Can't find the weak spot in my pc

[Sloefke]

Hey,
I just had a upgrade on my pc
- Intel Core Quad 9450 (2.66GHz)
- 4G Ram DDR2
- PQ5 Motherboard
- 4870 Radeon videocard

Running on a windows XP pro, got 2 x 22" screens on horizontal wide span.
1 screen has main toon, other screen has 4 equally devided wow windows for the slaves.

So, when I do dungeons I have no problem what so ever.
But when I try to go in to BG's or shatt I have my RAM going trough the roof. (92-97% -> G15windowperformence)

In AV I'm starting to see horde after 2 minutes orso ingame, I always need to return to pick up one alt who lost his /follow.
When I log in/log out of BG's it sometimes takes minutes, somtimes one of the wows crashes.

So I wonder what I could do?
I just did the /console maxfps 20 and the /console maxfpsbk5 (don't know where the second is for 8| )
*edit; when I use 5 toons, it doesnt helps alot. Still the same probs.
I got my affinity of my cores set as:
wow main O/1/2/3
wow1 0
wow2 1
wow3 2
wow4 3

Tomorrow I normaly get my second pc back. Is that perhaps THE sulotion? Connect them both and run 3 on 1 pc and 2 on the other?

I realy could use some help.
Thx in Advanced :P


*EDIT
I also use 5 different wow folders on one Hard drive.

[mikekim]

how are your copies of wow running?

separate folders, separate drives or Junction linking?

[-silencer-]

Hard drive access time. As long as the rest of the box is up to speed (yours is), an SSD will fix the lag issues in Shatt/BGs. Only put the WoW/Data directory on the SSD, then symlink to it.

[Trivarum]

I have near the same setup and I only lag in Shatt.
Windows 64-bit Vista
8800 GTS 512 Mb vid card
4Gb RAM
quad-core 2.4Ghz proc
I use 1 standard WoW folder, each copy getting maxfpsbk 30 and maxfps 45, cpu affinity NONE.
1 19" monitor 2x2 grid setup for my toons.
Maybe 5 seconds to get out of a bg.

Normal usage is around 30% cpu, 50-60% ram, Shatt is around 70% ram.

[Chaosomega]

- Intel Core Quad 9450 (2.66GHz)


In AV I'm starting to see horde after 2 minutes orso, I always need to return to pick up one alt who lost
In my humble opinion, i believe its that 2.66 up there.

Where theres nothing wrong running at a 2.66 but as you said you dont see them for 2 minutes or so,

Thats processing power. Conjuring up images from max distance and keeping them running (fps) is the processors work.
I believe your cpu affinity's are okay, but the 2.66 just might be pressed to keep that much going at once.

If this is inded the problem you can do two things about it,
1.) buy a new cpu at 3.0 (i think the 8400 wolfdale does this well)
2.) overclock your system to higher ghz's

I have my e6750 clocked at 3.25ghz as we speak, simulteanously running all three wows, max fps in shatt moving around.
Just the suggestion, gl though

[Trick]

My system is nearly identical to yours. I'm running 3 accounts, and I went the extra step of installing 4 separate SATA drives into my machine. Full copies of WoW on 3 drives, and the 4th for writting FRAPS when I choose to film.

I also set the video settings of my two "slave" copies to low on everything that wasn't nailed down. The slaves (running at 1280x512 off the 2nd monitor port of my HD 4870) actually load into zones/BGs/etc a lot faster than my main (running at 1920x1140 on the main port). The missing 60 pixles in my main is so that a double-height Windows Task + Quick Launch bar remains visible.

[Coltimar]

- Intel Core Quad 9450 (2.66GHz)


In AV I'm starting to see horde after 2 minutes orso, I always need to return to pick up one alt who lost
In my humble opinion, i believe its that 2.66 up there.

Where theres nothing wrong running at a 2.66 but as you said you dont see them for 2 minutes or so,

Thats processing power. Conjuring up images from max distance and keeping them running (fps) is the processors work.
I believe your cpu affinity's are okay, but the 2.66 just might be pressed to keep that much going at once.

If this is inded the problem you can do two things about it,
1.) buy a new cpu at 3.0 (i think the 8400 wolfdale does this well)
2.) overclock your system to higher ghz's

I have my e6750 clocked at 3.25ghz as we speak, simulteanously running all three wows, max fps in shatt moving around.
Just the suggestion, gl thoughReally? A 2.66 quad is running 10.64 GHz. That seems to be plenty to me.

[Coltimar]

Honestly, the SSD might help a bit. I've never bothered to figure it out. My opinion is the XP Pro, if it's 32 bit. You lose a Gig of RAM there. Also, check your affinity. My performance improved a great deal when I set my affinities to have WoW only use my bottom 2 cores.

[Sloefke]

Thx for the advice.
Just having a quick read before I get of to work.

Euhm.
I use 5 different WOW folders one one HD.

Does a 64bit OS give's me better stats? I always tought that when the game is 32 bits it doesnt matters what your OS is? :huh:

And then the noob answer. What is a SSD?
I looked it up in wiki :S . A storage device for ram? ?(

Thx Sloefke

[Blubber]

I use 5 different WOW folders one one HD.

If you use junctions or links for your Data and Cache directories, you will get better performance. I don't know how it's done in XP though, in Vista it's done using mklink. Maybe you can use that to search on the forums or google.


Does a 64bit OS give's me better stats? I always tought that when the game is 32 bits it doesnt matters what your OS is? :huh:

Well, yes and no. Your 32bit application will most probably not run better on a 64bit os. However, 32bit windows can only address 4GB or ram + video memory. Assuming you have a 512mb video card, you are currently wasting 512 MB of your RAM. So upgrading to 64bit will help in this case.


And then the noob answer. What is a SSD?
I looked it up in wiki :S . A storage device for ram? ?

Solid State Disk. It's a kind of hard disk that doesn't use any moveing parts. It's like the memory in your digital camera, but with an interface your PC can use.

I'd say your PC is fast enough to run 5 wows. My dual-core AMD 3600+, which is over a year old runs 5 wows, it only lags in cities, and even then it takes just a couple seconds to load everyone up.

Do the symlinking/junction stuff for the Cache and Data directories. That should help, also, do you have the lowest settings on your clones? You can use

/console maxfps 15
on the clones to cap their framerate at 15 fps.

[mikekim]

In my humble opinion, i believe its that 2.66 up there.

Where theres nothing wrong running at a 2.66 but as you said you dont see them for 2 minutes or so,

Thats processing power. Conjuring up images from max distance and keeping them running (fps) is the processors work.
I believe your cpu affinity's are okay, but the 2.66 just might be pressed to keep that much going at once.


not true - i run 4 -5 instances on a q6600 2.4ghz at 60fps with no problems

hard drive access is the main issue imho.



change to junction linking (the data directory) on a different drive from the system amd swap files to see the best performace increase.

(even running junction linked files on the same drive would be far better than running 5 seperate copies of wow from different folders

[Sloefke]

So If I get it correctly.
I should put another HD in my pc where my wow folder is on and just use one folder instead of 5.

My HD is now allready devided into 2 seperate parts.
100gig for windows and stuff
200gig for films, games, ect.
But at the end its one and the same HD.

Can anybody perhaps help me with the junction linking. I googled it, but I don't know much more.

[mikekim]

try this thread Windows XP .bat file to create symbolically linked copy of a wow directory ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=6750')

[bugilt]

I have almost the same setup but I run a 8800gt and a single 22" wide screen. I switched to vista recently and saw a performance boost. It was more than likely the dirty windows registry xp had. I typically reinstall windows when it starts to bog down.

[zanthor]

If you have sound enabled, disable it.

If you MUST have sound enabled, disable it while wow is in the background (this is in the interface options).

Set your clip plane to about 3/4ths the way out, set all details to much lower.

The CPU is fine.
The RAM is fine.
The Video card, should be fine, but i'm not up to speed on ATI's cards (last one I had was a Radeon 9700 pro).

Are you running an anti-virus? Make sure you have excluded the wow folders from realtime scanning.
Are you running other software on your machine? Look down next to the clock, the more of those apps that go away the better.

My Phenom 9600 (2.3ghz quad core) runs 5 just fine while Ventrilo is running and a single copy of Mozilla.

Another issue, delayed display of avatars (other players/npc's) is most commonly a network card issue... I've found the link that tells you what to change in the past but it's eluding me right now.

[Tamu]

Your system is comparable to mine, and I very rarely have any trouble with lag. I usually have all my wow clients running along with Firefox, Vent, and iTunes. I run 5 toons on 1 PC, but I run my 'driver' toon from one wow directory, and the 4 alts from a separate wow directory. (I am not using the symbolic links, though.) So I have a total of 2 different wow directories - for the different video settings. On the driver toon I have all settings maxed and set the maxfps to 50. On the alts I have the maxfpsbk set to 15, and all the video settings turned way down, especially the terrain distance. I have sound turned on for all clients. I have a WD Raptor 10k rpm drive that I run my wow clients from.

[Talos]

Sloefke !!

before you try to use junction links etc...

first try starting each wow game from the same folder !!!
this works kinda the same way as using junctions, as in the wow games can read data from the harddrive cache for faster loading

if this solves your fps problem, than setup junction linking !
(this 1 folder thing works decent, i used it a long time, it just sometimes messes things up as it tries to write to config files x5... 5 seperate folders where the /data folder is linked work better as each game has its own config files to write to, but they share the /data folder for fast harddrive cache loading)

[Sloefke]

ok, OI got now only one wow folder from where I set up all my accounts.
I have enabled all sounds on slaves.
I see that my firewall is on, (COMODO) but I don't have a clue about letting it not scan wow all the time. Don't even know if he does that.
I still am playing at 95% RAM but my slaves almost never lose follow now. I see horde passing by when I pass them in AV.
So I gues its allready a bit better.
But the +- 95% ram is that normal?

The SSD thingy, does that perhaps helps or the 64bit OS

I just wanna get the most out of my pc. 8o

Thx for all the help guys. :thumbup:

[Blubber]

ok, OI got now only one wow folder from where I set up all my accounts.

Your are going to run into configuration problems with this setup. Using the junctions/links is generally a better idea. Also, did you try setting the lowest graphics settings on the clones?


The SSD thingy, does that perhaps helps or the 64bit OS.

Minor improvements probably. If they still lag alot then there must be something else wrong.

[Sloefke]

I allready hav lowest settings on the all accounts.
is It perhaps with my 2 screens? I use ATI catalyst controle center and I got my 2 screens as a wide stretch. (2560 x 1024, high 32-bit, 60Hz)
I tought that was the best way for multiboxing.
My slave's windows are also just made smaller, I don't use maximizer.

Just trying to give as much info as I can for you guys.
Tomorrow I'm gonna go to the guy who set up my pc. Perhaps he can find something.

Is it interesting to put another HD in the pc and put some wow accounts on that one?

Grtz Sloefke

[Talos]

Well as you noticed you get no /follow lag when using 1 folder

so read up on the junction linking topics on this forum and setup something like
/wow1
/wow2
/wow3
/wow4
/wow5

where wow2-5 have an empty /data folder, and use junction links to link those to the full /wow1/data folder


About your 95% memory.. thats a windows xp problem...
windows xp can only adress 4gig MAX
what is does is substract the videomemory from that 4gig... if you have a videocard of 512 mb.. you only have 3.5gig available for other programs...
perhaps try out vista 64 ??

i switched from winxp to vista64 ultimate, and now have 3.5gig / 4gig in use, and never have loading problems

[Sloefke]

well guys I made a huge improvement.

I switcht off my firewall, wile playing wow.
Deleted all the addons I don't need on my toons.
I got sound enabled.
I switcht off some processes that didn't needed to be on when playing wow.

And now I'm playing AV on 69% RAM,
What a huge difference that is...
I'm so happy :thumbsup:

Still gonna read up on those junction links, who knows I may be able to improve more...

Now to the next problem, getting my X Key pro (USB, imported from the USA) working...
X keys are qwerty and here everything is azerty
And then I'm set :P

[-silencer-]

In my humble opinion, i believe its that 2.66 up there.

Where theres nothing wrong running at a 2.66 but as you said you dont see them for 2 minutes or so,

Thats processing power. Conjuring up images from max distance and keeping them running (fps) is the processors work.
I believe your cpu affinity's are okay, but the 2.66 just might be pressed to keep that much going at once.


not true - i run 4 -5 instances on a q6600 2.4ghz at 60fps with no problems

hard drive access is the main issue imho.



change to junction linking (the data directory) on a different drive from the system amd swap files to see the best performace increase.

(even running junction linked files on the same drive would be far better than running 5 seperate copies of wow from different folders
What mike said.

I'm on a Q6600 (2.4GHz), 4GB RAM, Win XP, 8800GTX, 2x 24" LCD. The upgrade of adding an SSD to host the WoW/Data folder through symlink is literally unreal in how it virtually eliminates lag in Shatt/AV. For anyone considering spending $200 upgrading a component in their system, once you have a quad core, 4GB ram, and decent videocard, the next upgrade is a no-brainer for me - SSD. I wish more people would try one out and post their opinions - I know there are plenty of techies with money to spend on this. The gains are worth it.

[drevil]

my 5 wow clients only use 200-350mb each ..

so if you "playing at 95% RAM" with 4gb, there's something fishy going on.

[Tasty]

I'd say the wiring. Cut them wires and the computer dies. Thats a pretty weak spot :D