BSOD Running Two Instances of WoW on 1 PC

[colorblindjimbo]

To begin with, I'll give you my PC Specs:
CPU= 3.8ghz Single Core Intel Processor
Memory=2GB DDR2 Dual Channel Ram @ 533MHZ
GFX= ATI Radeon X850 256mb
Monitor= Single Widescreen 19" Monitor

Here are some other pieces of information

1. I am using WoW Maximizer
a. Splits it into 2 Vertical Columns
b. Simply running two Copies, doesn't seem to give me any errors, but they occur at the next step
2. I am using KeyClone
a. I feel this is where it is coming from
b. When I try to move it makes a dull "Beep" noise, as if there was an invalid key entered
c. After about 10 seconds, my screen goes black and the BSOD pops up "BAD_POOL_CALL", begginning dump of data in 10 seconds... etc...

Each wow instance is running from its own WoWDirectory.

Any ideas? If you need anymore information please let me know.

-James

[keyclone]

sorry to say, but it sounds like a bad memory issue. what OS are you running? i haven't seen a BSOD in .. well.. years i think

what else is running on the box? does keyclone run normally if you run 1 application? how about running word instead of keyclone (another app that will eat memory). how about not running wow maximizer and just run keyclone direct.. and then run your wows?

does this happen consistently?

that box is much better then my laptop.. and i'm able to run 3 at once on it (well.. 15-24fps..)

as an fyi... running wows from their own directories kills any possibility of code sharing via the DLLs. the net effect would be increasing overall memory usage

[colorblindjimbo]

sorry to say, but it sounds like a bad memory issue. what OS are you running? i haven't seen a BSOD in .. well.. years i think

what else is running on the box? does keyclone run normally if you run 1 application? how about running word instead of keyclone (another app that will eat memory). how about not running wow maximizer and just run keyclone direct.. and then run your wows?

does this happen consistently?

that box is much better then my laptop.. and i'm able to run 3 at once on it (well.. 15-24fps..)

as an fyi... running wows from their own directories kills any possibility of code sharing via the DLLs. the net effect would be increasing overall memory usage
I'm new to this whole Dual-Boxing thing, so bare with me.

I've been able to run WoW, CS, and have Word open as well as Itunes, and AIM, Logmein, Steam, etc... all at the same time and I've never gotten BSOD. It could be something wrong with the high memory addressing of one of my last DIMMs in my memory, I'm going to run a memtest later tonight when I get some time.

you said "how about not running wow maximizer and just run keyclone direct.. and then run your wows?"

How do you do this? I'm new the keyclone APP as well, still getting used to it.

Thanks for your help.

[keyclone]

check this post:
http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums2/viewtopic.php?p=10052#10052

also, make sure your wows are in windowed mode before starting. just go into wow, get to the video settings, and click windowed mode.. then exit the game.

you don't have to run your wows maximized... it just looks cooler.

if your buttons are cut off, which they most likely will be, then look for an addon like bongos to move them around.

i hope that helps. drop me a note and let me know how it goes.

[colorblindjimbo]

I believe it was the hyperthreading. I turned it off, and now its been working fine.

I'm running into a problem where keyclone just stopped working. It wouldnt copy the keystrokes to the other instance of wow, maybe itll work after i reboot. if not, i'll just reinstall it.

[keyclone]

hyperthreading effecting keyclone? that'd be odd.

can anyone else confirm this?

[MrLonghair]

Since that is resolved I'll bring my own problem in here, first computer specs:

ATI 2600XT (256 megs)
X2 3800+
2gig ram in two sticks (667 speed)
XP Pro 32


Two WoW clients, different folders, different HDs, windowed and windowed maximized returns:

If both are set to Direct3D - tearing, flickering, green distant texture problems
OpenGL - black screen when logging in except for effects, no models (players, npcs, enemies) when logged in visible
OpenGL without M2Shaders - crap performance

Every solution has been tried out, different drivers, all settings and solutions I googled and wow-europe forum and worldofwarcraft.com forumed forth. Tried fresh installs of WoW but the same problem occurs every time.

It worked before 2.3, the computer is healthy, defragged, the graphics card doesn't appear to be sick, console commands and config.wtf changes haven't solved the D3D+D3D client issue, running both clients fullscreen is out of the question.

[keyclone]

@MrLongHair

you rig sounds beefy enough... no idea why it would be having issues with only 2 clients running.

i have read about a few graphical issues since 2.3. have you tried asking on the wow tech support forums? i saw some graphical artifacts (graphic bugs) once, but not since. i was not able to reliably reproduce it.

[MrLonghair]

There are posts about what I'm having on both the US and the EU blizzard forums, but nothing from the Blues so far. The thing is that they're only running single clients and getting this, while I have to bring up two D3D clients.

The flickering I see with two D3D is what's drawn on the other client, but in small flickering segments. Like in Arathi it could be far away hills or structures, in Orgrimmar and UC walls and houses and bits of interior detail.

Feels like another ATI specific thing, and my strongest Nvidia card is a 6600GT.

[keyclone]

well, i have only nvidea cards, and i saw an artifact... granted, mine was just a black or garbled box.

by your description, it sounds like overlapping graphics memory reads... as if images are written into an area held by another process... which is very bad (probably client side software and not the driver). my guess is that the guys at blizzard are pushing the gpu a bit too much or just on the line of capacity... for the cards they are using, which would be fairly sweet i'm sure.

[MrLonghair]

Yep, even saw random garbled terrain on my way to experiment in SM Cath on my priest duo. Another week or two so until I get a card with 512 megs of memory :/

I really miss having a second computer as a client. Maybe it feels better if I go fullscreen

[keyclone]

try using maximizer (keyclone also has one built in)

http://solidice.com/keyclone/screencaps/keyclone_maximizer_vertical_split_23oct2007a.jpg

or

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/4148/81983987ry3.jpg

here's a link on setting up maximizer:
http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums2/viewtopic.php?p=15165#15165
and
http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums2/viewtopic.php?t=1560&highlight=keyclone+maximizer

keep this in mind for performance:
http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums2/viewtopic.php?p=13414#13414

and here's something on using keyclone's commands:
http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums2/viewtopic.php?p=12300#12300

[MrLonghair]

Same story with Maximizer. I'm starting to think it's my graphics card. In that case I'll have RMAd three out of three cards I've bought from Sapphire >:(

The time I managed to play before a black screen of death (drwatson told me it was the graphics) after getting keyclone setup was so much better than with the freeware solutions, I must say. Felt like I was running two computers and two clients again since there was no more lag than I was used to with two computers.

[keyclone]

have you tried setting the maxfps and maxfpsbk? this would generally help performance and it may reduce the likelihood of a threading conflict (which is what i'm thinking is the issue)

in game, you can type:

/console maxfps 50
/console maxfpsbk 20

setting your non-active clients to a lower fps will save you cpu and gpu cycles. this is where i'm thinking you'll gain the most benefit.

beyond 50 fps is really not needed for the active screen. it might be a bit smoother, but try it and see if your system is happier

[MrLonghair]

The driver ati2dvag for the display device \Device\Video0 got stuck in an infinite loop. This usually indicates a problem with the device itself or with the device driver programming the hardware incorrectly. Please check with your hardware device vendor for any driver updates.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Doh :(

[MrLonghair]

Well, it's solved by running one D3D and one OpenGL client, the OGL isn't that bad in the wild, only in the cities really.