New to dual WoW accounts

[Narcyn]

Greetings all!
I'm new to the scene and need some advice after reading through the forums. I recently bought a new video card. I spoke to some guildies after getting it installed and we were under the impression that my machine would be beefy enough to run two accounts from it.

Intel Pentium (R) D CPU 2.80 GHz
2GB of RAM
GeForce 8600 GT OTC - 256MB GDDR3 RAM
160GB SATA hard drive
Windows XP

I've got both monitors connected to this card and windows set to horizontal span. Launch two instances of WoW (from the same install path) and have all video settings set to a minimum. Both are in windowed mode, primary screen maximized and the other not. Here is what I run into:

Single instance of WoW on primary screen - 100+ fps
Two instances of WoW with one minimized - 60+ fps
Two instances of WoW with one open on each monitor - 20 fps on primary and 10 fps on secondary

I have changed settings, made sure that all of my drivers were up to date. I don't mind running with one minimized except for the "follow" lag. I still can't figure out what else will help improve performance any more. Would running both accounts from the primary monitor make a difference? What am I missing?

Thank you in advance

[Gallo]

Simple Answer: Windows XP cannot accelerate 2 separate screens. You need to upgrade to Vista to run 2 monitors off 1 card like that.

[Narcyn]

Easy enough. Upgrade to Vista or get a second video card. Sounds like a plan to me. Thanks much.

[Gallo]

Easy enough. Upgrade to Vista or get a second video card. Sounds like a plan to me. Thanks much.

I think with XP, even a 2nd video card wouldn't work very well. FYI.

[Narcyn]

Good deal. That narrowed the options down even further. Vista here I come.

[Gallo]

Just don't be upset if something else completely stops working with Vista.

I wish you luck though.

This is why I haven't upgraded yet heh. I'm waiting on the first Service Pack to come out so that I know a lot of the initial bugs are gone.

[Narcyn]

Haha, yeah. The upgrade isn't going to happen any time soon, but it's good to know what needs to happen. I was just reading some reviews for Vista. The responses are all over the place. Guess it's a good thing that my computer is only used for WoW and email.

[jrox]

It honestly sounds like horizontal span isn't enabled (i know you said you have it on, but maybe its bugged some how and needs to be messed with). I have a similar sytem, AMD 3200+, ati x800gto, and I am able to run multiple copies of wow on multiple monitors and keep reasonable framerates.

[Sun]

[quote= (from the same install path) [/quote]


I found that when you do the same path like that one of those accounts will show(from addons) that it has accepted the quest when in reality it has not.

So I did what others have done and that is create another folder then rename the folder as w0w2. You can also have the 2 shortcuts on your desktop by renaming one of them (from the desktop). Find the w0w.exe and make a shortcut of it and place it on your desktop. Each account then has its own path and folder.

Its not much but...I do what I can to help. 8)