How can I improve video "chopyness" while 5xing?

[Clovis]

Hi everyone,

I've been a multiboxer for a few years (I used a two system setup to quad-box in everquest) but recently picked it up again.

Here's the problem. While running 5x of WOW, my FRAPS will indicate 40-50 FPS in open areas but it still looks a bit choppy on the master character. Also, there will be brief moments of the game freezing and then catching up again.

While originally just dual boxing two characters I never had this problem and both ran at 60 FPS with no issues, this issue seems to only occur when I 5x and possibly just 4x (3x is fine performance wise).

I'm running a single machine set up with dual monitors; I did notice that the performance actually decreased when I ran with just 1 monitor this evening which is odd as I'm not sure how that's related.

Here are the machine's stats:

Intel 2 Cor Duo E6850 @ 3.00GHz

4 Gigs of RAM

Nvida based 8800 GTS w/ 640 megs of video ram

Dual 250gig hard drives, I believe they're 7200 RPMs but I don't recall specifically, I built this machine a year ago.

a LG Flatron 22" widescreen with 2ms and a 17" HP (model 1740) - I don't know the stats as I picked it off craigs list, but I run the slaves off that one).

The first thing I did was reduce the settings from maxed out on everything to the lowest settings which did help but I'm kind of at a loss for what else to do. The system is a year old so while it's not as high end as the newer ones out today (and it wasn't top of the line a year ago - we're it was only $1700 to build and that included the 22").

The system and video card supports dual SLI and as my wife has an identical system, I thought about taking her video card and buying her a new one, but then I read that WOW doesn't support SLI so apparently that wouldn't help.

Are there any other tweeks or upgrades I could try or is this basically as good as it gets?

Thanks,



-Clov

[Duane]

More RAM is always nice. I'd also check to see if you have the latest graphic drivers.

[Nitro]

I was having these same issues as soon as I started playing the wotlk patch. The game is just more memory intensive now. I use to get away with 4GB just fine but when that patch dropped I was having tons of issues, upgraded to Vista64 with 8GB of ram last week and all is good now, Vista64 is so much better than it was last time i tried (6-9 months ago).

[Clovis]

So 8 GB huh? That's pretty inexpensive to do these days and heck I can just buy a new 8gb set, give my 4gb to my wife (christmas!) and kill two birds with one stone :)

I currently run Vista Home Premium; a year ago I didn't upgrade to Vista 64 due to compatability issues, is this still the case?

Also, can someone confirm that WOW does not benifit from an SLI set up?

Thanks!

-Clov

[pengwynman]

So 8 GB huh? That's pretty inexpensive to do these days and heck I can just buy a new 8gb set, give my 4gb to my wife (christmas!) and kill two birds with one stone :)

I currently run Vista Home Premium; a year ago I didn't upgrade to Vista 64 due to compatability issues, is this still the case?

Also, can someone confirm that WOW does not benifit from an SLI set up?

Thanks!

-Clovi haven't had any vista 64 compatibility issues, driver support is pretty good. from what i know wow doesn't benefit from SLI, but that's not first-hand, just what i've heard :P

[Duane]

So 8 GB huh? That's pretty inexpensive to do these days and heck I can just buy a new 8gb set, give my 4gb to my wife (christmas!) and kill two birds with one stone :)

I currently run Vista Home Premium; a year ago I didn't upgrade to Vista 64 due to compatability issues, is this still the case?

Also, can someone confirm that WOW does not benifit from an SLI set up?

Thanks!

-Clov
Knock on wood but Vista 64 has been pretty rock solid for me - very few hang ups or crashes with anything I've tried.

[pengwynman]

just noticed you listed a dual core cpu in your setup, that could be a potential bottleneck as well. quad core is recommended for 5-boxing on one machine :P

[Clovis]

Since my wife has an identical machine, I took the 4gb out of hers and put it mine to test it out. While load times were faster and the game did run overall a tad smoother, it's still limited to around 25FPS in the BC areas (40+ in the original WOW areas). I can certainly look at getting a quad core and I'll look this up but do you happen to know if the dual cores and quad cores use the same socket on a motherboard (ie, can I use my exsisting MB without replacing that and essentially rebuilding it)?

Thanks!

-Clov

[pengwynman]

Since my wife has an identical machine, I took the 4gb out of hers and put it mine to test it out. While load times were faster and the game did run overall a tad smoother, it's still limited to around 25FPS in the BC areas (40+ in the original WOW areas). I can certainly look at getting a quad core and I'll look this up but do you happen to know if the dual cores and quad cores use the same socket on a motherboard (ie, can I use my exsisting MB without replacing that and essentially rebuilding it)?

Thanks!

-Clovyes and no. some of the newer quad cores use the smaller 45nm processing tech and won't work in all of the slightly older motherboards. if you were to get a Q6600 (good cpu, you can get it for under $200 now) it should work in your motherboard without a problem, as it uses the 65nm tech. you'll want to check compatibility with your mobo before buying of course :P

[Bollwerk]

Quad core, 8gb ram, 64-bit os.

[Clovis]

I don't recall which MB I have as I can't find the original boxes from last year, so I looked up the stats on the CPU (E6850) and using that as a basis it looks like anything with a 775 socket and 65 nm manufacturing will work, including the 6600 you recommended ($190 on newegg) - Basically, upgrading to that and buying a new set of 8gb ram (goes to show how things change, last year 4gb was "overkill") will run a mear $300 and I can upgrade my wife's machine to 8gb as well.

Irony here, the processesor I currently have is still selling for $200 on newegg, go figure... at the time the quads were just way too expensive.

Thanks for the help!

-Clovis (Clovian / Clovina)

[puppychow]

keep in mind xp or vista32 will only "see" 4gb (and really only 3GB I believe with most video cards), you need vista64 for 8gb. Also make sure you are decent with CPUs, frankly I'd rather just spend the $100 on a new motherboard than try to extract my CPU from my current mobo -- I have pulling out the heatsink without breaking it, pulling out the chip without busting it, making sure theres no dust anywhere, etc.

also live.com has cashback on ebay purchases, you may actually find a quad core w/ mobo on ebay cheaper with 20-25% cashback.

[Clovis]

Update, I found some of the original manuals - I have an abit IP35 Pro MB - as far as if it supports 45nm or not, I'm still working on that - their site and support forums are currently down.

To upgrade to vista 64 unfortnately will cost another $120 to re-buy the damn OEM version (as I have an OEM, not retail version of vista currently... and in that case if you want to change from 32 to 64 or visa versa it requires buying both sets seperately... thank you microsot).