copying the steamapps folder. Basically, you can share a single steamapps folder between all your Steam copies, thus saving you HD space and updating TF2 multiple times.

Requirements

-Windows Vista or 7
-Ability to follow instructions

How-to

Step 1. Decide your main steamapps folder. Generally it should be the one with most games.
Step 2. If you want, you can move the steamapps folder somewhere else and rename it (mine is D:\Games\Steam for example)
Step 3. Remove all the other steamapps folders.
Step 4. Open cmd.exe as an administrator
Step 5. Navigate into each Steam folder without steamapps and run the following:

mklink /D steamapps <main steamapps path>

For example:

cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam
mklink /D steamapps "D:\Games\Steam"

Or if you didn't move steamapps:

cd C:\Idle\Steam1
mklink /D steamapps "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps"

Step 6. A shortcut should appear, named steamapps. Double-clicking it should show you the contents of the main steamapps folder.
Step 7. You're done! Now you can run all the idle accounts while only maintaining a single steamapps folder

Nice one. Added this to the guide and thanks a lot. This saved me about 115GB and all instances of TF2 now load faster. I'm experimenting with other folders than steamapps right now.

[Geist9]

So I tried making the .bat files for speediness in the startup of the farm, but I get this:

cmd.exe - Application Error                                                                                                                                  
The application was unable to start correctly (0xc0000142). Click OK to close the application.

For all accounts that had to be sandbox'd.

Here is what's inside my .bat to start all the tf2's

start C:\Idle\tlb_willc-idle.bat
start C:\"Program Files"\Sandboxie\Start.exe /box:epicidleguy "C:\Idle\epicidleguy-idle.bat"
start C:\"Program Files"\Sandboxie\Start.exe /box:idle4hatz "C:\Idle\idle4hatz-idle.bat"

[jechtman]

Gurkenpirat posted:

Nice one. Added this to the guide and thanks a lot. This saved me about 115GB and all instances of TF2 now load faster. I'm experimenting with other folders than steamapps right now.

Damn man 115GB? I need to show you a previous post I made in this thread.

Edited:

jechtman posted:

So, if I am to understand correctly, these are the essential files needed in the steamapps folder?


Maybe not the tf2 folder?

Just remove the two folders in the image and you are set with -10gb.

[Tim Henson]

Ideally what you should do is make a bunch of free accounts and idle, then when one turns up something good, premium it.

[jechtman]

Tim Henson posted:

Ideally what you should do is make a bunch of free accounts and idle, then when one turns up something good, premium it.

The only way one would turn up something good would be if it had Premium anyway. You just get common stuff with a free account.

Edited:

Okay now, after switching my idle folder location to my C drive and reconfigured my sandbox setup to use the above method, but I now get this error whenever I try to start up (idle account's) steam:



Help?

[Gurkenpirat]

jechtman posted:

The only way one would turn up something good would be if it had Premium anyway. You just get common stuff with a free account.

Edited:

Okay now, after switching my idle folder location to my C drive and reconfigured my sandbox setup to use the above method, but I now get this error whenever I try to start up (idle account's) steam:



Help?

What did you reconfigure? You get this error because you didn't add C to full access.

[drlarry]

I have it all up and running fine, works great. I was wondering if anyone came across a simple solution to funding multiple accounts. I have 8 of them with items I want to dump to my main account, but was only able to get one of them upgraded due to the inability to use my card on more than 2 accounts.

[Gurkenpirat]

drlarry posted:

I have it all up and running fine, works great. I was wondering if anyone came across a simple solution to funding multiple accounts. I have 8 of them with items I want to dump to my main account, but was only able to get one of them upgraded due to the inability to use my card on more than 2 accounts.

Try buying TF2 as a gift for your alts from one account.

[Geist9]

Gurkenpirat posted:

Try buying TF2 as a gift for your alts from one account.

You can't.

[Doomish]

Gurkenpirat posted:

Try buying TF2 as a gift for your alts from one account.

You can't buy TF2 anymore unless you get the Valve Complete Pack or the Orange Box.

[Ruskie]

Gurkenpirat posted:

Try buying TF2 as a gift for your alts from one account.

gifting doesn't work, it gives you the proof of purchase hat but doesn't upgrade your account to premium.

[Gurkenpirat]

I thought someone said Valve added gifting by now.

[Doomish]

Gurkenpirat posted:

I thought someone said Valve added gifting by now.

I posted an email I made to Valve where Robin said they were planning on adding it soon.

[jechtman]

Gurkenpirat posted:

What did you reconfigure? You get this error because you didn't add C to full access.

Yeah I found out the problem, had to add the proper steamapps directory. Working fine now.

[Mr. Magoolachub]

Those batches didn't work for me, kept getting error "The system cannot find the file specified".

After looking around on the steam support website and some other places, I found that this works if anyone else is having this problem:

@ECHO OFF

SET SteamLogin="YOURUSERNAME"
SET SteamPassword="YOURPASSWORD"

start "WHATEVER YOU WANT AT ALL" /low "PATH TO STEAM DIRECTORY" -login %SteamLogin% %SteamPassword% -applaunch 440 -textmode -novid -nosound -noipx -nojoy -nopreload -sw -width 640 -height 480 +map itemtest

SET SteamLogin=""
SET SteamPassword=""

Thanks for the tutorial.

[Geist9]

Geist9 posted:

So I tried making the .bat files for speediness in the startup of the farm, but I get this:

cmd.exe - Application Error                                                                                                                                  
The application was unable to start correctly (0xc0000142). Click OK to close the application.

For all accounts that had to be sandbox'd.

Here is what's inside my .bat to start all the tf2's

start C:\Idle\tlb_willc-idle.bat
start C:\"Program Files"\Sandboxie\Start.exe /box:epicidleguy "C:\Idle\epicidleguy-idle.bat"
start C:\"Program Files"\Sandboxie\Start.exe /box:idle4hatz "C:\Idle\idle4hatz-idle.bat"

Help?

[TheIdler]

Geist9 posted:

Help?

Mate I had the exact same problem.
It seems in our case, cmd.exe is unwilling to open in a sandbox. This is when I realised cmd.exe did not need to be opened in a sandbox in the first place, use this batch instead:

start C:\"Program Files"\Sandboxie\Start.exe /box:BOX1 <STEAMFOLDER1>\Steam.exe -silent -login ACCOUNT1 ACCOUNT1PW
start C:\"Program Files"\Sandboxie\Start.exe /box:BOX2 <STEAMFOLDER2>\Steam.exe -silent -login ACCOUNT2 ACCOUNT2PW
start C:\"Program Files"\Sandboxie\Start.exe /box:BOX3 <STEAMFOLDER3>\Steam.exe -silent -login ACCOUNT3 ACCOUNT3PW

Anyway, thanks a lot to Gurkenpirat, excellent tutorial and really helpful. And thanks to raBBish as well, great tip.

Now even, after working around the above problem, I am now having another problem.
Team Fortress 2 does not launch in textmode. I can see the process in task manager but nothing appears or happens.
If I remove the -textmode parameter, it then works. When I do launch it without textmode, something I noticed is that the TF2 window title is " [#] Team Fortress 2 [#] ". The window title is simply " Team Fortress 2 " when launched normally, so something isn't right. Not sure what the problem is but I think it may be something to do with my Sandbox configuration. Any help would be appreciated. As for now I am idling in non textmode and it does not use that much more resources so I'm reasonable happy.

I also had another idea which I wanted to contribute. Wouldn't it use less resources if you ran 1 dedicated server and x clients instead of x listen servers? I am currently doing this but have not actually tested/checked whether it uses less resources.

[Geist9]

TheIdler posted:

Mate I had the exact same problem.
It seems in our case, cmd.exe is unwilling to open in a sandbox. This is when I realised cmd.exe did not need to be opened in a sandbox in the first place, use this batch instead:

start C:\"Program Files"\Sandboxie\Start.exe /box:BOX1 <STEAMFOLDER1>\Steam.exe -silent -login ACCOUNT1 ACCOUNT1PW
start C:\"Program Files"\Sandboxie\Start.exe /box:BOX2 <STEAMFOLDER2>\Steam.exe -silent -login ACCOUNT2 ACCOUNT2PW
start C:\"Program Files"\Sandboxie\Start.exe /box:BOX3 <STEAMFOLDER3>\Steam.exe -silent -login ACCOUNT3 ACCOUNT3PW

Anyway, thanks a lot to Gurkenpirat, excellent tutorial and really helpful. And thanks to raBBish as well, great tip.

Now even, after working around the above problem, I am now having another problem.
Team Fortress 2 does not launch in textmode. I can see the process in task manager but nothing appears or happens.
If I remove the -textmode parameter, it then works. When I do launch it without textmode, something I noticed is that the TF2 window title is " [#] Team Fortress 2 [#] ". The window title is simply " Team Fortress 2 " when launched normally, so something isn't right. Not sure what the problem is but I think it may be something to do with my Sandbox configuration. Any help would be appreciated. As for now I am idling in non textmode and it does not use that much more resources so I'm reasonable happy.

Thanks, working now. However I'm having the same problem as you. Also I think the [#][#]'s represent that it is indeed sandbox'd and working properly. Anyway the first TF2(non sandbox'd) starts up in textmode fine, then the other two don't do anything and only show up in task manager.

[GreenDolphin]

Running one instance of TF2 in -textmode on my desktop consumes nearly 1GB of memory. Is there any way to limit this? On my laptop it averages around 500MB.

Ruskie posted:

gifting doesn't work, it gives you the proof of purchase hat but doesn't upgrade your account to premium.

It worked for me granted there was a near full day delay for premium to take effect.

[jechtman]

GreenDolphin posted:

Running one instance of TF2 in -textmode on my desktop consumes nearly 1GB of memory. Is there any way to limit this? On my laptop it averages around 500MB.

Try reducing all the graphical settings ingame to lowest and then textmode again? Mine is at 300mb.

It worked for me granted there was a near full day delay for premium to take effect.

[GreenDolphin]

jechtman posted:

Try reducing all the graphical settings ingame to lowest and then textmode again? Mine is at 300mb.

Thanks. I'm exactly at 400MB now.