Use Quadcore fully?

[bodefeld]

Hi,
I am running four instances of WoW on a single Quadcore machine /w vista64. The system monitor tells me that only two cores are used while the others are idle. Is it possible to use all four cores? And if so, how is it done?
I am aware that this issue has been mentioned in several other threads, but I could not find an answer yet. I could imagine that re-assigning processes to specific cores is task that should be done by an expert - which I am clearly not. So if there is a simple way to change this, please let me know.

Thanks,
George

PS: Wasn't sure where to post this, I hope "general" is fine...

[Uliena]

Hello Bodefeld.

You can do assigning core quite easy by starting 'taskmanager' (on finnish version atm so not certain about name here) and rightclicking on wow.exe to set affinity.
Then proceed to remove all checks but one (1st cpu).

Repeat this for every instance of wow.exe, just check 2nd cpu on second instance and 3rd cpu on 3rd etc.

If you have seperate folders for all WoWs you can do this by editing wows config file too.

[wougoose]

I just got my Quad set up today and used a small application from Tom's Hardware to assign affinity to specific applications. There are many other ways to do it. Setting the affinity in config.wtf didn't end up working for me, so I just went this route until I can figure out why :)

You can find the article and application here: http://www.tomshardware.com/2004/05/28/getting_more_bang_out_of_your_dual_processing_buck/index.html

I created a new application profile for WoW.exe and set the affinity to all 4 cores. With that setting, all cores have a balanced load when all 5 instances of WoW are running.

Hope that helps.

-Goose

[bodefeld]

Thanks for the quick replies, Uliena and wougoose. I will see if I can figure it out when I'm back home from work. Obviously, it can be done quite easily - I'm glad.
Happy boxing!
George

[Djaria]

I went the way of editing the config.wtf of each client.

First client:
SET processAffinityMask "1"
Second:
SET processAffinityMask "2"
Third:
SET processAffinityMask "4"
And fourth client:
SET processAffinityMask "8"

This way each client uses one CPU and I don't need any other applications. Works like a charm for me. Load is distributed evenly over all cores. Here is a thread that gave the hint:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=1778017311

[smokebum]

Just wondering, does doing this actually improve performance?

[Wilbur]

It should do. WoW is not totally multi-threaded yet, so assigning it to one core should give you a slight performance boost.

[jdraughn]

I went the way of editing the config.wtf of each client.

First client:
SET processAffinityMask "1"
Second:
SET processAffinityMask "2"
Third:
SET processAffinityMask "4"
And fourth client:
SET processAffinityMask "8"

This way each client uses one CPU and I don't need any other applications. Works like a charm for me. Load is distributed evenly over all cores. Here is a thread that gave the hint:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=1778017311

This will work well, however if you set it so all the instances of the game can use all 4 cpus, then you will get better performance, especially if you have graphics and other options turned down on some of the instances of the game.

Windows will do a fantastic job of balancing the load between the CPU's, but by letting each instance of the game only have access to 1 cpu each, you are severely gimping each of those instances. You may have some instances of wow only running at 20% cpu usage while some are pegged at 100% and giving you reduced framerates. By allowing all of them to have access to all 4 cores you can be sure you are using your 4 core CPU to the max.

[Djaria]

Well, you could put
SET processAffinityMask "15" on all of them but I heard that sometimes it causes problems so I went with the 1 client, 1 cpu option. Since none of the CPU's max out atm, I don't really think I'm gimping myself.

[jdraughn]

Well, you could put
SET processAffinityMask "15" on all of them but I heard that sometimes it causes problems so I went with the 1 client, 1 cpu option. Since none of the CPU's max out atm, I don't really think I'm gimping myself.

Well, I have the Q6600 with a 8800GTS, and the game easily pegs all 4 of cores, especially with 5 instances of the game running at the same time. I would like to see where you heard that it sometimes causes problems, it worked fine for me.