Game Performance - ???

[schlange]

I have a water cooled PC with an intel 6750 CPU and Nvidia 8800GTX graphics card. I have one install of Wow on a Raid 0 drive and the other 4 copies are symbolic linked.
My CPU normally runs at 2.67 GHz but I have overclocked it to run at 2.88 GHZ. All this on a Vista 64 machine with 4gb ram.

Before the patch I could run 5 instances of Wow without too much of a problem in targetting and fighting (outside lag in Statt). Now I get lag and slow FPS everywhere. I have the background windows set to 1 fps and the main set to 60. Has anything changed? What settings should I be running 5 instaces of Wow at? Is the machine just too old?

Please advise how you are all playing without going instance from lag and slow FPS with 5 boxing

[Ellay]

patch 3.0 killed the system spec's they require a lot more now for no reason in the exact same locations of the game. I hope they do fix it, as with the shadow graphics off which they added my performance still took a hit and I run separate pc's.

[schlange]

Thanks Ellay

I was wondering if I did something wrong. Since I will probably buy a new PC in next few months, What CPU and Graphics card do you recommend to 5 box?

Is SLI or Crossfire needed or just quad cores instead of dual cores?

[zanthor]

patch 3.0 killed the system spec's they require a lot more now for no reason in the exact same locations of the game. I hope they do fix it, as with the shadow graphics off which they added my performance still took a hit and I run separate pc's.I'm actually experiencing the exact opposite of this. I run AMD Phenom 9600 (2.3ghz) with no oc and an 8800gt... overall my performance is amazingly better. I do keep it maxfps locked at 27 for the forground and 10 for the background tasks... anything over 27 is really just eyecandy that you can't clearly identify anyhow (Persistance of vision).

I'd wager they did some tuning on their client to unfuck the AMD guys and actually perform similar on AMD and Intel hardware...

[mickske]

Can anyone else share their experiences? I am planning on returning to 5-boxing in WOTLK but want to be sure my system can still handle it as my CPU was already at nearly full capacity pre-3.0.

[Velassra]

I went from 60 fps on all 5 windows to lag city atm.

I haveVista 64, 8gig RAM, 2.66 Quad w/ a GTX 280.

I haven't messed w/ the settings yet as I just redoing my add-ons and macos last night but it was definately a lag fest.

[Ken]

I seem to have a performance boost since the last update. Specs: XP 64bit, 8GB RAM, GF 7900GTX

[Plaq]

Thanks Ellay

I was wondering if I did something wrong. Since I will probably buy a new PC in next few months, What CPU and Graphics card do you recommend to 5 box?

Is SLI or Crossfire needed or just quad cores instead of dual cores?



SLI or Crossfire are not needed. You need a quad core cpu(i prefer intel) and at least 4 gigs of RAM(at the moment 4 GB are enough, but i don´t know how it looks when the expansion is out). Add a geforce 260gtx or radeon hd4870 and you are good to go.

I have a 4x 2.4GHZ quad core with 8 GB RAM and a radeon hd4870. Runs very smoothly and i think i could even add one more instance of wow :D

My old system was a 2x 3GHZ amd with 4 GB RAM and a geforce 7900 gto. had to buy the new system because atfer 3.0 it couldn´t handle 5 wow instances anymore(at least not to my satisfaction ;) ).

[Sam DeathWalker]

sli and crossfire are not as good as they claim to be, avoid is my advise.

[Hachoo]

I'm running a dual core 2.53GHz, 3GB memory, 9800GT and have absolutely no FR or lag issues. My main window at 1280x960 runs 40-50FPS, and still gets 25 or so in shat, usually 30-35 in org. I have my clones (4 of them) set to 800x600 each, 10fps in the background.

I run the main window on CPU0, 4 clones on CPU1. The only downside to this is that if I have to switch to a clone window its a bit laggy (clones don't lag following my main or anything, just making one in the foreground or PiP is not very good), but if I move 1 clone back to CPU0 with the main, the clones are fine, and the main is fine, but it drops the FPS of the main by 10 or so, so 99% of the time i'd rather have the clones on a separate CPU.

Anyway just pointing out that I have a way lesser system than most people in this thread and dont have any lag or FPS issues. Maybe you guys have the detail settings way too high? WoW doesn't really look that much better with everything at max compared to everything at min (other than view distance which is nice to turn up a bit), so theres not really a compelling reason to set your graphic details high if they drop your frame rate too much.

[Sam DeathWalker]

I had to go from 1920 X 1200 to your resolution of 1280 X 960 on my non main computers. The lower resolution that we are playing at cuts lag a lot.

[Feardis]

i can run 5 wow windows now
before patch i could only run three
im cheerin :thumbup: :thumbsup:

[Lazzadorabcd]

I am having the exact same issue.

My CPU used to handle 5 clients with no issue at all now its at like 85-95% cpu usage where it used to be like 50%

I know blizzard added a bunch of new spell graphics and such but still this is a bit ridiculous.

Hopefully blizzard sees a problem vs expecting people to just upgrade the systems.

I am sure with 9 million customers there are going to be a lot of people that were just barely getting by before that have worst issues than I do....

[Plaq]

One thing I want to add:

With my amd dual core(2x 3.0GHZ)i had permanently 100% load on the cpu, even before 3.0. Now with the intel q6600(4x 2.4GHZ) and the new graphics card I never saw cpu load going over 40%(don´t know if and when how much the graphics card plays a role here).

So if your pc is struggling running 5 instances of wow and you can identify your cpu as the bottleneck, just go and get a quad core. Even the cheapest(q6600) will increase performance drastically.

[Nairi]

Sli is great now with its new drivers that support windowed gaming and multi monitor display, all the slowness is due to cpu power.
you need to play around with CPU affinity, currently i quadbox with a Q6600 and have my main wow seesion with high graphics use cpu 0,1 and rest of the slaves with lowered graphics and view distance(3 of them) share cpu 2 and 3.

Overall my fps with my main window is great stays at 30 in shatt. and 50+ everywhere else. the slaves however stay at 15-25 in shat and 30-40+ everywhere else.

[schlange]

great now with its new drivers that support


Do you use SLI cards with multiple monitors? I read somewhere that if you have 2 monitors you cannot have SLI cards or even 2 video cards. Seems kinda screwy in the logic?

Is SLI the way to go or just one of the super video cards that is actually 2 in one. I think with the next PC, I will get Quad CPU :D

[larifari]

Sli is great now with its new drivers that support windowed gaming and multi monitor display, all the slowness is due to cpu power.
you need to play around with CPU affinity, currently i quadbox with a Q6600 and have my main wow seesion with high graphics use cpu 0,1 and rest of the slaves with lowered graphics and view distance(3 of them) share cpu 2 and 3.

Overall my fps with my main window is great stays at 30 in shatt. and 50+ everywhere else. the slaves however stay at 15-25 in shat and 30-40+ everywhere else.

How can i share the cpu´s ?? I ve a Quadcore too and i am 5boxing. Probably someone can give me little help ??

thank you

[Frosty]

My FPS has dropped on all 3 of my machines.
And I have ALL settings at the lowest possible. :S

[Jafula]

How can i share the cpu´s ?? I ve a Quadcore too and i am 5boxing. Probably someone can give me little help ??Hot key net as an option to set CPU affinity. I think keyclone has something similar.

http://www.hotkeynet.com/ref/setaffinity.html

You also might want to look at these two threads about dual graphics cards:

Nvidia GTX260 and 8800GT, 5 box, expected FPS? ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=15341')

Dual cards/monitors, worse FPS? ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=15325')

[Nairi]

read somewhere that if you have 2 monitors you cannot have



Its all doable with the new 180.XXX drivers, but main thing for wow(dualboxing) is C P U..... it wants more....... 8o

Also if you're doing dualview only 1 Monitor is accelerated(hence the huge fps drop).
Horizontal span however accelerates all connected screens. <-- what you need to do if your doing dual screens dual vgas sli crossfire(not sure about this crossfire thing with windowed mode)....

[Nitro]

Sli is great now with its new drivers that support windowed gaming and multi monitor display, all the slowness is due to cpu power.
you need to play around with CPU affinity, currently i quadbox with a Q6600 and have my main wow seesion with high graphics use cpu 0,1 and rest of the slaves with lowered graphics and view distance(3 of them) share cpu 2 and 3.

Overall my fps with my main window is great stays at 30 in shatt. and 50+ everywhere else. the slaves however stay at 15-25 in shat and 30-40+ everywhere else.

How can i share the cpu´s ?? I ve a Quadcore too and i am 5boxing. Probably someone can give me little help ??

thank you

Go into your WTF folder and open your Config.WTF file with notepad

make sure your processAffinityMask is set to this:

SET processAffinityMask "15"

Do this for each of your clients and this will allow your wow processes to use any core and your OS will take care of the balancing act.

[Fef]

I also noticed better performance since the patch. Not really noticeable in the outer world, but really obvious in town (SW, IF, I'm not going to Shattrath too much yet, still under RAF leveling groups).

I am running 5 instances on an iMac (2.8GHz dual Core, HD2600Pro, 4GB, Windows XP under Bootcamp).

[Nairi]

Sli is great now with its new drivers that support windowed gaming and multi monitor display, all the slowness is due to cpu power.
you need to play around with CPU affinity, currently i quadbox with a Q6600 and have my main wow seesion with high graphics use cpu 0,1 and rest of the slaves with lowered graphics and view distance(3 of them) share cpu 2 and 3.

Overall my fps with my main window is great stays at 30 in shatt. and 50+ everywhere else. the slaves however stay at 15-25 in shat and 30-40+ everywhere else.

How can i share the cpu´s ?? I ve a Quadcore too and i am 5boxing. Probably someone can give me little help ??

thank you

Go into your WTF folder and open your Config.WTF file with notepad

make sure your processAffinityMask is set to this:

SET processAffinityMask "15"

Do this for each of your clients and this will allow your wow processes to use any core and your OS will take care of the balancing act.


dong that will give out equal amount of cpu power to all the wow isntances which in turn will drag all of them down in laggy areas, i found its best to give your main toon 2 cpus and let the rest of them share the remaining and 1 of the mains cpu..

SET processAffinityMask "3" For main sessions

SET processAffinityMask "14" For slave sessions

EDIT:

Do this if you want most of your cpu power to your main wow, if not then do SET processAffinityMask "15" to all sessions.

[Aethon]

Small question(s):

I use the same folder for all my WoW windows (tried the multifolders, didn't notice any difference)

1.) Is there a way to do this with 1 WoW folder? I'm guessing not.

2.) Is there a way to utilize this with the PiP features of Keyclone? I'm also guessing not.

[Thulos]

make sure your processAffinityMask is set to this:

SET processAffinityMask "15"

Do this for each of your clients and this will allow your wow processes to use any core and your OS will take care of the balancing act. Has something changed recently that allows a wow client to be assigned to all 4 cores? It was my understanding that wow was only coded to work against no more than 2 cores.

[Nairi]

make sure your processAffinityMask is set to this:

SET processAffinityMask "15"

Do this for each of your clients and this will allow your wow processes to use any core and your OS will take care of the balancing act. Has something changed recently that allows a wow client to be assigned to all 4 cores? It was my understanding that wow was only coded to work against no more than 2 cores.works with multicores with patch.

[Nairi]

Small question(s):

I use the same folder for all my WoW windows (tried the multifolders, didn't notice any difference)

1.) Is there a way to do this with 1 WoW folder? I'm guessing not.

2.) Is there a way to utilize this with the PiP features of Keyclone? I'm also guessing not.


Multifolders with Multidrives works better imo, but yea multifolders you just edit each of its config file and set the affinity there.

with one folder you can manualy enter the affinity with task manager by right clicking on the processes.
keyclone has that option as well but doesnt let you set how many cores per sessions.

[Thulos]

make sure your processAffinityMask is set to this:

SET processAffinityMask "15"

Do this for each of your clients and this will allow your wow processes to use any core and your OS will take care of the balancing act. Has something changed recently that allows a wow client to be assigned to all 4 cores? It was my understanding that wow was only coded to work against no more than 2 cores.works with multicores with patch.With the 3.0.2 patch? That's hawt stuff!

[Thulos]

I tried:
SET processAffinityMask "3" For main sessions

SET processAffinityMask "14" For slave sessions

And:
SET processAffinityMask "15" For All

And they both brought my Q6600 4gb ram, 8800gt setup to its knees. I was getting 5fps with both setups on the main dude in shat and the cpu was utterly pegged. I couldn't even get back to this Firefox session to post without /quiting. Guess i'll go back to my:
SET processAffinityMask "3" For Main

SET processAffinityMask "4" For Two Drones

SET processAffinityMask "8" For Two Drones

[Thulos]

Hrm, I think my test is invalid because my usual setup is now borked as well. Something else is going on. Time to investimigatorize it.

[Ualaa]

I'm running Q6600 @ 2.4 ghz, 8gb ddr 800mhz ram, HD 4870 x2 2gb video, and play wow with sound disabled.
I play on a Samsung 305T: 640x480 (x4) along the top, with 1446x1085 main window, and a space open for FireFox, Ventrilo etc.

I 5-box on one machine, using Keyclone.
My background clients are limited to 10 FPS, my main window to 40 FPS.

With graphic settings all the way down on every client, except that the initial main has distance maxed but everything else minimal...
WoW runs smoothly everywhere except Shatt, which is definately playable if not perfectly smooth.

My only issue is with taking Flight Paths. Roughly half the time, one or two of my four smaller windows will freeze.
When this occurs, Keyclone will open (un-minimize) but reports as "not responding".
The only way to get it to work is a re-boot, even with ending task in task manager it will not restart.
This issue is new to 3.x did not have it in 2.x

[Thulos]

Ualaa, what affinity settings are you using?

[Thulos]

Well it looks like I was pushing too close to my 4g limit and was hitting swapping issues. Went and picked up 4gb more of matching memory and it's back to normal operation. Was only having the issue in shatt and it just started today but whatever. I'm liking this setup so far:

SET processAffinityMask "3" For main sessions

SET processAffinityMask "14" For slave sessions

[Cybelor]

I'm running two windows (Lowest WS res (1280x800 I think?)) and I am also noticing an increase in lag. They have definitely increased the quality of the graphics and I is a little taxing, but still very much playable.

I am running on AMD 5600+ / 4GB ram / 8800GTS 512 / XPpro

[Ualaa]

I've just been using the Keyclone CPU Affinity, in the Command Editor portion of Set-Up.

WoW 1: Cpu-0
WoW 2: Cpu-1
WoW 3: Cpu-2
WoW 4: Cpu-3
WoW 5: Cpu-3

Each wow has it's own directory. Wow 1 & 2 are on C drive (Raptor 10,000 rpm). Wow 3-5 are on D drive (Seagate 7,200 rpm).