FPS Horrendous at times... what can I change

[Malgor]

The title is the question:
Computer:
i7 920 @ 2.67GHz (not overclocked)
12 GB 1600 triple channel RAM
64bit WIN 7 OS
2 NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 video cards (SLI bridged - not sure if I did this correctly)
Hitachi HDT721010SLA360 1TB 7200 main drive (OS and such)
INTEL SSDSA2M040G2GC 40GB solid state drive (wow and innerspace - not sure if I did that correctly just copied over my wow folders and re-routed ISBoxer to use that path)

I play 5 accounts at once. One set up for the main monitor and four that are viewed on the second monitor.

Here is my problem. I bought the SSD because I was getting low frame rates in quite a few places. Most of the time my frame rates are 60fps on the main screen (27" ASUS 2.0sec refresh). However quite a lot the FPS goes down to 25 and sometimes even as low as 16 when I'm near a lot of fire (notably Howling Fjord when near the burning trees or any brazier with a lot of fire in it). Dalaran can be horrid at times.

My slave accounts are all set at 30fps through Innerspace. I've tried changing some of the particle settings, but that really doesn't seem to help much.

With my system I just feel like it should be 60fps consistently.

I'm not a computer abled person, but can do okay as long as I know somewhat of what I'm doing (by usually asking a lot of questions here).

So can people make suggestions on how I can improve my FPS consistently?

As always all help is greatly appreciated.

Malgor

On a side note, since I transferred my toons all to Doomhammer to join Nighthawke, Coltimar and Kate I've been having a great time in this guild. I encourage anyone who doesn't want to go to a PVP US server to come on over and join us!

[Iru]

What's your FPS with all graphics settings in WoW set to minimum on all toons? WoW @ Ultra is still a graphics pig. Lower you settings to minimum and then slowly bring them back up till you have a reasonable trade-off between FPS & look&feel.

Also, SLI bridging is a waste of time with Wow. You'll get much better performance dropping SLI, putting the main's monitor on one card and the slave's monitor on the other.

PS: Go Beavers :)

[Malgor]

What's your FPS with all graphics settings in WoW set to minimum on all toons? WoW @ Ultra is still a graphics pig. Lower you settings to minimum and then slowly bring them back up till you have a reasonable trade-off between FPS & look&feel.

Also, SLI bridging is a waste of time with Wow. You'll get much better performance dropping SLI, putting the main's monitor on one card and the slave's monitor on the other.

PS: Go Beavers :)

Thanks I'll try that. That should help!

[Malgor]

Okay so, I took off my SLI bridge and hooked up the two monitors to the different video cards instead of just one. Now my FPS is... 16.

I changed the settings all to the lowest possible in WoW for video and the fps is now.... 13.

How can that be possible?

[Creazil]

Sounds like we suffers from the same thing. :-(

http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=32157

[Malgor]

Sounds like we suffers from the same thing. :-(

http://www.dual-boxing.com/showthread.php?t=32157


Yeah it does. I went back to my old settings. When I disconnected my bridge and went changed my monitors to connect to the two video cards seperately, my fps went from 30-60 to 13-16. When I swapped it back to my old way it went back up to 60 in most places and right now in Dalaran at a busy Sunday time it's 25.

Just seems like it should be VERY good all the time.

I have all my settings set to the lowest also except view distance and particles.

[Sam DeathWalker]

View distance is a big hog.

Whats your MB chipset? X58?

I'd follow Lax advise in these matters:

http://isboxer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2363

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

[jinkobi]

Just wondering why you have your WOW on a 40 gig drive when you have a 1tb drive?

That INTEL SSDSA2M040G2GC 40GB solid state drive is probably your choke point. Put your WOW back on your 1tb drive toss the 40 gig out the door.

[ZooljinX]

SSD choke point? please explain..

SSD is alot faster then that 1TB drive (or it atleas SHOULD be alot faster.)

[Malgor]

View distance is a big hog.

Whats your MB chipset? X58?

I'd follow Lax advise in these matters:

http://isboxer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=2363

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


Sorry have been working a lot, but yes it's an ASUS MB with the X58 chip set.

[Malgor]

Just wondering why you have your WOW on a 40 gig drive when you have a 1tb drive?

That INTEL SSDSA2M040G2GC 40GB solid state drive is probably your choke point. Put your WOW back on your 1tb drive toss the 40 gig out the door.

I was told that the Solid State Drive (SSD) would speed up my performance. That read/write time is supposed to be exceedingly fast. That's why I went that route.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Write times are slow but yes SSD drives improve performance, a lot.


The one you have though is far from the best:

Access: Read up to 170MB/s
Sequential Access: Write up to 35MB/s.

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=637984


Isnt 270/270 the norm nowdays?

Look the 250 isn't all that its a 9800gtx:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units


Your MB and 920 and 12G ram is more then solid the SSD and Video card is qustionable. And it is very far from clear that two video cards is going to double your performace, in fact I really doubt it. I think I looked it up before and its like 20 percent improvment.

SLI doesn't always give a performance benefit – in some extreme cases, it can lower the frame rate (http://www.dual-boxing.com/wiki/Frame_rate) due to the particulars of an application's coding.[17] (http://www.dual-boxing.com/#cite_note-16) This is also true for ATI's CrossFire, as the problem is inherent in multi-GPU systems. This is often witnessed when running an application at low resolutions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Link_Interface

Lol they link back to us as to the lower farme rate proof hehe




I know that a LOT of people have duel monitors or video cards but for me its ONE COMPUTER ONE VIDEO CARD AND ONE MONITOR (well I have six of each though heh).

[Malgor]

Write times are slow but yes SSD drives improve performance, a lot.


The one you have though is far from the best:

Access: Read up to 170MB/s
Sequential Access: Write up to 35MB/s.

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=637984


Isnt 270/270 the norm nowdays?

Look the 250 isn't all that its a 9800gtx:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Nvidia_graphics_processing_units


Your MB and 920 and 12G ram is more then solid the SSD and Video card is qustionable. And it is very far from clear that two video cards is going to double your performace, in fact I really doubt it. I think I looked it up before and its like 20 percent improvment.

SLI doesn't always give a performance benefit – in some extreme cases, it can lower the frame rate (http://www.dual-boxing.com/wiki/Frame_rate) due to the particulars of an application's coding.[17] (http://www.dual-boxing.com/#cite_note-16) This is also true for ATI's CrossFire, as the problem is inherent in multi-GPU systems. This is often witnessed when running an application at low resolutions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalable_Link_Interface

Lol they link back to us as to the lower farme rate proof hehe




I know that a LOT of people have duel monitors or video cards but for me its ONE COMPUTER ONE VIDEO CARD AND ONE MONITOR (well I have six of each though heh).

Thanks for all that info. I'm thinking about buying (building) a new computer within the next few months anyway. I'll come back here to make sure what I build is going to be the best I can build. I agree with going with the one video card, but I have actually become addicted to the dual monitors since it really makes a difference with my viewing pleasure of the main on my 27" screen. Having all five accounts on the one screen (though big) really squishes everything.

[Overpowerdin]

Laptop with external monitor for slaves works good too.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Your SSD is NOT the problem unless it's broken. That's a red herring.

If you can run the same video card in your old configuration and get 60fps but with the new configuration you get 12fps, then it's something that changed with the new configuration. Start eliminating variables.

Some things to try:

KNOWN BAD: 2 monitors + 2 cards + SLI (don't need to retry this, just listing for completeness)
2 monitors + 2 cards WITHOUT SLI
2 monitors + 1 card (extend desktop to second monitor)
1 monitor + 1 card
Same configurations as above but just running 5 wows instead of using ISBoxer.


Eventually you should get the variables narrowed down and figure out which part is causing the performance degradation.

[burningforce]

perhaps a driver problem? that computer should be screaming fast for wow.

what driver version are you running with?
1 - right-click desktop , click on "nvidia control panel" from the menu
2 - in the nvidia control panel, at the top of the control panel, click "help" and select "system information"
3 - in nvidia system information screen, click "about" button at the bottom-right corner
4 - post the version number

also make sure the computer components are not overheating as that will drop your FPS as well.

Check the settings of wow, multiboxing program, computer settings, and make sure video card settings are default and make sure you are not using any AA or other video enhancements.

make sure SSD is not full, as it will decrease performance of it and run the "intel SSD toolbox" on it when not in use every week.

[Malgor]

perhaps a driver problem? that computer should be screaming fast for wow.

what driver version are you running with?
1 - right-click desktop , click on "nvidia control panel" from the menu
2 - in the nvidia control panel, at the top of the control panel, click "help" and select "system information"
3 - in nvidia system information screen, click "about" button at the bottom-right corner
4 - post the version number

also make sure the computer components are not overheating as that will drop your FPS as well.

Check the settings of wow, multiboxing program, computer settings, and make sure video card settings are default and make sure you are not using any AA or other video enhancements.

make sure SSD is not full, as it will decrease performance of it and run the "intel SSD toolbox" on it when not in use every week.

Version 197.45 was the result of this.

[Malgor]

Your SSD is NOT the problem unless it's broken. That's a red herring.

If you can run the same video card in your old configuration and get 60fps but with the new configuration you get 12fps, then it's something that changed with the new configuration. Start eliminating variables.


Some things to try:

KNOWN BAD: 2 monitors + 2 cards + SLI (don't need to retry this, just listing for completeness)
2 monitors + 2 cards WITHOUT SLI
2 monitors + 1 card (extend desktop to second monitor)
1 monitor + 1 card
Same configurations as above but just running 5 wows instead of using ISBoxer.

Eventually you should get the variables narrowed down and figure out which part is causing the performance degradation.

I'll try this next.

Where I'm currently getting the best results is probably wrong in how I have it configured. I am using the SLI bridge and have the two cards hooked together. I have read that SLI doesn't work with WOW anyway, so this is I am sure wrong.

However, when I disconnected the bridge, took one of the monitor cables and connected it to video card 1, took the other monitor cable and connected it to video card 2, that's when the FPS went from the normal 60fps in most cases (except around fire, lots of trees and in Dalaran when lots of people are present) to a mere 12-16fps. So that obviously wasn't a good thing to do, however I may not have done that correctly. I still have a lot to experiment with to make it better.

[MiRai]

Version 197.45 was the result of this.
This version number is from April 2010. There have been 2 major updates to your video drivers since then.

[Malgor]

This version number is from April 2010. There have been 2 major updates to your video drivers since then.



Weird. When I click on update drivers it says your drivers are up to date.

Scratch that. I just ran it again and it downloaded the latest drivers.

We'll see if that helps some. :)

Thanks!

[burningforce]

if you are installing new drivers, do not forget to uninstall the old video drivers completely before installing new ones.

also check "event viewer" in windows to see if there are no errors.

could also be windows or bios power saving features limiting the amount of processing power from your cpu - gpu, try taking a look at that stuff as well