Wow folder in System Ram for $800

[Sam DeathWalker]

Ok the deal then is to get WoW into ram ....

Here is a single processor board with 8 DIMM for up to 32G DDR2 (cheap) ram.

http://www.8anet.com/merchant.ihtml?pid=5631&lastcatid=5&step=4

$60 or so for 4G, so only $480 for 32G ram.

http://www.amazon.com/4GB-800MHZ-DDR2-Ecc-Dimm/dp/B000Z1I26I/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1243047386&sr=1-6

Man what robbers, price went up since i posted and its a 2X2G kit lol ... where in that add would you figure its a 2X2G kit ....


Humm though, no audio and only PCIx16 buss. And "proprietary power connectors" humm ...

Well no audio is no problem:

http://www.aocusa.com/pview.php?g=Multimedia&c=Sound%20Cards&sc=Sound%20Cards&model=USB-AUDIO

And PCIx16 gets you a 2G video card:

http://www.pacificgeek.com/product.asp?id=108295


So for $800 you have yur wow folder in system ram, and goodbye texture lag.

[glo]

The way you do math is amazing to me.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Those ram adds are sure misleading.

Ok here is the real deal:

http://www.buy.com/prod/smart-modular-4gb-ddr2-sdram-memory-module-4gb-1-x-4gb-667mhz-ddr2-667/q/loc/101/208651959.html?dcaid=17988

$68 each so 70X8 = 560 plus 310 is umm $870.

[glo]

So they are throwing in the video and proprietary power supply you mentioned for free?

[Flekkie]

Hah! That's a lot of ram.

[Enndo]

Or.. you can spend $130 and get an ssd lol.

[Sam DeathWalker]

I hope they have an adaptor for the powersupply, otherwise looks like its soldering iron time ...

CPU not cheap but thats intel for you:

http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=1243098016/ref=sr_st?keywords=intel+xeon+lga771&rs=172282&page=1&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Aintel+xeon+lga771%2Ci%3Aelectroni cs%2Cn%3A172282%2Cn%3A%21493964&sort=price

One guy has a used 2.66G for only $172, but figure about $300 for a solid processor for this board:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B000PE6VNG/ref=sr_1_olp_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1243098095&sr=1-2


So:

MB $300
32G System Ram $500
CPU $300
2G Video card $200
1 300G Veloraptor $200?

So for $1500 you have a screaming system with which on paper would have no texture lag. The WHOLE wow folder is in system ram! You will never have to go to the hard drive. Hope it works with 64bit Windows 7, but it should I guess.


Well SSD is 3gbits/sec at the very best. System ram is way way faster:

http://www.linuxdevices.com/files/misc/intel_5100.jpg

[Chorizotarian]

If you symlink your WoW data folders my impression is that with a fast HD (2x Raptors in RAID0 in my case) you don't spend much time waiting on the HD. The limiting factor on perf for me seems to be CPU load in areas with lots of other toons: Dalaran, Wintergrasp, etc.

Have you tried using perfmon or another tracing tool to verify that disk access is really limiting your perf?

[Sam DeathWalker]

i try 4 ssd ocz core raid 0 and maxi was around 600 MB/s reading

Is it worth upgrading from a Q9550 to a i7 920? ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=21993')

Easy to prove; go to Darlen and look at your HDD light. Light off in someplace where there are no people (look at wall) FPS is high. Turn and look at people HHD light starts blinking big time and FPS is low. See for yourself.

Lax also thinks you could be cpu limited. My chips are running at 3.2GHZ, I havent looked at assembly code in awhile but what 8 clocks at most for a multiply? I can't see what wow is doing that you need like millions on million of multiplications or whatever each second. If its cpu limited its cause the dma part of the cpu is moving data from your hard drive to system ram to cpu to video ram.

[grap]

i can see the cpu limited if one or the four i7 cores reach 100.
with one x4870 and one screen 24in i didnt reach the 100 but with one x4870 and two screens 24in and 19in, i m very near 100 and few time 100 in dalaran

i ll try to OC 2.66 to 3 GHz to check the result.

for HDD, i use the w7 task manager disk data curves. it shows great reading of ssds when i arrive in dalaran but stop after 30s and usually sleep quietly after.

To look at one wall ?
usually it s the same, when all team follow and run inside dalaran street, ips dont move so much. 50/40 ips on the morgning and 30/35 ips on full evening with .... many visitors
i havent break follow since i have 12 Go instead of 6

i ll be happy to have the same with 2 monitors ;)

i ll try to test with one nvidia 285 1 Go if it s better because my x4870 .... only 512 Mo ... maybe ...
i ll spend more time in test than in play ;)

[Sam DeathWalker]

Go to config.wtf file:

SET processAffinityMask "3"

on all instances and you will use one core and one virtual core, for all your instances (each client in other words, or different character).


Then

First Instance:
SET processAffinityMask "3"

Second Instance:
SET processAffinityMask "12"

Third Instance
SET processAffinityMask "48"

Forth Instance
SET processAffinityMask "196"

Set each different for different instances and you will get the first one on 1st core and virtual core, the 2nd on the 2nd core and vitrual core etc.


http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?sid=1&topicId=1778017311&postId=19976316267&ST=US-625865-TAuCiJFtfgginLKY4O9nwpHoUviDYaQV671


So see when you start to get CPU at 100 stuck.

In the first test Start with one instance, then add another to the same core, then another, then the 4th, and see when you get 100percent on the first core.

In second test run all on different cores and see if any go 100percent.



it shows great reading of ssds when i arrive in dalaran

When you arrive in dalaran and there is "great reading" does frame rate go down a lot, and then up later after 30s when the drives sleep?

[Moorea]

Easy to prove; go to Darlen and look at your HDD light. Light off in someplace where there are no people (look at wall) FPS is high. Turn and look at people HHD light starts blinking big time and FPS is low. See for yourself.


I don't know how to say that in a way that won't be perceived as inflammatory but I think it's a diservice to newbies not to :

There should really be a disclaimer on all/most sam's post "I have no idea what I'm talking about but I'll pretend I'm an expert anyway - I will assert as fact what is just my typically ill informed guess"

Have you ever been to dalaran Sam ? So why are you advising people about solving dalaran lag, possibly spending hundreds on "solutions" ?

Next you'll be advising people on how to best boost/level... oh wait you did already...

[Sam DeathWalker]

Let the readers decide who to believe; someone with facts and links to support their position, or someone who just types some negative comments. I really don't see you posting any real info in the hardware section.

Hey by the way Im heading to HP soon, my warlock is 16 now and when he hits 20 I can summon all my guys there (hell get their with raf summon heh). I looked at yur spots and the flyers are indeed good but Im going to try the voidwalkers in the south first; not sure where you ment the deamons.

If you look at the wall you arn't loading any textures ....

And Im sorry to tell you untill someone points out a better system then my fastest raf method, its the best:

A - B - C - D - E

Instance Boost B/C/D/E to 30

Boost d/e to 60

Make a new 30 on d from raf grants from e

Move the 30 on d to a.

Raf grant d to c to b to a.

Result is 5 level 60's by doing:

4 X 1-30
2 X 31-60

total 180 (and 120 of those level 30 or less) levels boosted; result 300 levels gained. Only 15 levels wasted (the 30 levels granted to A from B).

Show better or don't talk.

Copyright Sam Ferris 2009

This isn't a RAF thread.
-Svpernova09

So why are you advising people about solving dalaran lag Dalaran lag is "texture lag" where you have to go to the HHD to get textures to the video card, it can happen anywhere there is a lot of different characters; org or wherever, even raids etc. I don't have to "go to Dalaran" to know what texture lag is.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Would a large ram drive decrease texture lag, certainly. Will adding a little ram to your existing system do the same thing without a couple grand in hardware and the hassle of a ram drive load and possible instability of the system, certainly

So people with what 4G or 8G of ram don't get texture lag? You have to put the whole wow folder in ram otherwise you have to go to the hard disk at some point, and thats where texture lag starts. How do you claim that a system that requires hard drive access for data (3gbits a sec tops) is as fast as a system that gets data from system ram?

and if you use DDR2 as I suggest you dont have to drop the couple of grand in hardware.

"Hassle of a ram drive load" ya one minute.

"possible instability of the system" - its a server board ... how unstable are servers?

[grap]

ok ok
dont shout and dont hell
we arent in fighting arena ;)

few are right, few no
few ideas are good, other no

we try just to think, to exchange ideas ... and to see the result
the good result ;) ;)

The best would be to have 15 minutes of speaking with one boss of ati ( or nividia ), one boss of intel ( x58 / i7 ) and the main programmer of wow, the 3 at same time ... but i think it s not so possible ;)
For exemple, with CF / SLI, you can build one line in each CG or each CG can build 1 full screen and send to the screen. So the result can be different in each game
maybe you can have other drivers which work better with dual boxibg wow .....
i dont know myself ?

Dalaran city test isnt so easy because the number of players is different each day/hour and so the ips too.

in dalaran you have 3 places with many ... pedestrians ....
the fly desk, the bank stairs and the area where people wait for the joug gate each 2h30

for me, with my ring, wih my 4 slave chamy in automatic follow of my dk, when i run and i do the turn in the main street, ips dont change so much (+/- 10 ), wall or not wall, the 3 places with pedestrians or no
it s all the starship of dalaran

when i arrive in fly from the sky and fly over the city ( you know that you are kick of the flying mount if you stay too long time near ) i drop with the safety parachute and when i land, i can see the players wearing one by one their clothes during 3 or 4 seconds and main 60 ips drop to 50 or 40 during this jump.

it s the only area for me. For exemple in south west you have a sea side with a lot of fog. When i cross the entry fog, each time, i see a drop 20 ips but after 7 or 8 sec all come back at 60ips

[Svpernova09]

Thread purged. Stay on topic or start a new thread.

[ThisIsDrakul]

It appears it is neccessary to qualify this post with comments around the OP experience. From my perspective, Sam is not very experienced at gameplay in WoW. He is however experienced at running a large number of instances of WoW (much more than most of the posters here). He also seems to enjoy building and messing about with PCs

I am sure he is far from an expert in PC building, however he is very experienced. He seems to spend a lot of time reading up on hardware and pc performance.

I am VERY interested in his theories and experiences around this subject.

I will not follow his advice without my own research, however it is much easier to take one of his theories and explore it than to sift through the rest of the web stuff on this topic.

He also likes to discuss and debate theories. He doesnt flame and tries to bring facts and research to bear on subjects. (This is a rare commodity on the web)

Oh yes....he is a weird and eccentric individual....

[Sam DeathWalker]

Well considering I have to buy 6 computes as compared to one or two, its important that i get the best bang for the buck.

It seems that its not clear if the bottleneck is the HHD or the CPU at this point. No one says its the GPU (which it isnt), let me see if I can find a program to give us CPU core infos in real time.

If its the HHD then my server system with 32G is the best, if its the CPU then the I7 / 12G is going to be the best (assuming the I7 is the fastest, which I think it is). The I7 system is simpler to set up and when DDR3 is cheap in 4G sticks will be better then my server system but who knows how long away that is.

Ok this will give you really detialed information on disk access, even telling you when your computer is accessing the wow data folder:


http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896642.aspx

Just go to "options/filter/include" to "wow.exe" and you will know to the millisecond when wow access what files and their names.

Ok this will show you FPS and CPU usage real time while in game (go to the 7 minute mark in the video for the cpu usage, all cores):

http://www.my630i.com/rivatuner-video-tutorial-ingame-monitor-fps-cpu-temps-p16265.html

[aboron]

If you are running vista and want to use Perfmon, you can go to the task manager performance tab and then hit the "Resource Monitor" button down there. It gives file access raw read/write speed and access response times. There are also more detailed cpu and memory charts in there. And of course, as fursphere noted, Heisenberg applies.

One interesting thing I notice on my machine at home is that after a cold reboot, before I do anything, vista spends several minutes pre-caching my wow data files into system ram. I guess it learned my habits and knows i will eventually start the game, this is also why I only use one single un-symlinked copy of the main wow folder - because it used to preload from all of them separately and I figured it was using up more cache with less benefit.

[grap]

.... before I do anything, vista spends several minutes pre-caching my wow data files into system ram. I guess it learned my habits ....
yes, it s 2 functions perfetch and superfetch. Microsoft start with vista and you have on w7 too.
OCZ people told to disconect these functions if you use a SSD.

[grap]

i ll try to test with one nvidia 285 1 Go if it s better because my x4870 .... only 512 Mo ...
So, i come back in this subject to give back my result.

this week, i buy an MSI N285GTX-T2D1G-OC, little OC but 1024 RAM and the result is much better.
- dalaran is often between 50/60 ips now with same configuration
- temperature is lower so fan soud of the MSI is much better
- and i see something interresting with my 12 Go ddr3 memory
before i had near 11 Go ram busy/cache and now it s around 9 Go

and i find other thing ... strange ... but i think it s the same with the x4870
the N285 can catch only for his private work 2Go RAM PC memory more.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Excellent infos, thanks Grap.