Here we go. Performance harp

[Dorps]

So I have been into multiboxing a little bit before I came here. Started when I wante dot get a 60 of each classing using RAF as fast as possilble and evolved into me essentially multiboxing.

Well I am now at the point that I have 5 accounts. I already have my 60s that i moved throughout the accounts in order to run 5.

I have come into a problem though. I am running 5 instances of WoW at once, Realm0 taking up the majority of my screen and realms1-4 side by side below realm0.

My FPS iS CRAP. Im talking im running about 7 FPS in outlands with settings on all of my accounts as low as they will go in Video options.

I have read the stickies and I cannot find anything that can suggest such fixes besides the ground clutter thing, which I have also set to low, to no resolve.

I consider my comp pretty damn good.. I would guess

Dual Core AMD (dunno what else it is eh)
8800 GT vid
2gb ram
500w power supply

Yet my computer seems to simply not want to handle 5 instances of WoW...

Can anyone help me here or am I just SOL?

[Style1one]

I would check the wiki aswell there is plenty of stuff there. Aswell through all the threads on here. But this is what I would sugjest you looking at first before anything (hardware specs needed for the min of running 5 accounts)

http://www.dual-boxing.com/wiki/index.php/Getting_started#Verify_that_your_hardware_can_hand le_it

In short from what I have read (since I have been researching before I build a rig to 5 box)

Need a quad core processer (a 2.6 is able to run 8 copys of wow)

You will need atleast another gig of ram.

Not sure if you will need to pick up better psu but possibily.

Aswell as you will need 2 hds that are running at 7200rpm

(Mind you this is just what I have researched through the site and with that I would sugjest that you look further into the site, there are tons of posts, the wiki has allot of info aswell)

[thinus]

2gb ram


Don't go into any major city.

2GB is simply not going to be good enough for 5 WoWs, even with everything down as low as it would go I think. A quad core processor is also recommended for 5-boxing but I think good dual cores can handle it fine.

[ChaoticMonk]

Get another 2 gigs of ram (specially if your running vista)
Do a search for a performance macro that allows you to push your settings lower than what the ingame options allow
Switch off all sound on your alt characters
Do a search for junction/symlink/mklink, might help you.

Goodluck!

[zanthor]

2gb ramFailure is right there, add another 2GB and you'll be fine on RAM. Go download CPU-Z http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php and find out what chips under the hood, if it's a dual core 1.6ghz chip you wont be quin boxing on it.

[elsegundo]

two gigs ram and five accounts just will not work!!
upgrade to 4 and you'll be decent. not great, but decent.

[Rudi89]

Switch off all sound on your alt charactersThis should help a ton. My computer is quite similar (AMD X2 4k, 2gig RAM, 8800GT, WinXP) and I have no problem running 5 instances with the video turned down and the sound off outside of major cities. I run Keyclone Maximizer with main screen at 40ish FPS and the alts turned down to 10FPS. The performance difference between having the sound on and off is profound.

[Dorps]

Then I am definately doing something wrong...

My specs( TY For the CPUid link!)

Custom built comp: AMD 64 X2 4200+, 2 gig RAM, 8800GT, WinXP).

Now I am running maximizer as well, I dont understand what you mean by Main screen at 40 FPS and alts at 10? Could you also possibly send me your maximizer screen setup? could that contribute to it?

I made the macro to set Detail: Low as well. I have all sound turned of on all of my toons, I dont like WoW sounds :P.

Could it also be that I am running addons such as Questhelper?

[Dorps]

To add to my last, I also had the affinity set to NONE for all accounts in the command settings.



Will changing these to CPU0 and CPU1 change anything? If so, which of the accounts(Main and 4 Slaves) should I put on each CPU?

[ChaoticMonk]

Setting affinity on a quad core can help but I dont know how affective it would be on a dual core, I would just leave it alone and let windows decide for you.

If you open up keyclone and go into setup then command editor you'll see 2 fields called maxfpsbk (how much fps your slaves can go up to) and maxfps (how much fps your main can go up to). Setting maxfps on all wow regions to 30-40 and slaves at 10-15 should help you a TON.

[Hachoo]

Your processor and graphics card are fine for 5boxing on one PC (I have a lesser processor and vid card and do just fine).

However yes what everyone else said, 3GB is the minimum to 5 box on 1 PC. 3GB is fine for XP, I am even ok in Shattrath.

Also, a HUGE help for 5boxing is a second hard drive. Put 1-2 accounts on 1 drive, and 3-4 on the other drive. Then find the post about symbolically linking your data/cache directories from all slave accounts to the master account.

Also, find the latency trick post.

With all of that combined you'll be 5 boxing with no issues whatsoever. I have an 8600GT video card and I'm totally fine everywhere except Shatt. In shatt I get some reduced FPS but its still 15 or so and would be faster with an 8800GT. Its still super slow for about 15 seconds after landing but after that it speeds up quite a bit.

[Dorps]

Setting affinity on a quad core can help but I dont know how affective it would be on a dual core, I would just leave it alone and let windows decide for you.

If you open up keyclone and go into setup then command editor you'll see 2 fields called maxfpsbk (how much fps your slaves can go up to) and maxfps (how much fps your main can go up to). Setting maxfps on all wow regions to 30-40 and slaves at 10-15 should help you a TON.So for Region0-Region4 I need to set maxfps to say 35 and again, Region1-Region4 set maxfpsbk to 10?

I would test without asking but servers are down :(

also to add, would I be better off using my laptop?

ASUS
Intel Mobile Core 2 Duo T5600(1.83ghz)
4g RAM
NVIDIA GeForce 9500m GS
Windows Vista 64bit

[Hachoo]

Oh and yes affinity is damn near REQUIRED to successfully 5box on one PC.

With a dual core, set your main and 1 clone on 1 core, and the other 3 clones on the other core.

[wizofid]

I have been 5 boxing on one PC with no graphical lag at all.

Machine specs: Dual core 2.4 GHz CPUS, 4GB memory, Geforce 8800 GTS with 640 MB video mem, 10000 rpm raptor harddrive.

Latest Nvidia driver ( 6.14.11.7813), Directx 9c, Windows XP professional, service pack 3

Because I use Windows XP I am really only getting 2.75 GB of my 4 GB, but the system is performing much better. Damn microsoft.

I took my 5 toons through Stormwind yesterday to get to stockades(they are 25 now) and had no issues whatsoever. Have not tried outland yet.

I use one screen with 1 big window and 4 small windows. I have 2 window installations, one for the main, and one shared by the clones. The video options on the clones are all at minimum settings and sound disabled. have maxfps at 50 and maxbgfps set to 15.

If I run through a lot of zones via flight or running I sometimes get triangles on my graphics screens and after a while the graphics freeze, but thats the same whether I am running 1 or 5. I have basically given up on solving that problem.

[Rudi89]

So for Region0-Region4 I need to set maxfps to say 35 and again, Region1-Region4 set maxfpsbk to 10?

I would test without asking but servers are down :(

also to add, would I be better off using my laptop?
I set my main region to 40FPS and the alt regions to 10FPS. If you have a second computer available you can buy another instance of Keyclone and run the 5 toons spread across both computers (assuming you have a, uh, LAN at home). I was doing this for a while before I figured out the Maximizer setup and all (4 alt toons on one box, the 1 main toon on the other).


If I run through a lot of zones via flight or running I sometimes get triangles on my graphics screens and after a while the graphics freeze, but thats the same whether I am running 1 or 5. I have basically given up on solving that problem. That sounds like your video card may be overheating.

[wizofid]

On the overheating... Well RivaTuner is showing it running quite cool. But I will double check.

[Jelatin]

Oh and yes affinity is damn near REQUIRED to successfully 5box on one PC.

With a dual core, set your main and 1 clone on 1 core, and the other 3 clones on the other core.

Can anyone else verify this? Im thinking i might set my affinity if more people suggest. I do ok right now