PiP swapping speed, and optimization

[Zub]

Hi all,

Basically when i hit my pip keys (F1-F3) it takes about 3-5 seconds to swap, and i'm looking for info on how to improve this.
I've checked the PiP guide, and a few posts and have resized all my windows to have the same ratio already (that did improve the speed nicely when i did it)
I'm using a 24" screen with one large wow on the left (1275x1020) and 2 smaller wows on top of each other on the right (400x320). Ratio 1.25. Total screen resolution is 1680x1050

- i saw the keyclone example file for that resolution:

R,'region1','\\.\DISPLAY1',0,0,1120,1050,(0.0),(11 20x1050),0
R,'region2','\\.\DISPLAY1',1120,0,1680,525,(0.0),( 1120x1050),0
R,'region3','\\.\DISPLAY1',1120,525,1680,1050,(0.0 ),(1120x1050),0
Would that make a difference in sqapping speed? i was using mine to keep the task bar visible mainly (i dislike the autohide), but will give it a try

- should all the wows have exactly the same video options? or all the lowest?
i currently have good settings (effects and weather etc) on the main screen and low on the others.

- should all 3 windows have the same keyclone maxfps and maxfpsbk ?
currently my main window has higher settings

- would adding RAM help?

Thanks for any suggestions
-Zub

[Zub]

forgot a couple things:
- i saw the http://dual-boxing.com/wiki/index.php/Ingame_Graphic_Detail page. should i add this to the focus macros i have on the PiP hotkeys? or would it slow things even more.
- I tried using keyclone 1.8k but was having issues with my mouse (doubling or tripling movement, posted another topic about this some time ago) so i reverted to a previous version of keyclone (possibly quite old). Maybe i'll try with more recent versions, before 1.8k
- my video card is a 6600GT

Thanks!
-Zub

[Zub]

Suggestions, anyone?
Thanks
-Zub

[Zub]

I tried the keyclone regions (1120x1050, and 560x525) but didnt like it as the wows were too distorted.
might have done something wrong but in any case it didnt look too good (minimap was a '0' shape instead of an 'O' for example)
For what i tested the PiP swapping didnt seem much quicker at all. i guess as long as all windows have the same ratio it's ok, no matter what the ratio is.

I also tried putting all the same setting on all 3 windows (instead of a higher detail on the main). that seemed to have helped a bit, then again it could be because i lowered the settings on the main window, not because it made PiP quicker.
not sure i 'm explaining this well lol.

Any other suggestions?
If it's just a question of hardware it's ok, i'm happy to stay with PiP as it is, but just looking if there is some tweaking possible.

Thanks
-Zub

[keyclone]

howdy Zub,

you should definitely have the graphic detail set to medium or low (i have it on low). i have a macro for it to just make sure.

you should also make sure all regions use the same game resolution and the same width:height ratio. this improves performance and the quality of image (correct aspect ratio ftw)

as for what dimensions and whether or not you must auto-hide the bar.. that's up to you. you'll have to do the math and figure out the resolutions for all the regions, the trick being to keep them all the same aspect ratio.

as for maxfpsbk and maxfps.. i'm not sure. it definitely, 100%, helps on the performance of overall game play.. no doubt. but i wonder if the pip swap is slower the lower your maxfpsbk. as if it only gets to do part of the scaling transform per slice... less slices per second means it would take the same number of slices... just longer clock time.

i'm now on a quad core w/ 2x 260s. pip swap is about 0.5-1.0 seconds so far. i have found times when my fps would drop on my main for no apparent reason... but i'm still chalking this up to vista64 flakiness.

keep me posted if you find any other useful tricks.

[Zub]

Thanks Rob,


as for maxfpsbk and maxfps.. i'm not sure. it definitely, 100%, helps on the performance of overall game play.. no doubt. but i wonder if the pip swap is slower the lower your maxfpsbk. as if it only gets to do part of the scaling transform per slice... less slices per second means it would take the same number of slices... just longer clock time.

Not sure abgout this bit. I understand the use of maxfpsbk in overall gameplay, but are you saying, as far as PiP is concerned, that maybe if maxfps and maxfpsbk are close it will be quicker to PiP-swap?
i'll give it a try tonight (at work atm)
- with all 3 wows set on maxfps=20 and maxfpsbk=10 (my normal mode)
- with all 3 wows set on maxfps=20 and maxfpsbk=20 (same fps)
- all 3 wows with various fps. For example wow1 with 20/10, wow2 with 15/7 and wow3 with 25/15.
and see which is quicker, if there is any difference in swapping times.
I'll post the results here.

The more i think of it, the more i believe it's just that my hardware is getting a bit old though

Cheers
-Zub

[keyclone]

ok.. i got some more info on this from a reliable tech type (could i get more vague?!)

anyhow... here's the thought. if you have 2 graphics boards (like i have now...) and you have 1 monitor per board (i was looking to max out gpu performance)... then a pip swap would be moving the surfaces from the memory of one graphics board, across the system bus, and into the other graphics card memory. the slow down here would be the bus speed, system memory, and also the mainboard (grrrr)

one thought i had after discussing this with him was.... what about pip swapping on the same board? would there be a similar memory shuffle between display buffers on the same card?

he also ran a simple test.. his (very high end) system was running his wow @ 2560x1600 (i think) on one screen and was getting 130 fps. if he slide the window so it spanned the two displays, the fps dropped to 90 fps (still good, but that was a ~25% drop).

my thought was, if just 1 vertical column of pixels were to overlap, that would drop the fps by 25% or more.

therefore... try reducing the width and height of your region so its definitely within the display

i hope that helped.

Rob

(if anyone has any other info on the process... please post it or drop me a note)

[Zub]

so in short, (if i understand this correctly) we have to make sure no wow window actually overlap another.

[Eloxy]

Hmm...question of the day.

What is PiP? 8|

[Zub]

Hmm...question of the day.

What is PiP? 8|
Picture in Picture, one of the (many) excellent features in Keyclone.
Allows you to swap your wow windows on a key press.

more info on the Keyclone website: http://solidice.com/keyclone/pip.html

[Eloxy]

Ahh right. clears up some things ty ;)



Eloxy

[keyclone]

so in short, (if i understand this correctly) we have to make sure no wow window actually overlap another. not overlap each other... just don't go over the boundaries of the display itself... bleeding into the next display. thereby either requiring the data to be moved between the internal display buffers.. or from one graphics board to another

[GirMoose]

One thing for you to try:

You said you dont like hiding the taskbar, but I have found (in 32b vista anyways) the windows taskbar to be one of the biggest effects on graphics related lag ever.

If you open a normal wow window for instance, make it windowed mode and not full screen, so you can drag it around and put it whereever you want on screen and check your fps (in my case) I was getting around 100-140fps in a 1440-900 resolution. If I then moved the window so the tiniest amount of the edge of the wow window overlapped under the bubble of the start bubble, the fps would drop to about 25. I tested this on 2 machines.

Therefor, it might be possible, that by making the very bottom edges of your wow windows like 5 or so pixels above the very top edge of the vista start bubble with maximiser would improve either your pip swap speed, or your fps.

I havent actually tested this with maximiser running, as im not at home to try now, so the effect may not happen when the borders of the wow window are removed.

Anyways, hopefully it helps someones performance, and if not, no big loss :D

GiR

[Zub]

Thanks for that GiR.
I've tested it with my Winxp though and on my single maximized wow i get 60fps no matter where it is placed (on top the taskbar, or not)

could be a vista-only thing

[zanthor]

he also ran a simple test.. his (very high end) system was running his wow @ 2560x1600 (i think) on one screen and was getting 130 fps. if he slide the window so it spanned the two displays, the fps dropped to 90 fps (still good, but that was a ~25% drop).

I'm curious, was this on Vista or XP? I have seen this exact behavior on XP if you aren't using span on a single card (No experience with span on dual cards) however I have not seen this on Vista with a single card.

[Oswyn]

anyhow... here's the thought. if you have 2 graphics boards (like i have now...) and you have 1 monitor per board (i was looking to max out gpu performance)... then a pip swap would be moving the surfaces from the memory of one graphics board, across the system bus, and into the other graphics card memory. the slow down here would be the bus speed, system memory, and also the mainboard (grrrr)


Wonder how AMD/ATI platform would do with increased HyperTransport Bus speed (3.0) and integrated memory controller.

[HPAVC]

One thing for you to try:

You said you dont like hiding the taskbar, but I have found (in 32b vista anyways) the windows taskbar to be one of the biggest effects on graphics related lag ever.
Windows (versions / mileage varies) has issues with desktop icons as well, especially excessive amounts. In addition to the crazy send_to and new_templates. If you can disable desktop icons, hide toolbar on start of wowloader or whatnot that would be smart imo.