Old system - Minimum upgrades to improve FPS while 5 boxing

[Mancolt]

Hi all,

So I noticed a drop in my fps yesterday, oddly it seemed to occur after I cut out a number of (seemingly) non-essential apps that were running at startup through msconfig. Those that could be stopped through their own settings were, but I used msconfig to stop the rest of them from starting automatically.

My fps were never great to begin with, being on an older system. In the near future, I'm hoping to build a complete new gaming rig, with some high end parts (liquid cooled, i7 4790k, gtx 970, 32GB DDR3, SSD for OS, SSD for primary games, and large HDD for other less-used stuff). That however is most likely a few months off.

In the meantime, I really want to multibox 5 accounts with reasonably good fps on the primary account (don't care about the settings/fps for the other 4 accounts)...probably around 30-45fps should be good enough. I haven't used ISBoxer yet, I want to save my 7 day trial until my system is set up to give it a fair test. I don't want to be playing around with it at 15fps, or I think it will (unfairly) skew my opinion of multiboxing.

My current rig has some cooling issues, so I just run it with one of the side-panels off, which fixes the issue. It's loud, but that doesn't bother me. If I don't, under load, it will BSOD. I think this has to do with the location of the PC and the room, but I don't have much flexibility on those aspects living in a 1 bedroom apartment.

Current setup:

AMD Phenom II X4 965BE

G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)

Gigabyte GA-970A-D3

Kingston SSDNow V+200 90GB

Old 250GB HDD

XFX Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit

Corsair Enthusiast TX650M

I'm thinking about the following modifications to improve FPS and make 5 boxing manageable:

• Additional 2 x 4GB RAM (do these additional sticks need to be identical? any benefits to identical sticks?)
• Newer (possibly used to save $) GPU, considering AMD Radeon R7 260X or nVidia GTX 750 Ti, or just maybe the GTX 970 and then I take it to my new system if/when I get it)
• 256GB SSD (put OS on my 90GB, and install WoW on the 256GB)
• Complete reinstall of current Windows 7 (or Windows 8.1 if I can get it for free through school) because I wouldn't be surprised if some of the issues are caused by junk that I don't even use anymore.

How would you guys prioritize these upgrades, in terms of $ spent towards improving FPS? Are any unnecessary (will contribute minimally to FPS improvement)? Are there any other components or changes that I should consider that would improve my performance?

[Mancolt]

Could really use some help on this one, so the TL;DR

Current setup:

AMD Phenom II X4 965BE

G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)

Gigabyte GA-970A-D3

Kingston SSDNow V+200 90GB only has OS on it

Old 250GB HDD

XFX Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit

Corsair Enthusiast TX650M

What should be upgraded to improve FPS or make multiboxing 5 accounts reasonable? Thinking 8GB additional RAM, AMD Radeon R7 260X, SSD for WoW, clean Windows install.

[MiRai]

There's no need to bump your thread since people might just not have an answer. You have a lot of older hardware, and unless someone still plays on, or has kept very similar hardware around, then the answer is going to be very generic. Are you monitoring your hardware? Do you have any idea which component is the largest bottleneck at this time?

1GB on the video card is probably killing you, but the moment you upgrade that your CPU is most likely going to bottleneck, so from here, it looks like a losing battle unless you drop your resolution down to something small, yet tolerable. A 750Ti, or equivalent, is probably going to be a waste of money if you ever want to turn up any settings, but again, I'm not really sure—I don't normally recommend anything below the x60 version of nVidia's current-generation lineup, but the 960 doesn't really seem all that great for the price. You're going to have to go for the 970 in my opinion, but I have no idea if that will "fix" anything.

You don't mention what resolution you're playing at, but dropping that down will likely be the biggest improvement you can make at this current time until you can afford the new system.

[Mancolt]

Thanks, that helps to set the expectation. I don't know which part is the bottleneck currently because I don't know how to check that. I was hoping to get by with a few minor upgrades for awhile, but maybe I'll be better off just turning down the resolution and saving for a completely new build.

Current resolution that I play with is: Windowed (Fullscreen) at 1920x1080. I just changed my settings down to "Good"...somehow they had gotten set to Custom, and some of them were considerably higher than what the "Good" defaults put them at. This seems to be making a 10FPS difference under load, so this might be manageable. I may even turn them down to "Fair" and see how that looks.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Ewww. According to http://www.cpu-world.com/benchmarks/...5W,_BE%29.html you're just not gonna be happy with that CPU, period. Especially considering the upgrades to most of the game engines of late. Further research shows the core tech in that CPU is circa 2003, meaning I can't imagine how you're gonna multibox modern (or even not-so-modern) games, 5-boxed. Your best bet is dropping the resolution down to 1280x1024 or less, turning the DirectX options from DX11 back to DX9 if available, and reducing all the graphics options in the game.

[mbox_bob]

Noting from your original post; if you need to take the side of your case off to stop it from blue screening, then you have some other issues.
The ATX case form factor is designed to have an air flow path pulling air in the front of the case to the expelling of air at the back. If you open the side panel, the circulation around the passively cooled parts then becomes nearly non-existent and you end up relying on convection. Actively cooled parts fare better as they may have access to slightly cooler air, but they usually not as effective at removing of heat due to the lack of air pressure being generated - most cases run at positive or negative air pressure depending on the number of input or output fans.

Basically, open cases generally fare worse for cooling than closed cases, but if you are BSOD with the case closed, then one or more of the following probably applies:
1. you have a need to sort out the mess of cables inside your case, as these block the air flow
2. your fans are not suitable or no longer working effectively (e.g. worn bearings) for the number of heat generating devices
3. you have a dust/debris build up on your heatsinks or components
4. your thermal paste is old and in need of replacement
5. you have a capacitor or two that is at End Of Life so is extremely sensitive to a slight heat increase (this could be on any device, e.g. MB, PSU, GFX)
6. you have a short/grounding issue when you put your case together (I've seen this before).



As for your other queries (I'm going to ignore game settings as the other posts cover that):
A clean reinstall is usually a pretty decent idea as it removes all the applications and resident programs you no longer use, and you get back to basic setup. It also usually means bios and driver updates (if you go get the latest for your hardware before hand). This is also cheap, except for the time.

You should be able to get Windows 7 (I'd leave Win8.1 out of the picture, it's not worth it) and WOW on the 90GB SSD. The clean install would help with that. Make sure you disable hibernation (google it, there are a few steps) too as this will save 8GB of space (the same as your installed RAM). You only need the 1 install of WOW (ISBoxer magic helps here).

Between the two above items you should see some improvement.


8GB should be sufficient to 5 box on moderate settings. As others have pointed out, any issue probably lies with the CPU/GFX. Plus you have said future desired machine will have 32GB so the total 4x4GB you would end up with wont migrate to the new box which will only have 4 slots.

If you were to put some money into it, I'd look at the GTX 970, even though it may be a little overpowered for the rest of the system. As you said it will transfer to the new box so it is not throw away. If your BSOD is because of a bad PSU though this might backfire as the GTX 970 will probably draw more than your existing card (the PSU also might not have the right PCI connectors so check - nothing more annoying that finding you need an 8 pin when you only have a 6).
After that, if you wanted to throw some more money at it (and possibly down the drain), you could look at a new CPU, like an 8350FX, which seems to be compatible with your MB, and a decent jump in performance. Note: this will depend on the BIOS version, which might depend on the board revision.
If you really want more RAM, no they don't need to exactly match the existing RAM, but you would be aiming for similar or better performers than your existing RAM, although no need to pay through the nose for super high level performance as all the RAM will operate at the same settings set by the worst performing set. There is no benefit to identical sticks for your setup. RAM should also be installed in the correct banks (the slots are colour coded), so each pair would be in the same bank. Also worth noting that you would be removing the gaps between the existing RAM (if it is installed correctly), which would mean you need to make sure that the airflow is suitable.


And finally. Using basic stuff like Windows Task Manager will let you see if your CPU is pegging out at 100% or if a core is being loaded up and the load is not sharing. You can also see how much RAM each client is using, and what the total RAM usage is like. A tool like Open Hardware Monitor will show you a bit more in terms of temperatures and processor usage and you can see what your GFX card is doing in terms of GPU processing or Video RAM (graphics memory). Sometimes ATI cards don't show up the GPU value in OHM so you might need to find another tool (Process Explorer comes to mind).

[posatronic]

I have just started 5 boxing(and 2 and 3) 6 weeks ago. (a little knee surgery and 6 weeks of non-weight bearing is good for my gameplay). Anyways I started with AMD 3600 4GB Ram(8 but windows 7-32 bit) and 660Ti video card and was able to run a 5 box on the Fair setting in wow. And had 45 FPS not in org. I have since upgraded everything but I was able to run good enough. Just wanted to to let you know what I was able to run at if it helps. I believe you got the best advice from the other posts. Good luck.

If you do upgrade video card, just got the 970, wow it rocks. I tried (why I don't know) the amd 290x it was 2x as loud and didn't run near as good, no matter what the test show.( not saying 290x is better but its about the same in most tests)

[Mancolt]

Thank you all for that feedback. I definitely do need to rework the mess of cables in there to allow for more airflow. Is there any way to pin down which component is causing a BSOD? It might be worth noting that the PC runs fine all boxed up, until it's been on and running under a high load for several hours. I could usually play WoW or D3 for a few hours before getting a BSOD. And if I'm just browsing the internet or watching a movie, it won't BSOD. It's usually shortly after I hear the graphics card fan spin up really high that the BSOD occurs, which leads me to believe it's the GPU that's causing the issue. Or could it just as likely be another component that's getting hotter due to the increased heat generated by the GPU?

I'm seriously considering a GTX 970 after reading the post above and this article on 2x GTX 970's SLI'd (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/N...970_SLI/1.html). So if I do get a nice promotion and decide to upgrade to a nice new gaming rig, I could just buy another GTX 970 and bring the one I purchase for this rig over and SLI them, and be good for another few years hopefully.

The only upgrade I'm keen to do after further thought and research is a GTX 970 that can be moved into a completely new system, possibly a new SSD (also carried to new system), 2 8GB sticks of DDR3, and a fresh OS install.

I really do appreciate the insights you all have provided. You're all more knowledgeable about PCs in general, so I will definitely incorporate all of the feedback and suggestions.

[mbox_bob]

Based on your description of playing a game for a few hours, and then the graphics card fan goes wild, it then blue screens, I'd guess that the graphics card is overheating too.

ATI cards seem to run hotter than Nvidia in my experience, so airflow really matters, and a 6870 is pushing 5 years old at this point so unless you maintain it, the potential for dust build-up in the heatsink fins and thermal paste degradation is fairly high.

The BSOD message will probably have an IRQ_NOT_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL_TO, or maybe just an error in one of the ATI drivers. The first 1/3 of the BSOD message is usually quite helpful in narrowing down the culprit if you note it down.

Out of your choice of potential money thrashing, I'd recommend a fresh OS install first, then Gfx card, then SSD, and finally RAM if you really want it, although these last two are about even, and a new SSD may also mean another install if you are unlucky (I was).

[Ughmahedhurtz]

ATI cards seem to run hotter than Nvidia in my experience, so airflow really matters, and a 6870 is pushing 5 years old at this point so unless you maintain it, the potential for dust build-up in the heatsink fins and thermal paste degradation is fairly high.

That's what I was going to suggest as well. Get an air compressor or something like that and blow out all the dust from that and the CPU heatsink REALLY GOOD. My mother had a similar problem when she started multiboxing and it turned out the spot where she had the PC caused it to get dusty, and while they regularly vacuumed out the case, they hadn't been blowing out the vanes on the (really large copper heat-pipe) CPU cooler I built it with. As soon as they did that, temps went from 60-65C average and 80C+ under load back down to 48C average and 60-70C under load. GPUs are even worse about this due to the tighter space and less heatsink area, though the squirrel-cage blowers do tend to do a better job of forcing air versus the regular fans.

You'll also want to make sure you align your fans so it "flows" through the components well. For example, you don't want your CPU cooler to exhaust onto the GPU, and preferably you don't want the CPU to exhaust into the PSU either. Best practices say you want each of those to exhaust directly out of the back of the case. Depending on how close the CPU cooler is to the GPU and such, this may or may not be possible.

Here's a rough sketch of how mine is laid out. No component is exhausting onto another one aside from the HDDs, which don't generate much heat and they are not a point-source.
CaseFlow.png