Dual Boxing.. with one Box. It's totally possible and pretty damn sweet.

Are you Dual Booting or running Multiple Computers to improve Program Performance?
Have you ever opened your productivity (work) software and watched it run sluggishly because your computer is overloaded with useless crap you've installed and forgotten about? Or maybe you've configured a dual boot system to optimize your productivity software, leaving typical internet browsing/gaming separated by a partition. If you're totally crazy, you might even have a pile of computers and monitors, each with their own purpose that you switch between for your tasks.

What if I said you could potentially eliminate all that mess without sacrificing hardly any of the utility, possibly even making your life easier and more productive?

Imagine having two computers, each with their own unique operating system and installed software. One is for productivity (work), and the other for daily tasks like e-mail, internet, and utility. Each is optimized for the tasks you use the most and you typically run them both all day and switch between them as needed. In this scenario you'll probably find that you're only utilizing a minimal amount of each computer's resources a majority of the time. If you're wondering if there's an easier way, there is!

About Virtualization
It's called virtualization, and though it's not for everyone, you might look into it before you add another box. The basic idea is that you have a single main computer (the host), and virtualized additional computers (the guests) that you can startup simply by clicking an icon on your desktop. These virtualized computers operate by dedicating portions of your hosts resources (CPU, RAM, ports, etc) to the guests, and while this does eat up some of your precious resources, handing out a 2-10% load to a single core of a quad core processor and 512MB of RAM is barely a blip on the radar and plenty enough for most daily tasks.

With virtual computing you can dual-box, quad-box, octi-box, or run as many virtual workstations as you have resources to fully satisfy your ADD. Download all the viruses you want because your host PC won't become infected even if a guest does since their resources are entirely seperated. Need 100% of your resources back? Suspend your guests until you're finished. With dual monitors you can run your guests in full screen and drag the mouse and keyboard between them seamlessly, and a few clicks will pass any device (like a memory stick or external hard drive) that's plugged into your host to one of your guests.

My Solution
I'd rather have one really beefy computer that can do it all but can't sacrifice the stabilty and  performance of my most important tasks. Using virtualization (I picked the software VMware Workstation) I've eliminated half of my computer hardware and energy consumption and still have access to all the tools I need. I know a lot of you out there in the Machinima world are pretty crafty and diverse in how you use your computer(s). If your list of programs is as long as mine, it's pretty common to run them from different configurations and sometimes operating systems to get the best performance.

While I'm not providing a guide on how to install and configure your own virtual rigs, this is going to vary depending on your needs and current config. If you're familiar with installing an operating system from scratch it's pretty easy to get started. You can also create an image of any current computer and convert it so that it can then be opened using VMware Viewer or Workstation. Don't forget to backup all your important stuff before you do anything crazy!