Key Clone, CPU affinity & Maximizer

[AndyB]

Okay, so I'm getting closer to a usable 5-bot, 1 computer setup, but I'm having some issues I don't know how to get around.

Here's my setup:
2 monitors. 20" connected to an nVidia 7950GTX and 24" on a 8800GT
4GB of RAM (Vista 32-bit, so really only 3GB.)
Quad core CPU

Because I have multiple monitors, I need to use Maximizer to carve up the 20" into quads. (Wish keyclone supported multiple monitors... hint, hint, hint.)

I have Keyclone and want to use it to force CPU affinity, so I set up 5 commands, each one calling the appropriate maximizer.exe file. The four "followers" I have mapped to CPUs 2&3 and I've left the main (24" all to itself) unaffiliated, hoping it'll take CPUs 0&1.

My problem is that I think the Affinity setting in keyclone is only applying to the maximize.exe program and not the resulting WoW.exe program call. As a result, all 5 instances end up sharing CPUs 0&1 and leaving 2&3 completely unused.

So my question is: Is there a way to make this use all my CPU cores, given I apparently NEED to use maximizer? Is there someway to set CPU affinity besides via keyclone?

Thanks,
AndyB

[Jusa]

maximizer just makes your screens look neat and pretty. So if this is not as important to you you can just open them up normaly and then adjust their size and set them in place. this is what i do. i have 2 26" and on one i use my main maxed out on the screen and on the second i have my 4 followers quartered out. I like it better this way cause i can click on the top of the window and make it full screen when i want to test out new macros and rewrite them or flip through my enchanting menu without having to squint.

You can set affinity by going to task manager and right clicking on the wow application and setting it manualy. But this is not nececary beacuse you have more than enough processing power without doing this.
I'm using win xp X64 with an e6600 dual core 8g ram(worked the same with 4) 8800GTX. the only time i have low framerates in in Org.

But if this answer is not what you were looking for i'm sure someone else around here has the answer you need. good luck.

[keyclone]

you do not need to use the maximizer while using commands. you can just use the commands and the wows will start as normal windows. move them as you see fit.

i would specify the affinity for each command, though. by using cpus 0 and 1 specifically, and allowing the other wows to choose their own... odds are, they will choose the first cpu available... that would be cpu 0.

[AndyB]

I suppose this is what I'll have to do. Unfortunate thou as having the windows in place just isn't as cool.

Is there no way in the WoW settings or the way Maximizer calls WoW to force CPU affinity?

[keyclone]

no, i do not believe so

[AndyB]

Okay, so I did find a solution... Not the BEST in my opinion, but it works.

I have all 5 sessions load via maximizer (sorry, it's just WAY prettier than having the window frames around each window) and then use the Vista TaskManager to set the CPU affinity manually. (I didn't even know you could do that.) THEN I start KeyClone...

Works great. I dedicate 2 cores to the main session and 1/2 a core to the alternates... I finally had a chance to get it all working and I get very usable performance. 50+ FPS on the main and I have all the alts locked to 15 FPS. CPU meters show cycles to spare, so I may tweak it a bit more as well...

Now of course I need to figure out what I'm DOING in the game.

Thanks so far for all the help!

[AndyB]

Okay, so perhaps I'm the only person who cares about this, but I found a working, permanent solution to the CPU affinity problem and it's surprisingly simple.

Blizzard has basically already thought about this and added a setting. In the WTF\Config.wtf file, all your system settings are here. On mine, I found a line:
[code:1]SET processAffinityMask "3"[/code:1]
Call me crazy, but since it defaults to using CPUs 1&2, that mask looked like a binary number to me... Sure enough I set that to "12" and now my main WoW instance runs on CPUs 3&4 with no intervention from me.

For those not binary-literate:

CPU-1 = 1
CPU-2 = 2
CPU-3 = 4
CPU-4 = 8

Add up the values of the CPUs you want to utilze and that is the value to set in the Config.wtf file. For my soloing instance of WoW I set this value to 15 and it does seem to set affinity to all four CPUs. (Although I don't the my CPU is my bottleneck when running only one instance.)

Okay, so one main annoyance out the window.

UPDATE: Maybe it's just coincidence, but system just crash while running on all 4 CPUs. Maybe there's a reason they only use two? Oh well, at least now I can control WHICH two.

[torelorm]

If you are using maximizer then you should look at the start command:

There is an /affinity parameter which will allow the process to start on the given CPU. This is a hex value.

That might solve your problem there.