Hardware issues multiboxing 16 clients with 5960X, 980 x3 sli

[lovesbunnys]

I'm having issues with my rig pulling off 16 clients of WOW. Trying to get to the bottom of what I'm doing wrong. Wow graphics settings are on low. I get intermittent low fps. My isBoxer profile is default, round robin balancing. I've seen MiRai get 20-30 clients to work on his rig, I'm sure I'm missing something. Any help in the right direction will be appreciated.

Screenshot at character screen - http://postimg.org/image/m5q71d49t/

My system's 3DMark is http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/6956402

My rig:
i7-5960x
Rampage V Extreme
Evga GTX 980 SC x3 with SLI Bridge
32gb Vengeance LPX DDR4
Samsung SSD 850 EVO
Evga 1300 G2 powersupply
Windows 7

[mbox_bob]

Looking at your pictures there, your CPU's have topped out at some point. Is that from during gameplay?

I recommend not using Round-Robin balancing on the CPU, because if a core gets busy with other stuff, e.g. Network processing, swapping your desktop background, or some other boring process, then any games assigned to those cores will suffer for the duration. On the odd occasion Round-Robin may be needed but fairly rarely - Windows is pretty good at managing CPU allocation.

My recommendation is to go to the Wizards menu, select CPU Strategy Wizard, and give it "all instances use all CPU cores". I also like to set Master Slot = <NO SLOT>


With regards to the graphics. They are showing ~3GB memory usage just at the character select screen. What about during gameplay?
Also, IIRC, in the video with MiRai running loads of toons around he said that they were not SLI'd at the time due to lack of VRAM this causes. Running 30+ toons in 3GB would be limiting (MiRai had 780TI's I believe)
ref: http://www.geforce.co.uk/hardware/technology/sli/faq#c26


When I configure two graphics cards in SLI mode, do the graphics cards work together to create double the memory size?No. In SLI mode, each graphics card uses its own frame buffer memory to render a 3D application. The operating system will report a graphics card frame buffer memory size that is found on a single graphics board.

[Mosg2]

I 15-box with a less-powerful computer than that and I have zero issues.

As Bob said, instead of round-robin you should have all instances use all cores. I always get better performance like that.

[lovesbunnys]

Thank you! Changing the master slot to no slot and CPU strat to select all CPUs with every window did the trick. Now I'm seeing 60 fps in main window with no throttling. I am running wow video settings on low.

Are there other helpful tips like this one that will get more performance?

[MiRai]

Are there other helpful tips like this one that will get more performance?
This page (http://isboxer.com/wiki/HOWTO:Tweak_your_framerate) on the ISBoxer Wiki covers a handful of general things.

[Mosg2]

I have all my alts render at 50%. This significantly improved my performance, but I imagine you're nowhere near capping your GPU with 3x 980s.

[lovesbunnys]

Update: I'm still having framerate throttling and overall poor fps issues. I recently had to roll back my nvidia driver as the latest was causing blue screens (see screenshot of crash report). Since then my nvidia settings went to default and my performance is terrible in places like warspear with 15 toons with cpu, gpu, ram not maxing out, but gpu ram is maxing out. mbox's feedback helped no slot, all cpu. If possible check out all the screenshots below of my settings and let me know what I'm doing wrong. Thank you in advance.

I did this - http://isboxer.com/wiki/HOWTO:Tweak_your_framerate

bluescreen crash report - http://postimg.org/image/9386pc3k5/

wow video settings - http://postimg.org/image/3ud5rgl51/
http://postimg.org/image/encr1i5kb/

nvidia settings - http://postimg.org/image/g2jeyptqb/
http://postimg.org/image/xo9wydicv/
http://postimg.org/image/kofuxjtth/
http://postimg.org/image/l5ezi3o3n/

isboxer settings - http://postimg.org/image/jv7is6ymb/
http://postimg.org/image/cy9cpp79x/

computer load while playing 15 toons - http://postimg.org/image/3syiks2xp/
http://postimg.org/image/6weelwuy3/
http://postimg.org/image/a4fe3qjv9/

my comps 3dmark score - http://postimg.org/image/jysw3by5f/

[MiRai]

First of all, I don't think any good can come from touching anything in the nVidia Control Panel unless you're attempting to increase image quality. So, set all of that back to default. Beyond that...


You're using DX11 which is going to eat through your VRAM incredibly fast and I highly doubt you could multibox 15 characters in DX11 on only 4GB of VRAM. So, switch to DX9 and that will solve that.
New character models eat up extra VRAM, so disable that.
While your Control Panel indicates you have SLI enabled, the monitoring program shows that you do not since only one GPU has any load on it. This is either a problem with the monitoring program, or... you don't actually have SLI enabled.


In addition to that, you can also drop your resolution since you're trying to play all of them at practically 1920x1080, which is suggested in the Wiki page you linked:

As a last resort, lowering the game resolution may significantly improve framerate as well.
It says "may," I say "will." :)

[lovesbunnys]

First off thank you for the swift reply, I always learn something! I've read through much of the documentation and many of your videos and sometimes I just get stuck.


I don't think any good can come from touching anything in the nVidia Control Panel unless you're attempting to increase image quality.

One setting worth tweaking recommended by EVGA is "power management mode" setting it to maximum makes the video cards work to their highest performance. It helped with spike fps needs as the cards are working at top performance all the time.
http://postimg.org/image/nvtqqvktv/




While your Control Panel indicates you have SLI enabled, the monitoring program shows that you do not since only one GPU has any load on it. This is either a problem with the monitoring program, or... you don't actually have SLI enabled.


I called EVGA and asked them about why no "load" data is showing on the 2 other cards they said do the 3dmark test and if there is an improvement in the score then sli is working and something is wrong with the monitoring program. That said on all monitoring programs this is the case load doesn't show for 2 other cards. I have done tests with sli enabled/disabled and disabled my computer can't handle 15 clients with it enabled it is possible.




In addition to that, you can also drop your resolution since you're trying to play all of them at practically 1920x1080, which is suggested in the Wiki page you linked:

I don't quite understand what to tweak so the other wow windows will render at smaller resolution. I thought even though u have small windows in the layout they will still render at 1920x1080. Is this something i tweak in isboxer or in wow client?
http://postimg.org/image/qkraj359h/
http://postimg.org/image/w1vqactpf/

Thank you thank you!!!!! <3

[MiRai]

One setting worth tweaking recommended by EVGA is "power management mode" setting it to maximum makes the video cards work to their highest performance. It helped with spike fps needs as the cards are working at top performance all the time.
You are right about that. I always have that set through nVidia Inspector, and rarely think of it these days.


I called EVGA and asked them about why no "load" data is showing on the 2 other cards they said do the 3dmark test and if there is an improvement in the score then sli is working and something is wrong with the monitoring program. That said on all monitoring programs this is the case load doesn't show for 2 other cards. I have done tests with sli enabled/disabled and disabled my computer can't handle 15 clients with it enabled it is possible.
I don't think the issue warranted a phone call, and I assumed you would just try another monitoring program—Like HWiNFO, MSI Afterburner, or GPU-Z. I find it odd that they're not reporting load on the other GPUs when I've used all three of those programs with my SLI setup and everything reports correctly. It could be something with your driver or GPU. /shrug

However, you didn't mention anything about moving from DX11 to DX9.


I don't quite understand what to tweak so the other wow windows will render at smaller resolution. I thought even though u have small windows in the layout they will still render at 1920x1080. Is this something i tweak in isboxer or in wow client?
Almost all of the time, whatever size Region 1 is set to, will be the size that every region renders at. If you want to lower the resolution of every game client, then drop the size of Region 1 in your Window Layout to something smaller than what you've got. You're currently using a non-standard resolution, so I'd suggest just creating a new layout using the Wizard and setting the Main Window Size to something smaller—like 1600x900—in order to keep the correct aspect ratio.

[lovesbunnys]

Thank you again my computer is now running great with 15 clients at 1600x900, 60/30, all cpu's, default nvidia settings but max performance. See the perf monitor you can see i'm maxing out of VRAM and fps is dipping to 36fps when i mount in circles in Warspear. Also with these nvidia settings perf monitor is showing all video card core load! =)
http://postimg.org/image/6jnjamxsv/

The bad news is when I launch 16 to 20 clients my computer throttles hard to 1 - .7 fps, where I can't even close the clients. No data is refreshing on monitoring apps to tell what's maxing out. I tried lowering the resolution and anything lower than 1600x900 I get this throttling symptom. Any idea what is going on?

Any guides on how to push more than 15 clients, including detailed description of settings to achieve.

Thank you <3

[mbox_bob]

You may have said it yourself.
When running 15 clients you are maxing out your VRAM, so if you add more clients, then performance will drop dramatically as the VRAM does not have enough room to deal with them, and resorts to swapping in and out of system RAM, which might also end up paging (although probably not seeing as you have a fair bit free).

Your CPU is fairly high with 15 clients, and adding more game clients and then frame swapping to the list, you might be nearing the maximum effective there too. CPU's are a bit weird in that once you start to get over 90% sustained utilization across the board, they start to become inefficient and less likely to respond well to spikes.

With CPU limits you get hit with a double whammy. 1. the scheduler starts chewing more kernel time ordering and querying processes to see if they need a time slice (effectively the number of context switches increases disproportionately to the number of processes added) 2. you have more processes that want to use their time slice because it is not coming up as often.


When you say "anything lower than 1600x900 I get this throttling symptom", this means you've tried lower resolutions? It would be weird that lowering the resolution causes a problem on a working setup, but if you are adding more clients at the same time, then it may be a CPU limit rather than a video limit.

For the graphics you could go down to 1280x720. This keeps the aspect ratio, while lowering the number of pixels per client by around 33%. This won't help if your problem is the CPU though, but it could alleviate some pressure if that is coming from frame swapping.

1600x900 = 1440000 pixels
1280x720 = 921600 pixels.

[lovesbunnys]

I believe this is the best I can do with my 5960X, 980 X3 SLI system (overclocked through asus bios) 20 wow clients running with 1280x720, directx9, instant swapping off, nvidia settings default but power management to max, win theme to classic, areo peak off, wow quality low, new character models off, fps 30/30, no master slot, all cpus with every window. Can I go lower with resolution? I tried 800x600 and performance didn't improve.

The bottle neck now seems to be the CPU all sitting from 94%-100%. Vcard core loads 26%-34%, VRAM 84.8%.
http://postimg.org/image/gsfd4xhfp/

I was hoping to get at least 30 clients playable with this monster rig. Any other things to try is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Is there a reason you're running the background windows at 30fps? I set my background windows and dxNothing windows all to 12fps, since they're just there for at-a-glance status anyway; it's very noticeable on my older video card and 5x clients at 1080p high detail. Also, if you haven't already configured a "high-detail/low-detail" console variable macro tied to your window switching mapped key, that might be impacting things needlessly.

[woloss]

I run 25 clients on my I7 4770k @4.2 GHz + GTX 770 2GB + 24GB RAM. I have low detail, with ultra distance on my main char. Sometimes laggy in Big Cities, but not much. Also, I still haven't got my SSD for multiboxing,(15 clients at 1 HDD, 10 at another) i wish SSD will help. I set background fps to "7", at this fps all slaves flying, walking and so on w/o problems and stucks. Main windows set to 40 fps. If i go down to 20 clients, I can set main char to Max settings with Ultra Distance and slaves at low as well.

So, you can setup Macro through isboxer and when you use instant Swap, graphics will change. The best solution ever! + lowering background fps.

P.S. Somebody got 980 TI? How it is for 4K multiboxing (5-7 boxes)?