i realise this is general discussion, so barring any h8 responses, just a little help pls

[excalibur]

ok im running a 2.4-2.6 dual core, with 2gb ram, and a 8800 gtx (640 mb) card

i lag out so severely in shat that i really cant go there, i lag out in av so bad when i push to stonehearth that most of the time im dead before all the horde load, i lag out at the start of my arena games so bad ive lost 1 character before i can respond.

all im asking here and please bear with me, is im looking at upgrading my mb to run twin 8800gtx sli, another gb ram, and the last resort.......upgrading to quad core.

what im really looking for here is the cheapest method of attaining "playable" performance.

i also have a second system that i could run (ie a second box) p4 2.4 2gb ram, used to play wow fine, single play, could possibly run 2 copies on that and 3 on mine.

bit of work involved setting up the second box, but if i get 20-25+ fps i would do it straight away. my fps in shat drops to 1-2 fps and stays that way until 1 or 2 of my wows shuts down, similarly in av i get dced infrequently.


so basically what im asking is
a. full upgrade my system and hope it prevails, or
b. set up the second box and see how that goes.

any help would be appreciated, i did 10 games arena last night, and by the 6th game there were that many around the shat battlemaster i had to go to bem battlemaster just to queue, cause i was dcing that much.


cheers for reading all, and once again sorry for posting on the general forum.

exxy aka kiangsee, lelill, lellil, leelil, leelli

[Quix]

Your problem is main system ram, or software related. It is not related to your video card & SLI wont help a bit.

If you are running vista, you need 3gb min In my opinion, vista takes 3 to do what xp does with 2.


I suggest you get 3gb of ram, & get that 2nd comp going.

[BobGnarly]

I h8 you! X(

Just kidding! :)

I have a similar machine.

First, you need more RAM. That's by far your biggest problem. I have 4G (but run 32-bit XP atm, so only about 3G usable), and while it does suck in Shat, it's not nearly as bad as you describe.

Second, I wouldn't get another 8800gtx. For one thing, wow doesn't really deal with SLI well, and and SLI doesn't run over multiple monitors if you are running that way. For another thing, adding a second video card will actually subtract from your available ram once you get 4G. I tried this trade-off (more gpu power vs less RAM), and it was definitely not a positive one.

Last thing, maybe try a 64-bit OS (vista) which, when you upgrade to 4G, should let you actually use 4G. I am actually going to try this myself, just waiting on vista to arrive (tomorrow). With this, and 4G of RAM I'm hoping to have a better time in shat.

Also, you might consider an SSD drive as reviewed by silencer here ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=12529'). I ordered one of the 32G ones myself.

good luck

[Tasty]

Could you do me a huge favour and I'm not being a smart ass or condescending when I ask, but could you spell please in full and use capital letters in your thread title? :)

onto your actual thread

I was going to say that Shatt is laggy no mater what :P but 1-2fps is just wrong :( I'd definitely suggest getting more ram as posted above. The other thing I'd do is put all your characters in shatt then check your process list to see if some other diry process is stealing all your precious CPU. Yess precious.

edit: you can also prolly get rid of the "barring any h8 responses" part as you asked a decent question

[Zub]

Defrag your hard drives, should help with the loading.
There's a good tool called jkdefrag i think, search for that on these forums and give the defrag/sort thing a try.
Helped me heaps.

[Zub]

Defrag your hard drives, should help with the loading.
There's a good tool called jkdefrag i think, search for that on these forums and give the defrag/sort thing a try.
Helped me heaps.
Here's the post: Half your Zoning Times! (amazing defrag program) ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&postID=85144&highlight=jkdefrag#post85144')

[excalibur]

my apologies for not capitalising the subject.

my full system specs

dual core 2.6
2gb ram
8800gtx 640mb

win xp

no background processes running, ill do a processor usage tonight.

so an upgrade to vista? yuck and a ram upgrade should solve most of my issues?

[valkry]

No, stay away from Vista imo. Upgrade your RAM, they were saying that Vista requires more RAM to do the same job that XP does with less RAM.

[Tasty]

More ram should solve most of your issues. The suggestion to upgrade to Vista 64bit was so that you could use all 4gb of ram if you get that much but tbh I use Vista 32 just fine. Vista is a bit of a resource hog although I haven't done much to slimline mine it still does the trick though and against all its flaws I actually do like Vista :) Its likely not the processor itself as I run five wows on a 2.5 just fine. What kinda HDD you got? A 5200rpm or something hehe


Btw don't apologise :P

[excalibur]

so a ram upgrade could solve all my problems? damn, im going to try that, quick cheap solution if it works, ill get to checking the hdd speed when i get home.


btw cheers to all for some insight into what it could be.

[Tasty]

Yeah well Shatt is still a hole :P

[Zub]

Yeah well Shatt is still a hole :P
Can't wait for Dalaran.. but it will probably be worse >.<

[zanthor]

Your biggest problem by far is the 2gb of ram on the system. With 5 copies of wow running you will suck up about 2.8gb of ram counting Vista... in heavy pop areas, that hits harder and you will page a lot to the disk making it unplayable.

[Jaese]

Junction and hardlink your WoW installs (you should be using more than one anyway).

This will minimize HDD activity which is probably causing your slow load times.

I have 2.990GHz C2D, 8800GT, 4GB RAM (and I barely hit 2GB in use when playing), and XP with 5 hardlinked junctioned installs. Shatt loads smooth as butter.

[excalibur]

so create 4 copies of my wow folder and run them all from seperate copies?

im currently running all 5 copies from 1 install, so if that makes it better ill do that too.

[Jaese]

so create 4 copies of my wow folder and run them all from seperate copies?

im currently running all 5 copies from 1 install, so if that makes it better ill do that too.

5 different WoW installs will help but won't solve it all.

Multiple Installs, the Data Folder, and Symbolic Links on Win XP ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=9296')

Here's my junction .bat, for reference:


@echo off

FOR /f %%I IN ('dir /b /a:-d "World of Warcraft"') DO (
echo %%I
fsutil hardlink create "World of Warcraft Slave\%%I" "World of Warcraft\%%I"
fsutil hardlink create "World of Warcraft Slave2\%%I" "World of Warcraft Slave\%%I"
fsutil hardlink create "World of Warcraft Slave3\%%I" "World of Warcraft Slave\%%I"
fsutil hardlink create "World of Warcraft Slave4\%%I" "World of Warcraft Slave\%%I"
)

junction "World of Warcraft Slave\Data" "World of Warcraft\Data"
junction "World of Warcraft Slave2\Data" "World of Warcraft\Data"
junction "World of Warcraft Slave3\Data" "World of Warcraft\Data"
junction "World of Warcraft Slave4\Data" "World of Warcraft\Data"
junction "World of Warcraft Slave\Cache" "World of Warcraft\Cache"
junction "World of Warcraft Slave2\Cache" "World of Warcraft\Cache"
junction "World of Warcraft Slave3\Cache" "World of Warcraft\Cache"
junction "World of Warcraft Slave4\Cache" "World of Warcraft\Cache"
junction "World of Warcraft Slave\Fonts" "World of Warcraft\Fonts"
junction "World of Warcraft Slave2\Fonts" "World of Warcraft\Fonts"
junction "World of Warcraft Slave3\Fonts" "World of Warcraft\Fonts"
junction "World of Warcraft Slave4\Fonts" "World of Warcraft\Fonts"
junction "World of Warcraft Slave\Interface" "World of Warcraft\Interface"
junction "World of Warcraft Slave2\Interface" "World of Warcraft\Interface"
junction "World of Warcraft Slave3\Interface" "World of Warcraft\Interface"
junction "World of Warcraft Slave4\Interface" "World of Warcraft\Interface"

mkdir "World of Warcraft Slave\WTF"
mkdir "World of Warcraft Slave2\WTF"
mkdir "World of Warcraft Slave3\WTF"
mkdir "World of Warcraft Slave4\WTF"
mkdir "World of Warcraft Slave\WTF\Account"

junction "World of Warcraft Slave\WTF\Account" "World of Warcraft\WTF\Account"
junction "World of Warcraft Slave2\WTF" "World of Warcraft Slave\WTF"
junction "World of Warcraft Slave3\WTF" "World of Warcraft Slave\WTF"
junction "World of Warcraft Slave4\WTF" "World of Warcraft Slave\WTF"

[excalibur]

ok so now you have just confused me, i take it this long chain requires its own program to run it?

considering im a pretty noob guy, would the performance warrant the time learning this?

like i said, i am pretty noob, and trying to solve this problem in the least complex way possible.

[Turenn]

First of all get more ram, ( I like to state the obvious, with Vista SP1 you don't need a 64bit system).

Have you setup your /console maxfps and /console maxfpsbk? It's amazing what these two line can do for you. And if you are running a same class group just run all the wows from one folder.

[Skuggomann]

Just want to point out that i had a worse pc then you, just lower the settings and it will work. I did av and walked around in shatt fine.

I had: 2core: 2,4; Gforce 2700; 2gb ram.

[excalibur]

ok i want to thank you all for the responses, it has been great, i took my pc to my mates place (he has an identical machine to me) and he dropped his 2 1gb ram sticks in mine and surprisingly there is no lag in av, i can run around shat fairly lag free, and we checked the ram usage and its peaking around 2.5gb - 2.6gb at its worst, so if i drop 2gb in there its reading 3.5 cause of crappy 32bit but its not paging 500mb when it peaks, so its fixed now, and im sure ill go back to enjoying bgs.


once again, thank you all.

[Tasty]

First of all get more ram, ( I like to state the obvious, with Vista SP1 you don't need a 64bit system).

Have you setup your /console maxfps and /console maxfpsbk? It's amazing what these two line can do for you. And if you are running a same class group just run all the wows from one folder.Vista 32 with Sp1 utilizes all 4gb of ram? I thought it maxed out at like 3.5?

[zanthor]

ok i want to thank you all for the responses, it has been great, i took my pc to my mates place (he has an identical machine to me) and he dropped his 2 1gb ram sticks in mine and surprisingly there is no lag in av, i can run around shat fairly lag free, and we checked the ram usage and its peaking around 2.5gb - 2.6gb at its worst, so if i drop 2gb in there its reading 3.5 cause of crappy 32bit but its not paging 500mb when it peaks, so its fixed now, and im sure ill go back to enjoying bgs.


once again, thank you all.Glad to see you filtered through the chaff and got the good advice out of there... :)

The other things listed here will help to some degree, but as you have proven the core issue was memory paging in high traffic areas.

[zanthor]

First of all get more ram, ( I like to state the obvious, with Vista SP1 you don't need a 64bit system).

Have you setup your /console maxfps and /console maxfpsbk? It's amazing what these two line can do for you. And if you are running a same class group just run all the wows from one folder.Vista 32 with Sp1 utilizes all 4gb of ram? I thought it maxed out at like 3.5?http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946003/

It will REPORT 4GB of ram. The max available to the OS is still limited.

[excalibur]

sorry to revive this thread, but i do hope some of you read it.

i was using lvl 30 mounts before upgrading my ram because the lag would cause epic mounts to drop off from following, now im using epic mounts and storming frostwolf like a demon.
before upgrading my ram, i was lucky to nuke a guy on an epic mount running past me due to lag, tonight i nuke them all, i wiped horde on balinda, i think there were about 13 in there, but i came in after they started, so im definetely no ellay.

ive set up pip so i can switch too, im really looking forward to arena this week, and im going to respec ns just for the occasion.

im stoked the ram has made such a difference now. tyvm guys.