Needed Hardware for Software Boxing

[Aaeryl]

Howdy!

To make it short:
Intel E6600 Dualcore with 4 GB RAM, 800 GB Raid-0 Array and 2x Geforce 8800 GTS will be enough to run WoW for 5 times?
(Should be used on a 3 Display system - left/right display should show wow in low res and windowed (1024x768), middle should be fullscreen and highres)

If not: What upgrades are necessary?

Regards

[Wilbur]

Maybe upgrade the system to a Quad Core Processor instead. Everything else looks like it should cope pretty well :-D

[tequilale]

Works well, you dont need any upgrade!

[zanthor]

Should be plenty adequate for silky smooth boxing.

Potential tears in the silk:

Windows XP - if you don't setup your video for horizontal span mode it won't work for crap on the 2nd/3rd monitors. I don't know how horizontal span works with 2 video cards, someone else may be able to speak to that.

Windows Vista - Horizontal span doesn't exist here, HOWEVER Vista handles video a LOT better on dual head systems than XP ever has, so you shouldn't have any problems there.

I'd suggest KeyClone and it's Maximizer functionality for splitting up the alt boxes. Running them at 1024x768 is fine, but then you are switching back and forth and you loose the seamlessness. I've been running two on my laptop at 800x1024ish and it's a LOT easier to interact with them now! Collection Quests aren't the pain they used to be (still a bitch to kill 3x the number of mobs to get the drops, btu thats just xp on the way) and doing things like interacting with npc's, trades, etc are tons easier.

[Gurblash]

My laptop ran 5 wows last night no problem. With all 5 up at the same time via Keycloner's Maximizer *thank god btw!!!*

Main focus was pushing 25-35fps with all gfx turned down.

System specs:
Inspiron 1520, Intel Core 2 Duo T5250, 1.5GHz, 667Mhz 2M L2 Cache
2GB, DDR2, 667MHz 2 Dimm
256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT

[Aaeryl]

Thanks for your answers!

I tried to Run WoW 5 times on this system:
Main Display -> 1x 1600x1200 (windowed) with lowest detail/resolution settings
Left/Right Display > each 2x 800x600 (windowed) with lowest detail/resolution settings

Screenshot:


Result: If i minimize the Clients on the left/right Display it works (with ~30/40 fps on the main). If i open all 5 instances, the framerate is below 10 fps (unplayable). If i enter a City it`s even more horrible!

Fact: With my current setup 5 boxing is impossible
Any ideas whats wrong (told me it should work!)

Additional information:
Windows Vista x32 used (need to upgrade to x64 to use all advantages and even the whole RAM, currently only 3 GB are supported).
While i run (5 times) WoW, the Windows Task-Manager shows me a 100% CPU- and ~40% RAM usage).

Thank you!

[Ping]

did you manually assign WoWs to your cores? (even though they should do that automatically, but they also said that for quad-cores)

maybe you should get a quad-core and/or minimize the windows a little bit

[keyclone]

i ran 5 on a much smaller system... but then again, i wasn't running vista and all my windows were 800x600.

are you running all those displays off a single machine? 3? out of curiosity, can you move windows between the monitors (ie: is it spanning)

one thing that is definitely hurting your cpu and fps would be the massive 1600x1200 main window (5.7MB/frame). try dropping the main to something like 1280x1024 (3.9MB/frame) or lower. less pixels == less work for the cpu to render/push.. the difference would be about 1.8MB per frame... not insignificant. i would guess you would see a jump from 10fps (5.7MBpf * 10) to about 15fps (3.9MBpf * 15)

how about dropping one of the monitors and running your support clones in a 2x2 maximizer grid? that would cut down on data across the bus. that could improve your data path even more... data bus pushing only so much... divide by 3... instead, drop a monitor and the same path should be able to push more to each monitor... max through put divide by 2.

(these are all just back-of-the-pizzabox figures)*

i had also read something about multi monitors being slow on the non-main monitor. could this be effecting your rig?

btw, i have a new version that allows you to specify cpu affinity for the individual commands... but i don't have a dual/quad core with me... any guinea pigs willing to beta? if so, please send me a PM

* edit: i realized that i was assuming 24 bit color... many systems use 32 bit color. adjust accordingly to determine throughput

[Aaeryl]

did you manually assign WoWs to your cores?

No. How is this possible? (remember: i use actually just a Dualcore).

are you running all those displays off a single machine? 3? out of curiosity, can you move windows between the monitors (ie: is it spanning)

Yes, as writen above, it`s a single machine. Due to the reason that i use Vista and Geforce 8 (DirectX 10) a Span-Mode is not anymore available (but even useless). Vista works directly like in Span, so yes, i can move all windows between the monitors.

try dropping the main to something like 1280x1024 (3.9MB/frame) or lower

I did, but works only 'smart' if all other windows are minimized.

how about dropping one of the monitors and running your support clones in a 2x2 maximizer grid?

Not 'the perfect' solution.. but would be an idea (if i could get maximizer work!).

i had also read something about multi monitors being slow on the non-main monitor. could this be effecting your rig?

Really? I try this! Question would be: What is the 'main' monitor? The first (physical) PCIe Card?

any guinea pigs willing to beta? if so, please send me a PM

Fore sure! PM sent !

i realized that i was assuming 24 bit color... many systems use 32 bit color. adjust accordingly to determine throughput

Tried it in all versions, even with 16 Bits and disabled Multisampling (no result).

So you think a Quadcore will solve my problem? It`s not affected by the grafik-card?

edit: Just checked it: Only one WoW instance takes 70% ! of CPU load (thats not normal, or?)

[keyclone]

70% load... but which wow was it? what res? was it alone on the cpu?

other question... do you run anti-virus / firewall software? could be eating cycles. considering disabling ONLY IF YOU HAVE A HARDWARE FIREWALL (couldn't stress that enough )

how many processes total are running on the box? (check task manager status bar)

try running a single wow, 800x600, and check the cpu load and fps. then move it to the other monitors... check to see if the cpu load or fps change.