GPU Driver crash?

[Boogieman]

I multibox 5 accounts using HKN to Rename Resize and position the windows across Two 24" monitors


1444

My GPUs are 2 running xfire
Brand MSI
Model R7870 Twin Frozr 2GD5/OC
Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition
Core Clock 1050MHz
Stream Processors 1280 Stream Processors
Memory
Effective Memory Clock 1200MHz (4.8Gbps)
Memory Size 2GB
Memory Interface 256-Bit
Memory Type GDDR5

With latest recommended drivers

Other system specs
Cpu core i7 3770k
memory 16gb corsair vengeance ddr3 1600
Hd Corsair Force Series GT (ssd) 250gb

My game res is set to 1920x1080

main account runs graphics setting slider at custom good
low shadow
max view distance
max particles
all else is standard good slider settings

Slaves run slider at custom low
max particle
outline enabled (so i can see loot better)
all else is standard low setting

Sometimes when I open the internet with the game running both monitors will go completely black screen for about 1.5 seconds and then when it comes back all the windows are resized to 1920x1080 including slaves and stacked on main screen renamed back to World Of Warcraft and all game clients show artifacts in the bars in some places instead of the ability bound to that bar

This doesn't happen when the internet is first opened but after it has been open for a few seconds
And it doesn't happen consistently sometimes a few seconds sometimes a few minutes
But if I leave the web up in the background or foreground eventually it will happen

I used to box 3 accounts on a much lesser machine and With basically the same monitor setup
and always had the web up without issue

Any help with this would be much appreciated

[MiRai]

1) I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your GPUs are not utilizing Crossfire since Crossfire doesn't work in any windowed mode.

2) If you're using DX11 then you could easily be running out of VRAM, which sounds like the case since you mention artifacting. Switch each game client to use DirectX 9 in the Advanced options, restart the game clients, and see if that helps.

3) You could technically "split the load" of your game clients between your GPUs so that you can utilize both of them (and then have access to 4GB of VRAM) by attaching one monitor to each GPU and then setting which client should use which monitor. You'd also have to ensure that you weren't moving certain clients between each monitor since cross-GPU rendering is terrible, so this would most likely require that you create some super custom window layout in HKN (which I don't know how to do).

[Boogieman]

Thankx for the quick response

Will try dx9 (what changes if any will i see ingame)
can this just be done on the slaves to lessen the load (I run from 2 folders so the settings should stay just for the slaves i think)


I do swap clients cross monitor so i think that separating the gpu load this way will not be viable for me
however if the dx9 fix doesn't work i may look into it
I guess if i had to instead of swapping monitors i could fullscrenn the focus window on the slaves...I'm mostly on the master anyway

Edit:
well the dx9 fix SORTA worked I THINK
i moved the slave accounts to dx9 master still dx11
i started the internet and loaded the forum and all seemed fine
then i decided to push it and started the vid that you have on the forum home about the keyboard overlay
which resulted in an insta crash BUT the web page was full screen on the slave monitor with the slaves running in the background the crash renamed the master but did not rename nor move or resize the slaves that were runnin dx9

further testing will ensue


Edit:Edit: lol

so same settings but moving the web window to the main screen
slaves on left screen master on right in backround behind the forums
start vid again insta crash again only master running dx11 crashes and now im posting this with the slaves open on the second screen np
more testing required

Edit:Edit:Edit:

well dx9 on all is a semi solution
the vcard still runs out of memory but when it does it does not effect wow it just black screens for a second and then comes back with the web closed
However running the main account in dx9 is causing some intolerable fps drops when starting combat
Everytime combat is started fps drops to like 2 fps for about 2 seconds and then its fine for the rest of the fight

Any further help would be welcome

[Boogieman]

So on further review i seem to have solved this issue

I turned off xfire and plugged 1monitor into each gpu
that way each card is sure to be running whatever is on that screen
I have no problem with window placement or swapping
I tell wow nothing about what screen or gpu to use
Only use HKN to position the windows (if its on the main screen its run by the main gpu if its on the secondary screen its runnin from the other card)
this works very well and easy setup
i can run dx11 on the main on 1 gpu and dx9 on the slaves four an 1 gpu
and run the web while watchin youtube on the main with np

[emitchell109]

Hey Boogie back to our convo today over my SLI being like xFire. I learned that SLI does support windowed mode. So I am ordering another 760gtx Stat!

[MiRai]

I turned off xfire and plugged 1monitor into each gpu
that way each card is sure to be running whatever is on that screen
That's not how it works, because...

I tell wow nothing about what screen or gpu to use
World of Warcraft is going to launch off of the monitor that it's being told to launch from in its settings. If you open the game, and drag it from one monitor to the other it does not start rendering off of the second GPU, and it will, from what I understand, begin to render via software while still producing some sort of load on both GPUs. This is not ideal, and unless HKN has some built-in support to intelligently choose which display adapter to launch from, then what I just described is most likely what's happening.

If whatever you changed in your setup is working for you, then that's good, but you should really be monitoring your hardware at a time like this.

[Boogieman]

So am i to understand that if i tell the slaves to launch on screen 2 instead of screen 1 then they will at that point render from the second card that that screen is plugged into
if this is the case then i can do that and if i understand this right the software rendering will only occur when i swap clients between screens
which is seldom but it does happen

[Boogieman]

Also just as a side note i am considering moving to a single more powerful card
This is not my first choice but i do hold it in regard
On that note
Does anyone have any suggestions
Price range would be 300-500
Form factor is probably not an issue as the 2 cards i run now are both 2 slot cards and they fit fine

Sorry if i have bad spellin or grammar im on my phone today
Gotta work to pay for those accounts lol