Disconnect problem since patch

[Bunny]

Hi all,
since patch 2.1 i have a weird problem and i have no clue what to do. I hope somebody has any idea what i might try.

I have 5 computers connected to my dsl via a router and a switch. When I log my 5 lvl 34 UD casters and start dragging them to SM I get really high latency on two or three of the computers and eventually two or three accounts disconnect from server.
- This may either happen during moving the characters or during the first pull.
- Sometimes before finally disconnecting I see my main character moving on my main screen, then after a couple of seconds on another screen, a few seconds later on a third screen as if the server handles my clients one after another.
- The disconnecting computers are not always the same, it can happen to any of my five machines.

I have tried:
- Creating 5 toons on another server and playing them to level 2 -> no problems or latency issues of any kind
- Creating 5 UD toons on the same server and playing them -> no problems
- Moving my lvl 34 toons to OG and hitting RageFire -> same problem as in Tirisfal and SM
- Playing the five lvl 34 toons on four computers (leaving one account in the background not casting anything) and hitting ragefire -> no problem

Since I don't even have a clue what might be the source of the problem or where to look any idea is appreciated. Is it my Server that is f**ed up since patch or are the clients sending and receiving so much more informations since patch that my dsl connection cann't handle five of them anymore?

Bunny

[Æbox]

5boxing here, I randomly get disconnected to the login screen on 1-3 computers. It always seems to be the same computer that gets DCd,.. Can't figure out any cause for it.

Swapped routers.. Tried swapping the accounts each computer uses, disabling all add-ons.. nothing works.

Seems to happen every 2-15 minutes, so far never in combat though it's strange. Usually when I sit down to drink it boots the client.

[Otlecs]

I played 3 members of a 5 person team for about 4 hours on Wednesday evening and had occasional disconnects on two of my three machines.

The "head" machine didn't get disconnected at all, and neither did the other two players who were sitting in the same room, on the same connection.

As I recall, I lost connection twice on one machine and once on another but just put it down to the inevitable patch day blues. I do hope it's not part of an effort by Blizzard to target mutli-boxers though....

[Æbox]

Something I noticed was that whenever I alt-tabbed to check a website, more often than not one of my WoW clients would get disconnected.



Just a bit ago, I alt-tabbed on my main system, went to wow-europe.com.. and boom, EVERY client other than the main one got "disconnected" to login screen.

No idea if that is significant at all..


It's really annoying having to log back in every 2-10 minutes. It doesn't take long, you can enter your password and log the character back in very fast, but still. if it happens in a fight it can kill you :(

[Bunny]

shameless bump
i have been able to reproduce the problem on another server with a new 5 man group.
running around and killing stuff in the be area - first time i use this mana thing be racial on all toons -> boom latency goes up and 3 clients disconnect
Never had any problems before the patch... damn blizz...
any help is appreciated
Bunny

[Ceromus]

Lets start a thread on this issue on the tech support forum and see if we cant get this addresses.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=106671383&postId=1065318485&sid=1#0

[cubbs80]

Hey all,

Long time reader, first time poster. Anywho, as someone who has been reading this board for a while now and considering jumping onto the multi box bandwagon, I read these posts with a bit of horror. Thanks for bringing the issue up with Blizzard to see what shakes out.

If they are in fact cracking down on multi boxing, it'll save me several hundred dollars in hardware purchases. Ha!

[Gallo]

Wow... I just got my 5box hardware setup working, and I cant go a full level in the newbie zone without disconnecting all 5 characters. This is lame :(

Has anyone had any response from blizzard by email or anything?

Or better yet... has anyone gone problem free with 3+ clients? If so, what did you do to your network to prepare, other than opening up port 3724 to all 5 machines?

[Xzin]

I was running a 2 box test earlier today and noticed no problems. I saw the new walk on /follow but it did not seem to be a big problem. If anything, it might make travel up spiral stairs and the like easier.... not sure about that yet though. Eitherway - I have had problems with disconnections before with the Zins. A lonnnnng time ago - maybe a few months into release I started having DC problems. i never changed anything and just put up with it for a week or two. After that, it seemed to go away on its own... if this is similar then it is most definitely server side. For some reason, too much data is being sent down the pipe. When Bliz sees too much coming from one IP, they nuke the connections. It has always been that way. The question is what is causing all of the disconnections?

That I don't know about nor can I speak to yet.

[shockbeta]

I've played a lot lately with 2 clients, long sessions.. 12+ hours at times and I can't remember a single time I was disconnected. Mayb etonight or this week I'll start a trial account up and have three running for as long as they can.

[Xzin]

I think the problem comes once you hit a certain number of accounts..... perhaps they set the "bar" to something realistic for an average household? That's just speculation though.... I imagine some houses have 3 or 4 kids that could potentially play at the same time in a given household. Not to mention college campuses where dozens or more could be playing on the same IP. So that seems less likely. My theory about it booting you off because you send the server too much data is what I believe is going on. No way to verify it right now but I do know that I was getting booted off much more frequently when I was running Sky and other UI mods that "talked" a lot among themselves. Eventually, Sky was updated and WoW implemented some flood controls and it cleared up. It seems that for some reason though a lot of data is being sent and that is booting people. Perhaps the /walk on /follow somehow changed the amount of position data being sent?

Keep in mind that WoW uses less than a 56k modem connection. That is 56,000 kiloBITS or around 7 KB per second per connection. No, really. It needs a good amount of upload bandwidth, which is what you run out of first...... but at 7 KB per second.... and considering most cable modems or DSL can easily push 40 KB upload per second.... you can easily carry 5 accounts at the same time without straining things too much. Keep in mind that WoW is not usually sending data like crazy.

You could run 40 accounts at the same on 2 T-1 lines. 1.5 Meg Up/Down though. Pretty sure running 5 is not going to saturate the line... but I really do think that the problem lies with Blizzard.... and it may not be UI related. How quickly they can fix it is still up in the air - as is if they even know about it..... I have only seen one or two posts and it was quickly buried under Bug: Cannot ice block twice after cold snap. Did you not read the patch notes? I mean honestly.

[Gallo]

Hmm I wonder if it IS a problem with too much data.

Tomorrow, I'm going to run some tests because I live in a condo building and there are at LEAST 2 reachable wireless networks with no password attached to them. 2 of my 5 boxes use a wireless USB network adapter, so I could probably cut my bandwidth in half.

[Xzin]

Once I get my final setup going, I will be able to test across several ISPs at the same time. I load balance across them anyway, so I am not concerned about getting disconnected (yet). Worst case, I could just buy a T-1 line and 10 distinct IP addresses. That would be plenty of bandwidth and plenty of IPs (one unique PER box) but I don't think it will come to that.

[Manaburner]

Hi all. Have a 5-box team of 4 warlocks/1 Priest.

Random disconnects were happening every 2 minutes on one of my accounts (1 warlock kept d/c'ing to login screen). After trying to switch everything out - even tried to log the account onto another computer - it turned out to be something in the WoW client - I removed the WTF folder and had to re-apply macros and keyboard bindings -VIOLA no disconnects after this!

Try deleting the WTF folder if all else fails.

[Ellay]

Thanks for that insight Manaburner and welcome to the club :)

[Xzin]

Once I get my new rigs operational, I will let you guys know how I fare 10 boxing with load balanced WANs. Should be interesting to see really - I am starting all 10 with completely freshly installed copies of WoW - no UI mods, nothing. So, hopefully, no disconnects. We will see.

Still waiting on the last 4 video cards to arrive and some final cables (I moved every computer to another room - I got tired of the heat / noise). It took.... A LOT of cables. Way, way more cables than I was initially prepared for :( I also need to setup my UIs, program my keyboards and finish my desk before I can truly play though.

P.S. USB and Dual Link DVI does not like to be extended very far without active extenders or really heavy gauge wire. USB is only designed for something like 15 ft before you need a hub. Dual Link DVI is something I was able to push to 30 feet with super heavy gauge cables - with cheaper cables it is all snow. There are extenders available but start at $200 EACH - far more than I want to spend for all 6 monitors. WTB HDMI dual link video cards. Oh well, at least PS/2 is perfectly happy being extended 50+ feet.

[Gallo]

I haven't had any problems since I tried the "break follow right before you stop" trick. I really think now that its a mechanic of the game and not net traffic.

[Bunny]

I am surprised that removing all the wtf folders worked for you. I removed it on one of my machines but I will definitely try removing them from all machines when I get home from work.
While I can play using the stop following thing when my main stops it really isn't fun. No disconnects but really bad lag, warping of the characters etc. I hope they do something about it soon.
I checked the blizz forums a few days ago where a couple of posts adressed that topic but there seemed to be no answer from blizz.
Anyways,
have fun,
Bunny

[Xzin]

Any luck, Bunny?

[Bunny]

I forgot, :oops:
tonight I'll give it a shot.

[Xzin]

Any luck, Bunny?

Take two :)

[Bunny]

No luck for me. :(

I renamed the wtf folders on all my computers and had the same things
going on: warping around, lags - It is really annoying.
Reading some of the posts on the tech forums it seems like this is a problem that has little to do with the fact that we play more boxes. Some people reported that they have the same problem following random players.

I my opinion this is just a huge bug. Blizz never ment to add a "walk when follow" feature. The reasons why I believe this are:
* No documentation in patch notes
* No benefit at all: No added role playing value, no anti-botting feature - just plain nuisance
* Strange behavior when using the /follow (warping around of characters etc.) aka not tested before patch release

The real question is why blizzard is not responding to all those posts (at least I have not found a blue response). They could say if it was a new feature that has it's problems or simply a bug so at least we whould know.
Well maybe todays downtime will do something for the problem.
Bunny

[Manaburner]

Sorry to hear that Bunny :(

I guess I got lucky and I feel for you. When it was happening to me I was about to tear my hair out. I even bought a Killer NIC thinking that my on-board network adapter was to blame but even that didn't help. I definitely believe this is a undocumented /follow fix gone awry as well.

[Xzin]

I truly believe it is either a) server side /follow bug or b) server side bug caused by too much data being sent for some unknown reason.

It just does not seem to be getting a high priority right now though - I guess us multiboxers and people who /follow are not as vocal?

Keep posting about it in tech support - make it clear what is going on so it can be fixed.

[Mirishka]

Guys go check out this thread. It's a common issue its not your wtf folders or routers or anything.

I put in a new router and new nic's in my mahcines trying to resolve this, I completed reinstalled wow, blah blah, I tried diff ram, I tried diff cables, i tried anything and everything you can think of.

I only run two boxes and my second account disconnects within seconds of being put on /follow. It's blizzard not your set ups. There's been a thread running over there for a month and they won't even respond to it or acknowledge its a problem

Here's a link:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=106002299&sid=1&pageNo=1

[wougoose]

This disconnection issue is really starting to get to me. I just began my 5-boxing experience and it has really made it much more difficult to play. I have to continually break follow on my 4 locks whenever my main comes to a stop or a few disconnections will occur.

Still no response on the bug report thread either...

*Crosses Fingers*

[Flight]

I've had no problems with disconnects playing normally on my 5 box rig. I'm not using any USB, just cat 5 ethernet cables to a regular hub.

I do get this problem whenever I leave the toons on follow on a ship. I have to take them off follow before the ship gets underway or 2 disconnect every time.


As an aside, I sometimes get the follow/walk issue. This never happens if the toons stay on follow. If I break/interrupt follow it happens randomly. As soon as they catch up the lead toon they start running again, whether that is from them catching up or if you run the lead toon back to them.

When they switch into walk it is only for the few steps close to the elad character, if they fall back a bit they start running until they get close.

[hapiguy314]

Hmm weird, the last time I had d/c issues was the first two days the new patch went live. After the quick fix, I have yet to get a disconnect from AF. I would however get the occasional slowing down to walking speed when coming to a stop; but since I'm 5 boxing instances, that's almost negligeable.

Like flight, I use normal ethernet cables using Cable connection from Time Warner (extreme package - so maybe I have more bandwidth?).

One thing also that might attribute to me not d/c is maybe due to my nostromos auto spam key? They just repeat spamming one button (maybe it makes the servers think that its not just idle - I dunno really). Hope the folks figure out what's wrong witht he d/c on AF :(

[Xzin]

I would like to weigh in here too.

I finally got my rigs operational. Still need to install UIs, finish a few more things, etc but I made some test accounts and walked around from the tauren starting area to TB. Started and stopped follow, went up the lift in TB, noticed the "walk to you" speed and basically tested it to see if I could DC it.

Keep in mind that this is with a FRESH install of XP, FRESH install of WoW (no UI mods) and redundant, load balanced internet.

I had exactly 0 disconnects. Which is a surprise actually.

I will of course keep testing it but so far it is smooth as silk. Perhaps the latest patch ninja fixed it - but I would suggest the WTF folder deletion option. Also, try stripping your UI if all else fails and rebuild it.

[Mirishka]

Its not your addons or your wtf folder or any of that shit, trust me, don't delete all that crap and make yourself redo all of your preferences.

In my case the disconnect is very easy to produce. If the lead char stops and follower catches up, the follower disconnects a few seconds later. It does not matter what the leader is doing.

Before 2.1 came out I had the same issue as one of the people above, disconnecting on boats, dunno what that one was all about.

Some people are saying its when you interact with objects or npc's or other things like that. It's not the interaction, its simply that the lead char is no longer moving.

Don't delete all your files, they are not the problem. This is a server side / game code / communication issue. Trust me, I have deleted all mine three times, done a full reinstall twice, and installed all new network hardware. Hasn't changed a thing.

[Adronson]

Pardon my double post, but I notice a lot more recent activity on this thread.

I'm at work and just upgraded my laptop install. Patch notes say:

- World of Warcraft Client Patch 2.1.2
...
- Players will no longer slow down to walking speed when closely
following another player.

I won't be able to test this out for about eight hours. If anyone can experiment with the new patch and post results, I'd love to hear if disconnects have stopped.

[Xzin]

That should fix it for most all people. For me, as mages and locks, the walking was annoying but not a show stopper - as they are insta casts.

Let us know if anybody tests it.

[wougoose]

This is good news. Will begin testing at 1:00 PST when the realms are scheduled to go back online.

[wougoose]

Well, follow is working as intended.

However, disconnects still occur.

I'm about to give up...let me know if anyone has better results.

[Xzin]

Even without any UI mods and a clean install (PTR tends to do that to you)?

[Xzin]

I logged on 9 clients today after the patch.

No disconnects and no more walking.

Just like before :)

[Bunny]

I logged on 9 clients today after the patch.

No disconnects and no more walking.

This sounds like good news. Cantt wait for todays europe patch.

Bunny

[Adronson]

I'm still getting disconnects. It's always in dungeons, caves -- not in the open yet. No walking on auto follow.

[wougoose]

Well, I thought I had it fixed. I did a clean format of the two machines that were having disconnection issues.

It seemed great for about an hour or so...and then poof there goes another d/c. I log in again on that char, hit follow, and bam another d/c right away.

The /follow post over on the WoW Bug Forum also has others still having d/c issues. So, thankfully it isn't just me. I spent 9 hours today troubleshooting and trying to figure out what the problem is on my end. I think this still might be a server issue...I just cannot figure out why it is only happening on specifically two of my machines out of the 5.

Sigh...what a long day :(

Edit:
Today the disconnects are still happening on 2 of the 5 boxes. I think I am going to have to call it quits. I have done everything possible without sinking more money on this project. I guess all I can do is wait for blizzard to respond.

If anyone else has any other ideas, let me know. I have spent 10+ hours trying to troubleshoot why this is happening on only a specific 2 of my 5 machines and I cannot pin down the issue.

I have tried the following on the 2 machines:
-Complete format and fresh install of XP
-Tried different NIC's
-Tried recommended settings on the NIC's by Blizzard
-Tried connecting directly to my router rather than going through a switch first
-Tried connecting alternatively through wireless
-Tried disabling all addons
-Tried other things that I can't remember right now.. :)

Update:

I tried one more thing today that may be the answer to the problem. From what I noticed, I would usually disconnect in an inn or other enclosed area. I then noticed the FPS on the two disconnecting would be at 130+ while in an inn or enclosed area. The FPS on the two not disconnecting were sitting at <60 in the inn.

My theory: Such a high FPS is causing more frequent updates sent to Blizzard's servers and causing the disconnections.

I turned on vertical sync on the two machines that were pushing 130+ FPS to limit their FPS to my refresh rate (60). Since all machines now have a cap FPS of 60, I have not yet had a disconnection in a few hours of running around.

So, if you are having issues with disconnects please try limiting your fps to 60 by turning your refresh rate to 60 and enabling Vertical Sync and Triple Buffering under Video Options. Let me know if that helps. I will continue doing testing today and make an update if my theory fails :)

[Bunny]

Hmm...
I'd say they fixed half of it: The walking thing seems to be gone and I can leave my toons in /follow when fighting outside but as soon as i enter a cave or dungeon the chars start lagging.
Well better than before but still too bad to try the melee group I wanted to play.
Bunny

[Riault]

Hey; I am running 2 accounts using autohotkey. I was getting disconnected every every 10 seconds at times and then it was fine for 10 minutes but the issue would always come back.

I tried
1. turning off all addons
2. the video options suggested above
3. pulling my hair out

but nothing seemed to work. Any new information on this issue? I don't play on the PTR but I have not reinstalled Wow ever.

Thanks

Riault

EDIT: Further information
- my disconnects are quick, it is not a "lag out" type.
- my follow seems to be working well (not walking issues)

[thrillhaus]

I tried one more thing today that may be the answer to the problem. From what I noticed, I would usually disconnect in an inn or other enclosed area. I then noticed the FPS on the two disconnecting would be at 130+ while in an inn or enclosed area. The FPS on the two not disconnecting were sitting at <60 in the inn.

My theory: Such a high FPS is causing more frequent updates sent to Blizzard's servers and causing the disconnections.

I turned on vertical sync on the two machines that were pushing 130+ FPS to limit their FPS to my refresh rate (60). Since all machines now have a cap FPS of 60, I have not yet had a disconnection in a few hours of running around.

So, if you are having issues with disconnects please try limiting your fps to 60 by turning your refresh rate to 60 and enabling Vertical Sync and Triple Buffering under Video Options. Let me know if that helps. I will continue doing testing today and make an update if my theory fails :)

You know, I think you're on to something there. If you send too many movement updates/packages or something of similar nature, the server automatically disconnects you.
Seems very possible that something similar is happening here.

[Mirishka]

Might be on to something here - this post is copied and pasted from a post I made on wow forum that has yet to recieve a response. Please investigate this...

----------

Everyone out there having this issue I think I may have found the cause, or at least some evidence of the cause. If Blizzard is actually reading this thread they are probably skimming past my posts since I have vented at them a bit. =)

So - Please try out something and if you notice the same thing, please get a discussion going about it. Maybe am on to something, maybe its nothing, you guys decide. This is what I am observing...

I use the FuBar addon. Before anyone says it, no its not an addon causing this issue. All of us that are serious about getting it sorted have already tried running no addons. There is a plug in for FuBar called PerformanceFu, one of the options in this addon allows you to monitor your network status, displaying your latency, Bandwidth In in B/s and Bandwidth Out in B/s.

If I reset my modem, reset my router, reboot my machines, etc. Load the game, log in, and just sit there standing still in one spot not doing anything at all on either char my numbers tend to settled down somewhere around 60-100 latency, 600-700 B/s Bandwith In, and 15-30 B/s Bandwidth Out.

When I group the chars and set one to follow the other, the Bandwidth Out on the following char goes crazy. Instead of hanging around the 30 ish range like the lead char it climbs very very quickly, and continues to climb until the char is disconnected.

If the lead char begins moving, the Bandwith Out on the following char stops climbing, and starts to go down very slowly. As soon as the lead char stops moving, the Bandwidth Out on the following char immediately begins to rise again. It gets absurdly high, 1500-2000 B/s in less then a minute.

If a WOW client can sit in one spot doing absolutely nothing and only require 15 B/s Bandwith Out to remain connected, why exactly does it require 2000 B/s Bandwidth Out to stand there and do absolutely nothing with /follow on another char that is standing there doing absolutely nothing? If I am not giving my client any input at all, why is it sending 2000 B/s to the server?

Those of you that use performance monitoring addons please look into this yourselves. Right now, as I am typing this, I am looking over at my following chars screen, and the Bandwidth Out has climbed to 2315 B/s and seems to have leveled off. Still climbing, but much slower. Bandwidth In is sitting at 643.

The char that it is following has seen an increase of Bandwidth In from the 600 range to 1800 range. But the Bandwidth Out has remained low, currently sitting at 30.

I am no network expert and I am no programmer. But I am pretty confident that a game client that only uses around 20 ish B/s outgoing to communicate with a game server shouldn't require 120 times that ammount of Bandwidth to send a simple message /follow.

Please discuss - something is not right here.

Edit to add: Let them sit for a bit with the follower still following. The In on the lead char kept climbing, got up to around 2500 and latency started to rise, upwards of 200. Broke the follow, went for a smoke. Latencies have come back down to around 100. The high Out on the follower and high In on the leader have dropped down to about 1800 and falling, but falling very very slowly.

Second edit to add: trace routes performed while this is going on come back at 47ms on average.

Third edit to add: And ofcourse after sitting here for the last couple of hours doing all that crap - I ran out to kill a few grey mobs and the follower got disconnected on the third or fourth one.

------

I made that post late last night / early this morining, before todays server restart. This afternoon it is still happening but the growth rate on the bandwidth out isn't as rapid, but it still grows to way way more then it oughta be.

Possibly Blizz code to collect data from clients on /follow ?? dunno

[Mirishka]

PS - This may also help to explain why I see so much wild variance in latnecy between my two clients. The follower seems to be spamming the shit out of the leader. Followers out goes way high, leaders in goes way high, leaders latency goes to shit, follower disconnects. WTF

[Xzin]

I don't want to toot my own horn but thats what I have been saying the problem is since it started. When you send too much to the server, it disconnects you. It always has. Probably a map hack / flooding protection but it has been in place since day 1.

The performance metrics and consequent disconnects support this. The underlying root cause, however, remains to be elucidated.

My theory is they screwed something up with the /follow code and the client attempts to "get" to the lead character, can't and tries again instantly. Leading to an out of control spiral which DCs you.

But then again, I have not researched it as I don't disconnect - even with 9 characters on follow for hours.

[Adronson]

Well I tried Wougoose's settings -- 60hz with Vertical Sync and Triple Buffering and it seems to be stable. I'm running three on one machine. Haven't had time to do a real push in an instance yet, but I am not getting disconnects in some of the places that had previously given me difficulties. A tentative congratulations (with my fingers crossed that it holds).

[Mirishka]

Please read and share your comments in the following new thread on the Blizzard bug report forum:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=112592231&postId=1125922296&sid=1#0

Thank you

[Mirishka]

Well I tried Wougoose's settings -- 60hz with Vertical Sync and Triple Buffering and it seems to be stable. I'm running three on one machine. Haven't had time to do a real push in an instance yet, but I am not getting disconnects in some of the places that had previously given me difficulties. A tentative congratulations (with my fingers crossed that it holds).

Admittedly extremely skeptical that a purely client side graphical setting could possibly have anything at all to do with connectivity. But being desprate for a fix I have given this a try.

I did the following:

-Set monitor refresh rate to 60 on both machines
-Logged into the game, set refresh to 60, enabled vsync and trip buff
-Logged out of the game
-Deleted Cache folder in WOW directory
-rebooted both machines and reset the router
-Logged into the game to recieve fresh Cache data
-Logged out of the game and rebooted both machines
-Logged into the game and stood idle for 10 minutes, tapping move occaisionaly to prevent auto afk flag

Observations:
Average latency increased from 60 ish to 120 ish. This is possibly due to the fact that it is getting later in the day and server traffic is higher. Average Bandwidth IN increaed from around 650 ish to 750 ish. Average Bandwidth OUT increaed from 18 ish to 25 ish.

After sitting idle for awhile one char put the other on /follow

Bandwidth OUT on the follow immediately began to rapidly rise. Bandwidth IN on the leader immediately began to rise.
Latency on the leader went up to over 200.

Bascially - No Change

Monitor refresh rates, vertical sync settings, etc, are client side hardware / driver settings for your display and display adapter. They don't have a damn thing to do with connectivity and server communication.

[Mirishka]

Update: After making the changes the Bandwidth OUT growth on the follower started leveling off around 1400 ish instead of 2000+ as before. It is still growing, and may very well reach the 2000+ mark, but its growing at 1 every second or two instead of 20 per second. Bandwidth IN on the leader is still well over 2000 and latency is totally squashed, running over 250 while the follower is at 49.

Killled half a dozen greys and didn't disconnect. /shrug

Second Update: Follower disconnected while typing the above update, just standin there doin nothin. I give up, likely cancel my accounts awhile.

[wougoose]

Well, I have to say that the problem has been solved. I managed to play all day yesterday without a single d/c on all 5 machines.

The solution that worked: Capping all of my machines FPS to 60.

I believe that the server was being flooded enough to boot me when my FPS was hitting 100+. I believe there still needs to be some fixing with this on Blizzard's part, but I have no problems when capping the FPS to 60. Our eyes can't see the difference anyways :)

Note to self: Turning down all of the video settings doesn't always help performance :) (In this case)

I'm sorry if this solution doesn't end up working for you. I spent quite a few hours trying to troubleshoot it, and this ended up being the cause for me.

Whatever you do, don't lose hope! I almost dropped everything and was ready to quit this new hobby of mine.

[hapiguy314]

Dang, I'll be happy to break 22 FPS on my main machine running 2 instances of WOW.

If just a single instance is up, i hover around 50-60 FPS. But when I run 2, kablam, my system just chokes and FPS drops to 15 on client one and 20 on client two.

I have the following specs:

E6600 2.4 Ghz (stock)
2 GB Corsair Ram
8800 EVGA GTX

Also - Framerate stabilizes when I work on non windowed mode - but this is impossible with 2 clients running in one machine. Maybe the fact that I operate on 1680 x 1050 is one reason why my frame rate is choking also.

Eitherway, maybe the fact that my FPS is so low is what keeps me from being disconnected. :twisted:

[Mirishka]

hapiguy314 You might want to fool around with some settings or something. My 8800 runs 120+ fps with all wow settings on high while pushing 1680x1050 on a 22" ws. Do you already have vsync turned on? Game defaults to on.

Not sure about wow but in other games where I have run mutli client on the same box, as you are doing, vsync cause serious problems.

[Mirishka]

Wougoose - good to know you are running better.

But as I posted above bandwidths are still going all out of wack with /follow on. Maybe your fix is limiting it just enough to not quite hit the disconnect threshold. Possibly a good work around, but not a true fix. The problem is in the game code itself.

Will play for a few hours later on with the fps capped and let ya know how it goes. When I tried it this afternoon I still got a follower disconnect and latency on the lead box was total shit.

[hapiguy314]

hapiguy314 You might want to fool around with some settings or something. My 8800 runs 120+ fps with all wow settings on high while pushing 1680x1050 on a 22" ws. Do you already have vsync turned on? Game defaults to on.

Well - I forgot to add that I have client 1 on the first 22" and client 2 on the 2nd 22" monitor (comp 3 and 4 are on 3rd and 4th 22" and comp 5 is a laptop) :P

Is that your set up also?

Putting both clients in one monitor helps my FPS but I actually enjoy seeing them in different monitors.

I'll post a screen shot on the 1st and 2nd clients running on the same comp with their bad FPS :(

[Mirishka]

ah gotcha. sounds nice =)

Mine is much more simplified =p Two machines, two monitors, two keyboards, two mice, one router...

comment I was making above about the vsync was something I experienced with EQ2 and Eve-Online, when running more then one client on the same box, sharing a montior, doing the alt tab thing, vsync totally wrecked them. Never tried with two monitors, and I have never tried running multiple instances of wow on the same box.

[hapiguy314]

Oh - should I turn off Vsync? It says that turning it on helps frame rate...so I just keep it on... lol :wink:

[Xzin]

I did some extensive testing with a quad core and 3x 8800GTXes on a 30" monitor array. The 8 series drivers suck pretty hard right now, so these MAY not be representitive but a good general test.

Running 1 WoW on 1 head of 1 video card = 60 fps solid. (Duh).

Running 2 WoWs on 1 head of 1 video card = 60 fps solid each.

Running 2 WoWs on 2 heads of 1 video card = 40 - 50 fps each WoW.

Clearly, the 8 series drivers (others too?) have problems with rendering on the other port of the same video card. But if you do it on the SAME one, it works.

Problems: 1 port non dual link maxxes out at like 1600x1280 or something. Not enough resolution to run 2 WoWs comfortably.

Potential compounding problems: I run WoW on rotated monitors (1600 x 2560). It used to be that rotation meant absolutely no DirectX. Not the case anymore but that might throw a wrinkle into this.

So - bottomline takeaway - try it on the same video head and see if that ups your framerate. If nothing else, make sure if you are running windowed then you don't have ANY overlap. Even the corners. This absolutely kills your framerate.

You should be pushing far more FPS than you are with that rig.

Edit: Bliz caps at 60 FPS. For a non stereoscopic 3d game, this is more than enough. You CAN set it higher by tweaking the clients .ini settings, if you really want.

[Mirishka]

^ What he said :P

[wougoose]

Wougoose - good to know you are running better.

But as I posted above bandwidths are still going all out of wack with /follow on. Maybe your fix is limiting it just enough to not quite hit the disconnect threshold. Possibly a good work around, but not a true fix. The problem is in the game code itself.

Will play for a few hours later on with the fps capped and let ya know how it goes. When I tried it this afternoon I still got a follower disconnect and latency on the lead box was total shit.

Yeah, Blizzard really needs to look into fixing it. I think you are right that my solution probably just limited it just enough to avoid disconnections. My performance monitors still show a huge leap in outbound bandwidth when following. Luckily it doesn't reach the "boot me off" threshold.

[Mirishka]

Good to hear.

Outta town a few days, hopefully this will all be a bad memory when I get back. <crosses fingers>

[Riault]

Setup: 2 box using autohotkey (1 monitor, 1 box)

I set the FPS etc (as indicated above) to 60 ... I was still being disconnected everytime I would stop (the /follow toon would immediately disco).

I kept digging through this site and noticed some comments about breaking /follow so I hooked a hotkey to step forward

So I close the gap on /follow and then drop the druid via "step forward" breaking /follow and continue with the warrior.

In 4 hours of game play AFTER that I did not disco one single time. So just our of curriosity I decided to not break follow and blam the druid discos as soon as the tank stops.

I don't know if this helps anyone or not but it seemed to work for me.

Riault

[Xzin]

I tested on the UC elevators last night for 10+ minutes. No DCs.

[hapiguy314]

I did some extensive testing with a quad core and 3x 8800GTXes on a 30" monitor array. The 8 series drivers suck pretty hard right now, so these MAY not be representitive but a good general test.

Running 1 WoW on 1 head of 1 video card = 60 fps solid. (Duh).

Running 2 WoWs on 1 head of 1 video card = 60 fps solid each.

Running 2 WoWs on 2 heads of 1 video card = 40 - 50 fps each WoW.

So - bottomline takeaway - try it on the same video head and see if that ups your framerate. If nothing else, make sure if you are running windowed then you don't have ANY overlap. Even the corners. This absolutely kills your framerate.

You should be pushing far more FPS than you are with that rig.


Are you saying I should get a splitter to attach both monitors on the same VGA (I use an adaptor - no DVI-D cables) female port?

What the - how did you manage to push 40-50 FPS on 2 wow clients on 2 different monitors at such a high resolution as you stated :cry: .

[hapiguy314]

Just asked my friend who has a quad core to hook up both his 19" monitors on the his GTX and run 2 clients of wow on each monitor. He said he drops down to 18 FPS on 1 monitor and 24 FPS on the other when viewing two clients on two separate monitors.

He said that it was expected as you're asking the g/x card to render the image simultaneously which will definitely choke your system. That's why if you operate 2 clients right on top of each other, or just both in one monitor, then you get better FPS (because it still functions as if it's a full screen rendering of the game - but splitting it makes it on two monitors work twice as hard because you render twice as much). :roll:

Dunno what else to do now but try plugging a splitter and connect the 2 monitors on the splitter and attach it to one port - though I thought that was the same as attaching it to two separate ports provided by the vid card.

[Xzin]

If I move to offload the image to ANOTHER separate graphics card, the 8800gtx can handle it (assume you have x16 PCIe for each card though). Maning two 8800gtxes, bot with x16 lanes. x8 would work but will slow down on the 8800 series perhaps 10 - 20% over 16x (depends on the game).

He likely gets slower fps because he is asking ONE card to render TWO WoWs. If he had TWO cards rendering TWO WoWs then both would be "full speed". Or render 2 copies of WoW on ONE single card on ONE port. When I tested that, it was more than playable, with each WoW at 1600x1280.

Splitters will not work. You really cannot play two copies of WoW on one VGA connection anyway - the card would likely not have the processing power and the resolution would be too low to support it (assuming you are trying to run two WoWs on one output).

I managed to run 2 WoWs at 1600x1280 each by using a single 8800GTX card with full x16 lane support and a quad core processor with 4 gigs of memoy (only needs 1.5 or so). Less (or slower) memory, slower processor or a slower video card and it would not be possible.

I WAS RUNNING BOTH OF THESE ON THE SAME HEAD OF A SINGLE CARD. If I ran it on BOTH HEADS on TWO SCREENS, my fps dropped dramaticaly. But running on ONE PORT out of a Dual Link DVI connector, it was VERY playable - I would imagine that it is the exact same kind of horsepower as two computers from just a few years ago.

Does that make sense? It's not eactly easy to explain :(

Here is a pic from one of my dual core machines:

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x45/Xzin-WoW/30inchDualBox.jpg

It gives you an idea of what I am talking about. That is a 30" screen, powered by (in this case a 8600 GTS) a single port (running at a total resolution of 1600x2560 - remember, its vertical).

Of note; I was using WoW Maximizer on the top screen. This does not impact FPS but relocates the screen and allows for borderless viewing of WoW in a window. It does not (currently) support more than 1 copy of WoW in a borderless setup. But it is open source, so it could be added by making the program aware of two WoWs (they share the same program window name, so it confuses it).

[hapiguy314]

He likely gets slower fps because he is asking ONE card to render TWO WoWs. If he had TWO cards rendering TWO WoWs then both would be "full speed". Or render 2 copies of WoW on ONE single card on ONE port. When I tested that, it was more than playable, with each WoW at 1600x1280.

Yeah - I didn't know you were testing it on two monitors attached to two different vid cards (we both only have 1 single GTX card). If that was the case, then running higher FPS on two monitors, with separate vid cards (SLI'd or not) on a single machine would yield higher FPS. But I was wondering if my machine was just not configured properly when splitting two wow clients on separate machines using one 8800 GTX. I guess it's the best I can do (unless of course I buy a 30" monitor like you and play 2 clients in one monitor).

On your screenshot - it's still one monitor though (despite the fact that it's a bigger monitor). I think the problem is when it splits it on two different monitors and yet only using one g/x card.

Thanks for the input Xzin :) As always - u've been very helpful.

[Xzin]

On your screenshot - it's still one monitor though (despite the fact that it's a bigger monitor). I think the problem is when it splits it on two different monitors and yet only using one g/x card.

Exactly. When you use ONE card and split it to two monitors (using two "heads" - output ports) even on one video card, you get lower performance (by a good margin) than by using ONE card and ONE port. I don't know if this is a drive issue or something isolated to the 8 series but such is the case right now.

Short of getting a 22"+ plus screen though, I am not sure how you would be able to capitalize on this. Plus, then you need to use autohotkey, etc to control two WoWs. It seems easier to just buy two monitors and two computers.

[Los]

there is one way to up the fps on a dual headder, go windowed, decrease window size and turn of sound and as much gfx as possible. Still not ideally but workable.

[hapiguy314]

Dell computer on sale for $350 :P

[Adronson]

Blizzard has finally acknowledged the problem and they are requesting system specs:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=112592231&postId=1125922296&sid=1#0

[Boss]

Dell computer on sale for $350


With a 8800 in it?? sold

[Xzin]

I tested to see if it perhaps was FPS related.

I still have not had any disconnect problems - ever but I have been testing in UC and other places recently to try and replicate it. Even on the elevator - no go. So I forced my FPS to go up. With MAX settings on, I managed to get 145.

Ignore my UI - it is still a work in progress. the important part is the lower left. 145.6 fps. This is my "normal" fps with vsync turned off. Single 8800GTX (non SLI) - purely GPU limited at this point as a single core is only at 70% load and the rest are idle.

No disconnection problems to report at this frame rate. So - it HAS to be something serverside. At least we finally have a blue response. I have no doubt it will be solved. The only question is when/how.

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x45/Xzin-WoW/140FPSWoW.jpg

If I disable all settings - keeping the same resolution - I am able to push nearly 250 fps.

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x45/Xzin-WoW/WoW-247FPS.jpg

Which is just stupid for a game like WoW. Anything over 30 - 60 (preference) in high end PvP combat with lots going on is going to give you no extra benefit. But hey - with lots going on at the same time... its nice to be able to keep trucking at 30-60+ :)

But the take away here is that no matter how high I let my framerates go, it never disconnected me.

Interestingly enough, changing resolutions had almost NO impact on framerates. I think I know why. When you stretch WoW out to far, far beyond what the devs EVER intended (like 3400x2600+) then your UI scales up but the game looks pretty much the same. You see the same thing as if you were looking at the game from a 800x600 screen - unlike most games which actually let you see "more" of the screen.

For example: this is my radar. In full size. 1:1 ratio.

http://i183.photobucket.com/albums/x45/Xzin-WoW/3475x2644WoWRadar.jpg

But the actual PLAYING space remains pretty much exactly the same.

[hapiguy314]

I tested my own method of the d/c on AF issue. I know for a fact that when I put the wow client window underneath another application - I will undoubtedly d/c (ie if I put it under Internet Explorer or another wow client - the one in the bottom will dc).

However, if i keep the wow windows on top of other apps (or make sure both are on separate monitors), I never get d/c. I've been able to successfully make this happen 10/10x. I'm not saying it's the bible when it comes to d/c - but whenever I place my wow windows underneath another app - it sure disconnects. I do not get d/c on the PCs that only run 1 wow client (whether it's full or windowed mode) - only to the PC that runs 2 clients of wow at the same time.

Maybe others can try if this happens to them as well...