Terrible Performance with new PC and Vista 64

[torytrae]

Hi everyone,

i am new to 5-Boxing and decided to do it on one System. I started out on a Dual Core AMD with 2 GB RAM and a 6800 Geforce. I had a main window with 1200 and 4 windows with 800 Resolution and it worked ok for the first 15 Levels of my toons. I decided to upgrade and got a new PC this weekend:

QuadCore Intel Q6600 with 8 GB RAM, SATA Raid, 8800 GTX 768 MB card and Vista Ultimate 64 Bit ... and it runs sooo slow i could cry. If i open just one WoW it is fine, but if i open all of them - fps on main window drops below 20 ... so its even more slow than the old system! Duh ... so what to do? Is it because of Vista?!

[Chorizotarian]

Try turning off v-sync in WoW and re-enabling it through the nVidia control panel. Here is a list of other tips I compiled for someone else with similar issues:
[MultiBox] Vista 64 issues with jerky gameplay ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&postID=46638&highlight=#post46638')

Good luck!

[Fear The Wrath]

i had the same problem.. i was doing better on my brothers dualcore 32bit XP 2gb ram than i was on my brand new quadcore 64bit vista 4gb ram.... but ill try this i ended up just switching back to 32bit xp things are working well. 32bit vista works well too i just like xp more:/

[Anozireth]

Have you set the processor affinity to use all 4 cores? If you don't, WoW will only use the first two, which would make it quite a bit slower than it could be.

[pinotnoir]

I have the same problem and I dont think I should. Its strange if I put two wows on my 3rd monitor it lags hard. Even running 3 wows on my vista64 it lags. My xp was much smoother. I have a Core 2 Duo 6600 ,4gig ram, and two video cards with vista 64. I just broke down and ordered 8gigs of ram, another video card, and a quad 6600 hoping it fixes the lag. Right now I hate doing 5 because its around 10fps. Not sure whats going on. I really hope the new hardware makes it smooth. I am leveling my 4 guys so I split the cores for the 4 wows. I also run two wows one on each of my hard drives.

[torytrae]

Thx for the answers :)
The processor affinity? Is it a WoW Setting somewhere or system setting? Usually games (like UT3 - which is running in 1900x1200 max details fast like lightning) use all 4 cores as i can see in the display of my G15 Keyboard.

Well the problem is the multi-windowing i guess. As soon as i run just one window, its relative fast with around 80 fps, for every window i open it drops about 20 fps on the main window - with 20 fps left if all 5 windows are open. Main window 1600x1200 and 4 x 800x600 minimum settings. On the 800ish windows i get 50 fps each so it mostly influences the main window ... btw no difference if i use one monitor or both - and on my old pc, it was running much smoother - so i guess its really a OS or driver-issue and for sure not a hardware issue.

I think i will skip Vista 64 for WoW (as long as its not even supported by Blizzard, duh) and will make a new partition and use a 32 Bit OS instead. Now i like Vista - should i stay safe and put XP there or try Vista 32 Bit?! I hate not to use 8 GB Ram and fall back to like 3-4 in 32 Bit .. .but for WoW i have no choise.

[drlittle]

I'm unable even to get it to start multi-boxing on vista perhaps its my incompetence of this sort of software but It won't do anything it's kind of frustrateing.... :(

[Hiarcs]

Right now i am currently running a 710 xps system from dell with a 256 vid card. it has 4 gigs of ram and vista 32 bit. I have a dual monitor setup where the main monitor is the 30 inch at 2500x1600 rez and the second is a 19 inch that can do 1900 rez. The most i can get at a decent fps is 3 boxing. Keeping in mind the main is not being played in window mode maximized but full mode. I can get in the 30 fps rage. anymore and it drops below 30 and i would just rather not play. When i play one acct i can get 50-60 fps no problem in full mode.

In another week i should be getting my new computer which will be a quad core 3.0 ghz with the new nano technology with 4 gigs of ram and vista 64 bit. After reading this thread i am starting to worry a little now rofl. But the computer is coming with 2 8800 GTX cards at 768 MB so i figure i will run 4 monitors. The main will be the 30 inch at 2500 rez. and the other 4 clone accts will be on either the 19 inch monitor all minimaximized. Or split them up where 2 will be on one and the other two will each have a monitor.. What i really want is to be able to play in maximized window mode and get around 50 fps so i can multitask really fast onto the other 3 monitors for accepting and turning in quests and looting or if gankage happens. So i will definately let u guys know how it goes with the new system and if vista 64 is the problem cause this new system is suppose to be way faster than the quad core i am running now. if it get worse then it has to be related to vista 64bit

[keyclone]

@drlittle

if you are using keyclone, please drop me a note and i'll see what i can do (sometimes talking helps... vent or pots line will work)
no worries.. we'll get you up and running asap

talk to you soon,

Rob

[Sam DeathWalker]

I gave up on Vista....

You will be gobsmacked when you find out what is loading and running on your system, even when NO applications are running.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

Ya ALL THAT listed is in memory, and some running.

[torytrae]

Hm ... as i said i am thinking about a dual-OS system with Vista64 and another 32Bit OS running on a seperate partition.

Now i favored XP because its stable and it works. But i just heard that XP is only supporting dual CPUs, so i would cut my Quadcore too ... is this true?

If so, i still think that maybe Vista32 is better for me. I suppose the lag-issues are related to 64 Bit driver issues. Anyone running on Vista32?

[Sarduci]

Thx for the answers :)
The processor affinity? Is it a WoW Setting somewhere or system setting? Usually games (like UT3 - which is running in 1900x1200 max details fast like lightning) use all 4 cores as i can see in the display of my G15 Keyboard.

Well the problem is the multi-windowing i guess. As soon as i run just one window, its relative fast with around 80 fps, for every window i open it drops about 20 fps on the main window - with 20 fps left if all 5 windows are open. Main window 1600x1200 and 4 x 800x600 minimum settings. On the 800ish windows i get 50 fps each so it mostly influences the main window ... btw no difference if i use one monitor or both - and on my old pc, it was running much smoother - so i guess its really a OS or driver-issue and for sure not a hardware issue.

I think i will skip Vista 64 for WoW (as long as its not even supported by Blizzard, duh) and will make a new partition and use a 32 Bit OS instead. Now i like Vista - should i stay safe and put XP there or try Vista 32 Bit?! I hate not to use 8 GB Ram and fall back to like 3-4 in 32 Bit .. .but for WoW i have no choise.I've 5-boxed in 32 bit Vista, was not happy with system performance in relation to other things outside of WoW, so I actually moved to 64 bit Vista and saw major improvements.

[Sarduci]

I gave up on Vista....

You will be gobsmacked when you find out what is loading and running on your system, even when NO applications are running.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

Ya ALL THAT listed is in memory, and some running.Yeah, but you should see all the junk that is running on most people's machines after they use them for awhile, it puts Windows to shame. Personally my home system running 5 copies of WoW + everything else only used 2.3 ~ 2.7GB of RAM out of 8GB on my system. That's 60% free for Firefox to waste 1.9GB of RAM all by itself after being left open all weekend. Everything is relative.

[Team Squishee]

I am getting my new PC delivered tomorrow - it comes with Vista and an optional XP downgrade.

I havent been overly impressed with Vista on my laptop so I am thinking of going with the XP option - apparently I can't run Vista on one HDD and XP on the other , but I will be able to 'reverse ' my downgrade and switch to Vista at a later date so XP for me - I know it works :)

[Gallo]

I use Vista 64. You definitely need to set the processor affinity so that different WoW's run on different cores of your processor. Also, I suggest running all of your WoWs from a single folder, rather than 5 separate WoW folders. Unless of course you have 5 hard drives.

[torytrae]

Where do i set the processor affinity?

Edit: Found it, will try that at home :) thx

[Kaynin]

6800 Geforce.

I think there is your problem really. >.>

Get 8k+ geforce, pref a GTS or better, made to function on directx 10. Since vista is a directx 10 platform.

[Kaynin]

I am getting my new PC delivered tomorrow - it comes with Vista and an optional XP downgrade.

I havent been overly impressed with Vista on my laptop so I am thinking of going with the XP option - apparently I can't run Vista on one HDD and XP on the other , but I will be able to 'reverse ' my downgrade and switch to Vista at a later date so XP for me - I know it works :)

Vista is awesome, you just need to make sure you have good compatible hardware. :p

[Chorizotarian]

6800 Geforce.

I think there is your problem really. >.>

Get 8k+ geforce, pref a GTS or better, made to function on directx 10. Since vista is a directx 10 platform.

Vista will just turn off the DX10 goodies in the shell, and WoW doesn't use DX10 anyway.

[Hiarcs]

I use Vista 64. You definitely need to set the processor affinity so that different WoW's run on different cores of your processor. Also, I suggest running all of your WoWs from a single folder, rather than 5 separate WoW folders. Unless of course you have 5 hard drives.

The next reply to this said he found it.. I should be recieving my new vista 64 machine today sometime and was curious how do you set wow to run on different cores? As for running wow from a single folder doesn't that prevent you from using the WTF properly in that 1 will load all your mods and stuff and the others won't? you would have to continually set up macros over and over. for somereason when i 3 box now using 1 folder it never saves my macros i have to keep redoing them. but all different folders i never get that issue of having to reset macros..

[Gallo]

I use Vista 64. You definitely need to set the processor affinity so that different WoW's run on different cores of your processor. Also, I suggest running all of your WoWs from a single folder, rather than 5 separate WoW folders. Unless of course you have 5 hard drives.

The next reply to this said he found it.. I should be recieving my new vista 64 machine today sometime and was curious how do you set wow to run on different cores? As for running wow from a single folder doesn't that prevent you from using the WTF properly in that 1 will load all your mods and stuff and the others won't? you would have to continually set up macros over and over. for somereason when i 3 box now using 1 folder it never saves my macros i have to keep redoing them. but all different folders i never get that issue of having to reset macros..I use Keyclone's settings to set it up on different cores, though there are ways to manually do it (I just haven't looked into it alot). Also, no it won't screw up your mods. Yes, theyre all stored in the same folder, but the preferences for the mods are held in each individual Account folder inside the WTF folder. Macros are the same way, you won't have to change them every time.

[Fear The Wrath]

I use Vista 64. You definitely need to set the processor affinity so that different WoW's run on different cores of your processor. Also, I suggest running all of your WoWs from a single folder, rather than 5 separate WoW folders. Unless of course you have 5 hard drives.

The next reply to this said he found it.. I should be recieving my new vista 64 machine today sometime and was curious how do you set wow to run on different cores? As for running wow from a single folder doesn't that prevent you from using the WTF properly in that 1 will load all your mods and stuff and the others won't? you would have to continually set up macros over and over. for somereason when i 3 box now using 1 folder it never saves my macros i have to keep redoing them. but all different folders i never get that issue of having to reset macros..I use Keyclone's settings to set it up on different cores, though there are ways to manually do it (I just haven't looked into it alot). Also, no it won't screw up your mods. Yes, theyre all stored in the same folder, but the preferences for the mods are held in each individual Account folder inside the WTF folder. Macros are the same way, you won't have to change them every time.as far as cores go.. i have a quad core and i 5box.. so should i put my main on one core and put each of the other four all on the remaining three cores? or should i put 3 accounts on there own core and just put two on one core?

example:
core1:main
core2:subaccount1, subaccount2, subaccount3, subaccount4
core3:subaccount1, subaccount2, subaccount3, subaccount4
core4:subaccount1, subaccount2, subaccount3, subaccount4

OR

core1:main
core2:subaccount1
core3:subaccount2
core4:subaccount3 & subaccount4

[torytrae]

Ok, setting it up in Vista didnt work :( i will try it with keyclone, hope it will work better.

Yesterday i got Vista32 and installed on a new partition and ... the same slow speed, was shocked as i thought it was related to 64 bit ... i think i have to go through all the drivers and setting this weekend to find the bottleneck.

Right now i am playing window mode with the 4 toon-windows minimized, works ok so far.

[DrGamut]

I just wanted to post here for anyone feeling discouraged reading this thread with similar hardware or looking to get similar hardware.

I have /exactly/ the same setup as the original poster and it's working beautifully for me.

ASUS P5B Deluxe
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.4 GHz
4x2GB G.Skill DDR2 800 (8GB memory)
2xSeagate SATA 250GB Harddrives in RAID 0
NVIDIA GeForce 8800GTX 768MB
Vista Ultimate 64 Bit

I run my main instance of WoW on maximum settings @ 1280x1024 and the other four instances at default settings windowed into quadrants of a 1280x1024 display. Maxbkgfps set to 15 and maxfps set to 45, my main window never drops below 45 (which is a very seamless frame rate). None of my hardware is overclocked, none of my software is tweaked, I'm sure I could change things around for even better performance if I needed to.

I set the processor affinity in keyclone and symlinked my WoW directory (excluding the WTF folder and the Wow executable) using Vista's mklink.

[Chorizotarian]

FYI, you can also symlink WoW.exe and the other binaries.

[Ozbert]

Now i favored XP because its stable and it works. But i just heard that XP is only supporting dual CPUs, so i would cut my Quadcore too ... is this true?


XP Pro supports a maximum of two physical CPU's, or sockets if you will, regardless of the number of cores.

You could run XP Pro on a pair of Quad core CPU's and it would support all eight cores.

[torytrae]

Thx for the info Ozbert and DrGamut.

Well, embarrassing, but i guess i found the problem: As the pc is brand new i simply "forgot" to install any specific mainboard drivers yet, so its running with the default windows stuff - most likey this is the problem. I will update this evening when i am at home and hope it will work.

[Gallo]

Thx for the info Ozbert and DrGamut.

Well, embarrassing, but i guess i found the problem: As the pc is brand new i simply "forgot" to install any specific mainboard drivers yet, so its running with the default windows stuff - most likey this is the problem. I will update this evening when i am at home and hope it will work.Thats ok, When I built my last rig, I "forgot" to put the Motherboard spacers onto the case, and my motherboard was touching the case and shorting out, thus not starting up at all. Took me days to figure it out... good thing I didn't fry it.

[DrGamut]

Thx for the info Ozbert and DrGamut.

Well, embarrassing, but i guess i found the problem: As the pc is brand new i simply "forgot" to install any specific mainboard drivers yet, so its running with the default windows stuff - most likey this is the problem. I will update this evening when i am at home and hope it will work.Thats ok, When I built my last rig, I "forgot" to put the Motherboard spacers onto the case, and my motherboard was touching the case and shorting out, thus not starting up at all. Took me days to figure it out... good thing I didn't fry it.You're very lucky, you won't do that again.

[Gallo]

I am lucky. Problem was, that my last comp that I built, the motherboard stands were built in to the case, so I didnt actually have to "install" them. This time they were in a little bag and I said to myself "What the hell are these?". Never again.