OMG going insane.

[velcomrob]

For about 2-3 months now my FPs has been crazy low. I dont know why. I thought maybe my system was outdated since the 3.x patches, because thats when the problem started.

So I went out to buy

i7 950 3G Cpu
3 x 5850 Crossfire
15 gigs Ram

using Isboxer.

I have 3 screens. 1 30" and 2 24".

Im 5 boxing.

Im only getting 3-5fps with all screens running.

Anyone ever experience this problem? Im not running the video cards in Crossfire mode since i need 3 screens active. Each card running solo. My main is set to 2560x1900 resolution and my others are 800x600 with all settings to the bottom.

I have shadows turned off on all instances and I tried to disable all addons.

This is driving me crazy.

[Sajuuk]

You're doing it wrong. (Although it could be a driver issue. Some issues have been experienced with ATI drivers) If you're using older drivers, try newer/even older drivers.


On another note...Are you serious you have three 5850s with one monitor for each? You're just plain retarded. One is more than enough for wow, not to mention running three displays.

[velcomrob]

hehe. I had 2 4870's before and i was experiencing the same problem.

im using the latest drives from ATI website.

i cant figure out whats causing it.
i just deleted my WTF folder, cache folder and Addon folder and same trouble.

I bought 3 5850's not only for WoW but I thought it would fix the problem I was having, but I guess not.

[Zub]

try with one card only, for testing purposes.
for all yyou know your multiple cards could be interfering

[velcomrob]

seems there is a bug

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25560016883&sid=1&pageNo=57

alot of pepole having same problem

one thing i did notice tho is that when i start WOW, the entire load is being sent to 1 card only. card 2 and 3 are at 10% and card 1 is at 99% all the time.

this is messed.

[MiRai]

Are you following this?

http://isboxer.com/index.php/guides/21-using-multiple-video-cards

And as Zub/Sajuuk suggested, why not just use 1 card? It's a powerful enough card...

[Sajuuk]

seems there is a bug

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25560016883&sid=1&pageNo=57

alot of pepole having same problem

one thing i did notice tho is that when i start WOW, the entire load is being sent to 1 card only. card 2 and 3 are at 10% and card 1 is at 99% all the time.

this is messed.

.

Well then, try different drivers. Don't just stand there looking stupid.

[Oatboat]

Sajuuk woke up on the hateful side of bed this morning?

[Sajuuk]

No, but I did wake up with a bit of a headache.

[moosejaw]

Also covered here (http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=31807). Roll back to the 10-7 version drivers.

[Catamer]

my machine was faster when I used the native monitor setting for the game setting (while using ISBoxer and a Nvidia card ). What I had tried to do was use the monitor as 1920 but set the game up for only 1600 or 1024 , overall the whole thing was 10x faster when I used to same setting for the game as what I have the monitor set for.

it was faster to have all of the monitors (only have 2 ) at the same resolution. ( use both at 1920 or both at 1680, etc.

it was even faster to use one monitor than two.

[velcomrob]

Wow.

I will try to roll back on drivers. As I mentione dbefore this problem also happened on mu 4870 setup with older drivers. Ill try to step back a few updates to see if it improves.

Thanks alot for the replies.

[Pycno]

Try and disable Catalyst AI (under 3d settings in Catalyst control center CCC)

Also try and disable crossfirex in CCC

Also, make sure you do not have any HDR mods/patches/files installed. It can severly hurt performance, I could get max 110fps with it, and up to 910fps without it.

[Sajuuk]

Try and disable Catalyst AI (under 3d settings in Catalyst control center CCC)

Also try and disable crossfirex in CCC

Also, make sure you do not have any HDR mods/patches/files installed. It can severly hurt performance, I could get max 110fps with it, and up to 910fps without it.

He's not running them in crossfire, way to read the original post.

[velcomrob]

Hey Pycno

Do you keep your Crossfire cable attached or do you keep it off?

i tried with it off and same stuff.

im about to try older drivers right now.

i also disabled Catalyst AI.

[velcomrob]

omg i finally figured out the problem
i disabled INSTANT SWAP in IsBoxer and now my FPS is 60 all the time for my main and i hardcoded 20fps for my background

praise the lord! i guess it wasnt a driver issue, i dont think!

[kate]

omg i finally figured out the problem
i disabled INSTANT SWAP in IsBoxer and now my FPS is 60 all the time for my main and i hardcoded 20fps for my background

praise the lord! i guess it wasnt a driver issue, i dont think!

Check for heat issues too. I have a vastly less powerful system (same card, but only one of 'em, less RAM, slower processor) and I have instant swap on and I'm pegged at 60 FPS for my main window, 30 FPS for all the background windows, 5 boxing etc. If your system is running hot I can see it throttling WAY down.

On my old machine, any time I did anything intense with ISBoxer it would SLOOOOOW down and ultimately my system would shut down due to heat.

[Zub]

omg i finally figured out the problem
i disabled INSTANT SWAP in IsBoxer and now my FPS is 60 all the time for my main and i hardcoded 20fps for my background

praise the lord! i guess it wasnt a driver issue, i dont think!
i'm using 4-5 wows on a 5year old dual core with 2GB of Ram, i have instant swap enabled and it's indeed instant..

Given how beedfy your machine is, i doubt this setting in ISBoxer is the real cause.

[velcomrob]

Hmm.

Ill check temps.

I was reading that IsBoxer runs your slave windows at same resolution as your main when using Instant Swap

Im running at 2560x1600 on my main.

Is that true?

also my main card is running at 65C and my 2nd/3rd at 32-36C

seems my main card is doing all the work. the others are idling and i cant figure out why.

[not5150]

.

Well then, try different drivers. Don't just stand there looking stupid.

Glad to see the OP fixed the issue... however, I did LOL at this line.

[velcomrob]

Yay.

further progress.

I got Instant Swap working now and get 60fps.

What I did was move my ATI cards over to different slots. I had then in slots 2,3,4 and was thinking maybe that causes issues.

So I moved them to 1,2,3 and everything seems normal now.

the only thing bottlenecking now is hard drive access. rejoice.

but seems my main ATI card still does most of the work which I cant figure out

thanks for all the help. i hope it stays stable.

[kate]

Yay.

further progress.

I got Instant Swap working now and get 60fps.

What I did was move my ATI cards over to different slots. I had then in slots 2,3,4 and was thinking maybe that causes issues.

So I moved them to 1,2,3 and everything seems normal now.

the only thing bottlenecking now is hard drive access. rejoice.

but seems my main ATI card still does most of the work which I cant figure out

thanks for all the help. i hope it stays stable.

An SSD (and you can get one sufficient for this for around $100) will cure your hard drive problems. My system - as I said way way less powerful than yours - can load 5 players in Dalaran at prime time in a total of 3-5 seconds when I have the group hearth.

No idea about your video cards... Is it possible to manually configure an install to say "Use card 1" and then make multiple copies of the install, telling those to use different cards? Or does the system usually automagically spread the load over multiple cards, just not with WoW or ISBoxer?

[velcomrob]

I think IsBoxer is preventing the display being shared over the cards.

When I tried loading 5 copies of WoW it worked differently much faster.

i ordered 2 64GB Crucial C300 SSD drives.

waiting for them
i was looking at the PCI Express SSD drive but 2 64GB SSD C300 are faster.

[MiRai]

I think IsBoxer is preventing the display being shared over the cards.

When I tried loading 5 copies of WoW it worked differently much faster.

i ordered 2 64GB Crucial C300 SSD drives.

waiting for them
i was looking at the PCI Express SSD drive but 2 64GB SSD C300 are faster.
You never answered this question from the first page.

Are you following this?

http://isboxer.com/index.php/guides/21-using-multiple-video-cards

[Stabface]

I think IsBoxer is preventing the display being shared over the cards.

When I tried loading 5 copies of WoW it worked differently much faster.

i ordered 2 64GB Crucial C300 SSD drives.

waiting for them
i was looking at the PCI Express SSD drive but 2 64GB SSD C300 are faster.

I believe this 64GB version of the C300 has issues with write speed, around 2-4x slower than comparable disks. The read speed is quite good though, if you have a 6gb/sec SATA port.

[velcomrob]

Holy Crap. 2-4x Slower

I read reading reviews on Anandtech and Tomshardware. they mention its best selection right now.

i hope its not crap!

I bought two so i'll get 650MB/s thruput

I got 2 6Gb ports.

[velcomrob]

Oh Damn!

Thakns alot Fenril

I didnt even notice that link. No wonder its not rendering by each GPU

im going to try those changes now.

THANKS!!


You never answered this question from the first page.

[velcomrob]

hmm i just tried those instructions given by isboxer but still 2nd and 3rd cards no activity. 0%.

[Duess]

Obvious question but, are you sure your motherboard supports all 3 of those cards?

Most motherboards and even gaming motherboards will support one x16 PCIe slot and adding more cards either causes the main slot to degrade (i.e. instead of x16, you'd have x8 + x8). With 3 cards, it may be trying to segment out the bandwidth funky. Seeing that you are only seeing <10% output from the two additional cards that would about make sense. Also saying that you moved the slots around and noticed a difference could be the giveaway. Slot 1 is usually the primary 16x slot and the remainder might even be restricted to a x4 or x8.

Also, another obvious question, you didn't buy a cheap power supply right? Some of them, the wattage they say they are putting out isn't even close to what's actually coming out. The other issue is that crappy ones degrade over time (some faster than others). This can lead to power management issues with specific hardware that uses a lot of power (i.e. video cards).

I would try taking one card out and seeing if the performance increases.

[velcomrob]

Its an Asus Rampage III. Allows 4 video cards.

Maybe ill try removing a card since both cards will run at 16Ex maybe I'll get better performance. Or I can run CrossFire with 2 GPUs and 1 GPU Solo.

It allows up to 4 cards. all ports do not run at 16 X. My cards are running at 16,8,8

Im using Enermax powersupply 900 Watts. Its rated Gold for 80Plus.

[Starbuck_Jones]

not sure if it is the same issue that you are having, but there was a patch a month or two back that caused my system to error out. Happened in Dalaran mostly and the "fix" was to lower the render distance.

You can read about it here:
http://wow.joystiq.com/2010/06/24/patch-3-3-5s-out-of-storage-error/

To my knowledge, this has yet to be properly fixed.

[Duess]

That's a pretty nifty little motherboard... something you can probably try pretty easily is to use the switches to enable or disable specific PCIe slots. (Also make sure they are turned on, but I doubt they would do anything if they were turned off.)

http://www.guru3d.com/article/asus-rampage-iii-extreme-review/6


Very simple, these are there to en/disable the corresponding PCIe slots. Weird and unusual you might think, but if one of the PCIe x16 cards is out of order during massive cooled down OC session, you can simply disable it without the need of removing the cards (which typically have LN2 pots sitting on them).

[velcomrob]

Hmm

I dont really get that Out Of Storage problem. Mine is a performace problem.

I tried to disable a video card and have two fo them running, same performance.

[velcomrob]

I just installed the two new SSD drives and like WHOAAAAAAAAAAA

amazingly fast! best upgrade anyone can do!